The fear of technology gone wild along with absent parenting comes to the fore in this blend of comedy and horror.
M3GAN comes from the makers of Malignant including producer James Wan using the demonic doll template to its advantage with absurd, satirical strokes.
Director Gerard Johnstone and the sound designer help to provide a giddiness tat lets the effects team with a four-foot silicone artificial doll have their absurdly, even chilling way. As one is reminded of Child’s Play and its many follow-ups.
Using the toy industry, there’s elements of Robocop and Ex Machina to name a couple of sci-fi progenitors as the titular Model 3 Generative Android becomes a bestie with newly orphaned (Violet McGraw). Get Out actress Alison Williams is her roboticist aunt who gets Cady in this unapologetically campy scenario that plays well with pop music inserts by artists like Sia and songs like Toy Soldiers.
Even if the mayhem and bromides diet the early cunning urgency by scenarist Akela Cooper it’s easy to see a guilty pleasure at hand. As one is drawn into the surreal tweaking of unreal and real with motion capturing by Amie Donald and Jenna Davis’ voicing.