Just the Ticket #122: M3GAN
Article by Sean Wilkinson,
a.k.a. The Ticketmaster
If AI-generated art and music have taught us anything, it's that computers are terrifying when they try to be human. And if movies have taught us anything in recent weeks, it's that replacing letters and words with numbers can be a cringeworthy practice.
Put them together, and what do you get? M3GAN!
When Cady's (Violet McGraw, Black Widow) parents die in a tragicomic collision with a plow truck, her aunt, Gemma (Allison Williams, Get Out) takes her in. Unfortunately for Cady and the plot, Gemma is an antisocial tech geek who designs farting, pooping smart toy Furby knockoffs with the soulless eyes of Teddy Ruxpin and the finger-amputating teeth of a Baskerville murder weapon. You know? For kids!? In what spare time her money-obsessed employer (Ronny Chieng, Shang-Chi & the Legend Of the Ten Rings) allows her, and on company time because obsessive tech geek, Gemma is building a prototype smart doll (the titular Model 3 Generative ANdroid, because in science-fiction, acronyms need multiple ways to not make sense--not only is the three a problem, so is using two letters for one word of your acronym, and as M3GAN is a female model, her name should be MEGGyn, or Modeled Experience-Generative Gynoid, but marketing is marketed to the dumb, so M3GAN it is...), and uses Cady to help her test it.
As usually happens in these Asimov nightmares (ah! A new use for the acronym presents itself! Model 3 Generative Asimov Nightmare! Perfect!), even machines that are programmed to program themselves are only as smart as their programmer's instructions allow, and not only does Cady develop an unhealthy attachment to M3GAN (voiced by Jenna Davis and portrayed by dancer Amie Donald and Morot FX Studio's animatronic puppets), M3GAN begins taking her role of physical, emotional, and mental protector to a hyper-literal, by-any-means-necessary level of scary that draws the suspicion of Gemma and her colleagues at Funki Toys when canines, Karens, and creeps alike start disappearing around the neighborhood.
This may be a premise we've seen before in numerous killer toy and creepy child movies, but M3GAN's presentation of it is unique. Yes, Funki Toys has a real Play Pals-meets-Mayor Hamilton vibe to it, and the way the movie sets up M3GAN's kill list has a distinctly Critters methodology (all assholes must die). But the mock commercial at the beginning for the aforementioned PurrPetual Pets, and the way the title screws with you by making you think the movie is buffering, the subtle introductions of important third act elements, the "human" moments between M3GAN and Cady, and giving the set design of Funki that freeform, Facebook headquarters look with an illusion of outdoorsy freedom built in...? Few things in horror can successfully make me laugh or cry and subconsciously terrify me all at once, and M3GAN does it consistently and perfectly.
I guess I was expecting a cliffhanger ending that was more obvious (or played on subtlety by there not being a cliffhanger at all), but even the breadcrumbs for that were laid out early and sparingly enough that only a second watch or a moment of retrospection could reveal their importance to what little of a final surprise we do get.
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Ticketmaster,
Out!
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