Review: M3gan

I honestly had my doubts going into this new release as the trailer's weren't doing it for me. But the buzz I was hearing was surprisingly solid. So I thought I would give it a chance. 

I think the only thing I was clinging on to was that James Wan and Akela Cooper are the writers. Wan has created a lot of the most successful mainstream horror's of the past decade and Cooper did the screenplay for Malignant, which is a real hidden gem of a horror film that I urge you check out without knowing anything beforehand.

The history of creepy dolls in films stretches back to almost 100 years, and yet we still get attracted to it. As a kid, the first creepy doll I can recall was Slappy from the 'Goosebumps' books and TV series. Recent successes would be Annabelle from the Conjuring franchise and the Jigsaw doll from the Saw film series. Other memorable creepy film dolls would be the clown doll from 'Poltergeist', Chucky from 'Child's Play' and a classic example is Michael Redgrave's ventriloquist dummy from 1945's 'Dead Of Night'.

This one certainly has potential to be as successful. I like the build-up and foundations that are created. You can tell that is care given to the themes of the story and development of its characters and the creation of our titular character felt justified.

It builds up nicely with a lot of expected sequences to enhance the thrills and tension. But I like how it remained head strong in posing interesting questions about ourselves as well as its characters.

The final act does forget to close a few sub-plots. But it gives a nicely executed action sequence that should leave plenty of people satisfied.

The cast is pretty solid on the whole. Allison Williams carries the film well and the support by child actor Violet McGraw gives a duo that we can easily invest with. Everything they did felt believable and fitted the tone perfectly.

I liked the combined acting effort of Amie Donald and Jenna Davis for the titular character. Davis creates an effective attitude in the voice, while Donald's physical contribution was creepy and nicely varied.

While I did like Ronny Chieng in this stereotypical larger than life business owner who just wants money. Sadly I felt his character wasn't fully utilised. I was enjoying the energy Chieng was giving to his character. But it just left me wanting more. He could have stolen the show. Instead, we get what I felt was a missed opportunity.

I liked how it explores topics such as how much we rely on technology mixed in with the struggles of parenting and grief. So whilst it is being marketed as a horror film, it has elements of satire and a bit of unexpected comedy.

With that being said, it made me compare this to Gremlins. The film judges a lot of characters, there is a surprising amount of heart to it and the action is chaotic at times. M3gan may not be on the level of how the beloved 80's classic executed those aspects. But it remains a solid watch that I'm glad I went to see.

There is a fun vibe to it, it tries to do more than create cheap scares which I appreciated, the action works well and the pacing flows smoothly. There were moments in the third act where it lost a bit of steam for me and looked as if they had lost interest in parts of the plot.

But it did better then I expected and I can see getting a decent amount of love from general audiences.

Rating: 7/10