M3GAN

Chucky wouldn’t stand a chance against this girl. The little Terminatorette could shut him down with just a stare. But she’s more powerful than scary. And though M3GAN is classified as a horror movie, it’s not frightening. Nor does it build suspense or offer up a single scare. In terms of the dialogue and logic, however, it’s not ridiculous. And it’s technically well made. M3GAN is actually pretty, something like a criminally insane Barbie made by Tesla. Fans of robots will be pleased. (03.04.2023)

A harmless, well-made popcorn horror flick for young cinema-goers, enjoyable and designed to be a success. I had fun too, but higher ratings should go to films that try to do something; something slightly bolder, more daring, more surprising or less comfortable for the audience. I was kind of expecting at least a more exciting ending – the film raises the expectation for a bigger, off the rails carnage considering what the plot is leading to. But in the end it was nothing; I felt betrayed. (12.01.2023)

This year's first mainstream horror genre film is just your average high tech affair. Although M3gan has received good reviews overseas (Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB are both overwhelmingly praiseworthy), die-hard horror fans are certainly not overflowing with enthusiasm. M3gan is a modern variation on Chucky for Gen Z, so to speak, highlighting the dangers of modern technology and how treacherous it can be. Unfortunately the film is hurt by the PG-13 rating and it's all too family friendly and safe. It rambles on for over an hour and getting to know the characters isn't much fun, in short it's more of a drama about a little girl's relationship with a doll that classically starts to turn into a killer monster. It's a shame the premise didn't live up to its potential, it aimed for big things, butthe few murders probably wouldn't have been much even with an R-rating (we might have got 2-3 small gore scenes), which, compared to the new Evil Dead  is a mockery. The atmosphere doesn't work very well and the scares aren't there either, so it plays more on a disturbing note, but I wasn't too impressed with that either. Some even claim it's a comedy, but you must have a very obscure sense of humour. The finale at least saved it from being average for me. The battle in the house is very well filmed. M3GAN is properly creepy there for the first time in the film (her moves are admittedly copied from demons in traditional exorcism genre movies, but it looks even cooler in a robotic way) and her final appearance is also decent, It’s not worth going to the cinema, it's watchable, but the movie would be more fitting on VOD. 55% (14.01.2023)

Chucky’s colleague, who doesn’t believe in silicon heaven, pisses all over the three laws of robotics and, in the long run, causes deprivation for her child owners— it couldn’t have ended any other way. All that was missing from the showdown in the home workshop was an industrial press and the line: "You're terminated, fucker!" The targeting of commercial success definitely splashes more than blood, and the shift to black comedy is much more effective than superficial commentary on the dangers of artificial intelligence. In the end, the scariest moment is the look on engineer Gemma’s face as she unwraps the toy for her niece, displayed on the shelf. Collectors and Rick Harrison know… (20.02.2023)

Horror for the TikTok generation. It mostly blew me away at the end because it's basically a rip-off of Aliens, where instead of a space monster there's a futuristic doll, the adult heroine learns to be a mother, and the little girl is the ultimate badass. It’s also a critique of the marketing frenzy that drives technology against humanity using emotional coercion. I had fun, but I find it ironic that it's the kind of consumerist and faddish product taking advantage of modern trends that it actually warns against (13.01.2023)

This mundane copy of the recent remake of Child’s Play is unimaginative, lacks suspense and isn’t scary. I was startled once when a dog barked at an unexpected moment. The actors are fine and there are some OK emotional moments here and there, but M3GAN is otherwise a rather silly horror B-movie on the now classic theme of spreading irrational fear of modern technologies among people who have no idea how artificial intelligence actually works. I don’t understand the enthusiastic response abroad. (12.01.2023)

That was something. I was going to say it was like Ex Machina from Wish, but M3GAN didn't even reach that level. Another extreme second-rate nonsense that tries to be awfully cool and ostensibly combines hi-tech doll "horror" with a subtext of world domination by artificial intelligence, only that it's trash as shit and there is literally nothing in the movie worth praising. The acting is wretched, the writing is poor, the gore is 0, the first action sequence or hint of suspense comes after an hour (no, I'm not kidding) and it's horribly sterile and formulaically boring. I wasn't expecting anything great, I wasn't expecting an intellectual film, but even a C-movie like Margaux was better than this. In this case, even 90 minutes was too much for me and I was literally shaking with impatience for the film to finally end. TRAGIC. (02.01.2023)

M3GAN was pretty underwhelming. It didn’t bring anything new to the table, especially if you’ve already seen Chucky, Terminator, or RoboCop. Calling it a horror movie feels like a stretch, though I’ll admit, if I stumbled upon those two girls unexpectedly, I’d probably jump. The android is actually less creepy than her human counterpart, Cady. Violet McGraw has a face with serious horror potential — maybe one day she’ll land a role that fully taps into that and turns her into the stuff of nightmares. I couldn’t really wrap my head around Gerard Johnstone’s choice to make M3GAN do those odd, “cool” moves — twice. In the end, the movie was neither scary, original, nor particularly fun... It was just kind of "meh." / Lesson learned: Terminator may be an ’84 classic, but it’s clear people still haven’t grasped its core message. (22.08.2024)