Universal Pictures | Release Date: January 6, 2023 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
45
Mixed:
9
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews
Cautionary tales about the dangers of life in the Internet age can often feel heavy-handed and trite, but M3GAN never feels like an extended Black Mirror episode. Its accessible themes don’t come off as oversaturated, thanks to the wit of the screenplay and a great performance from Williams.
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ColliderJan 4, 2023
M3GAN might just become the Malignant of 2023. It doesn’t have a twist, but it is a weird, bonkers movie. Director Gerard Johnstone knocked it out of the park with his second film. It’s not traditionally scary, but it is existentially scary. As the world makes greater strides in AI and robotics, these kinds of scenarios become more terrifyingly possible. Luckily, you have the strange image of M3GAN twerking or driving an expensive sports car to make you giggle past the discomfort.
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Director Gerard Johnstone demonstrates a visual awareness of genre convention that he then uses to both sendup and skewer common tropes just as M3gan gets to hacking herself. When paired with Cooper’s unparalleled command of the comedic beats, it becomes one of those films that deserves the hype and then some.
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From a horror standpoint, M3GAN could be scarier, but it's difficult enough for a film to balance suspense, a nuanced look at grief, and intelligently meta jokes, and M3GAN does all that surprisingly well. The long and the short of it is that, while M3GAN could perhaps be scarier and it doesn't feel entirely conceptually novel, it's a genuinely great addition to the horror-comedy canon.
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The TelegraphJan 10, 2023
Marketed cannily towards Gen Z – for her meme value is beyond compare – M3GAN is essentially the anti-heroine of a catnip horror film which tips far more towards the “campy fun” end of the spectrum than the raw terror end. No one will be quailing under their seats during her campaign of slaughter, but that was never the point.
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The Film StageJan 10, 2023
If obviously silly, it represents an obsession with cutting-edge tech, the shininess of something new, and making our lives easier, lazier, and less connected. Although this commentary is blatant, the film—with all its insanity—remains highly enjoyable: real good, real fun, real simple cinema.
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For all its cleverness and pop-culture savvy and meta references, M3GAN also indulges in tropes we’ve seen in a hundred slasher movies, but the dark laughs keep coming, and of course we get an ending that leaves the door open for a potential franchise. She’s the living doll of your nightmares, and you can’t just power her down, kiddo.
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Director Gerard Johnstone builds up nicely toward those moments, smartly taking its time before the casualties and coincidences start piling up. The film is also a savvy rumination on the perils of letting technology serve as the ultimate babysitter, with Cady becoming a bit of a little monster herself when deprived of M3GAN’s company.
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Produced by horror masters Jason Blum and James Wan ("The Conjuring"), M3GAN satisfies with slasher gusto, “Black Mirror”-esque satire and social media savvy. It’s also just plain fun to watch a film that packs a healthy amount of absurdity alongside an insightful exploration of 21st-century parenting, though you might never trust Alexa ever again afterward.
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M3gan is wittily written and smoothly plotted by Akela Cooper, from a story by her and James Wan, as well as tautly directed by Gerard Johnstone, who hearkens all the way back to Mary Shelley’s warning. Like Dr. Frankenstein, we’ve created a monster, but there’s no way to kill off tech.
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The director Gerard Johnstone doesn’t go for elaborate suspense sequences or truly intense scares. He wants to please, not rattle. And while there are some hints at social commentary on how modern mothers and fathers use technology to outsource parenting, this movie is smart enough to never take itself too seriously.
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It’s funny in ways anticipated and not, and there is enough suspense—or something like suspense—to balance out the coy winks to the audience. The irony isn’t overweening, the doll is equal parts creepy and yassified, and the human lead, Allison Williams, anchors things with an admirable commitment to the bit.
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Johnstone knows his way around dark comedy, and camouflages much of the film's humour in whimsical, sometimes uneasy, encounters between M3GAN and Cady. But in directing the film's most comedic characters — an overtly judgmental childcare worker, a nosy neighbour (Lori Dungey) with an unruly dog, and a schoolyard bully—he sets a tone that feels incompatible with the rest of the characters.
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