At The Movies: Meet M3GAN, a child’s best friend and a grown-up’s worst fear

M3GAN (PG13)

102 minutes, opens on Thursday

4 stars

The story: Gemma (Allison Williams), a roboticist with a toy company, becomes the unwilling guardian of her niece Cady (Violet McGraw), who has become withdrawn after the sudden death of her parents. To help Cady feel less lonely, the busy engineer brings home M3GAN, a prototype toy from work. Her harsh boss David (Ronny Chieng) is unaware of the loan. The girl and the doll with artificial intelligence form a relationship that will have terrifying consequences.

There are science-fiction horror and thriller films that make you think, such as those from the pen of Alex Garland (Annihilation, 2018, and Ex Machina, 2014).

M3GAN is not one of them. This story about a creepy doll with a silicon brain does not ask deep questions about, say, the metaphysics of android souls or if computers can dream.

Rather, it aims to scare – and on that score, the film is a well-oiled machine. It is packed with dumb tropes, but there is a breeziness and sense of fun that keeps it going until the final boss battle.

There is a pedigree to all this. Screenwriter Akela Cooper co-wrote the weird and wonderful body-horror flick Malignant (2021), while producers Jason Blum and James Wan have together and separately become a force in the mid- to low-budget horror and thriller genres. They are behind everything from Insidious (2010, directed by Wan) to The Black Phone (2021, produced by Blum).

New Zealand director Gerard Johnstone (the cult horror-comedy favourite Housebound, 2014) brings out the screenplay’s playfulness – a necessary step as the idea of killer dolls, whether they be deadly through supernatural or scientific means, is hardly new.

There are no self-aware jokes or winking at the audience, though.

The humour is sly, seen in Malaysian comedian Chieng’s slightly over-the-top performance as evil boss David, or the toy robotics lab in which M3GAN is stored, not lying down but upright and festooned with cables on a raised stand in the middle of the room like a Frankenstein monster or Maria, the robot in the classic science-fiction film Metropolis (1927).

Some viewers might wish for the mayhem to kick off in the first scene but, to its credit, the story takes its time setting the stage. When the doll goes rogue, as everyone knows it will, its fury is more than earned.

Hot take: This plaything is not to be trifled with. M3GAN may be the hottest toy this holiday season, but be careful what you wish for.