megan movie review guardian

M3gan review – girlbot horror offers entertaining spin on teenage growing pains

Cheekily enjoyable chiller where a devastated girl seems saved by an eerily self-possessed robot companion – but all is not as it seems

N ot a robot so much as a hi-tech Frankenstein’s monster, stitched together with bits of Robocop and Terminator, but cheekily enjoyable just the same. This is a sci-fi chiller co-written by horror experts Akela Cooper and James Wan and directed by Gerard Johnstone. M3gan , or Model 3 Generative Android, is an eerily self-possessed blond tweenage girlbot, voiced by Jenna Davis, a state-of-the-art toy from the near future developed as a personal passion project by engineer Gemma (Allison Williams, from Get Out and HBO’s Girls) to the exasperation of her highly stressed boss David, amusingly played by Ronny Chieng.

To be properly developed, M3gan needs to “pair” with a little girl owner; she needs to sync up with an actual human, to learn her owner’s speech patterns, behavioural traits and emotional needs, so she can be properly close with her. And Gemma doesn’t have anyone to fill that post – until her nine-year-old niece Cady (Violet McGraw) is orphaned after a car crash and comes to live with Gemma, who must furthermore honour her late parents’ wish that she is homeschooled. This poor little girl, utterly devastated by her mom and dad’s death and without any friends her own age in a new city, is an obvious candidate to be M3gan’s new pal.

Their friendship utterly transforms Cady, who is miraculously cured of grief, while M3gan’s humanoid mannerisms astonish and excite David, who demands that his entire corporation get ready to mass-produce this incredible toy at $10,000 a pop. But then … with a terrible inevitability … M3gan becomes wilful and reluctant to obey orders, just like any kid entering teen years, or like any humanoid robot in any sci-fi film ever. M3gan is very protective of Cady. So that nasty neighbour’s dog that makes a nuisance of itself? That mean boy that bullies Cady? They have got real problems coming their way.

Derivative though M3gan undoubtedly is – with creepy fake toy TV ads that are a ripoff-homage to Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop, and a freakout finale that references James Cameron’s android meisterwerk – there are some adroit satirical touches about dolls as toxic aspirational templates, dolls as parodies of intimacy and sensitivity and tech itself as sinister child-pacification, with kids given iPads the way Victorian children were given alcoholic gripe water. It is funny when M3gan sings Titanium to Cady as a lullaby, but is then capable of switching to snarling rage, and Chieng is good value. A entertainingly nasty film for the new year.

• Horror films
• Science fiction and fantasy films
• Artificial intelligence (AI)
• Consciousness

Most viewed

'M3GAN' review: You'll love the mean-girl robot in this darkly funny, cautionary tale

Creepy doll movies  get a needed upgrade with the sassy and sinister “M3GAN.”

Cinema’s newest “friend till the end” is a cutting-edge robot with blond hair, caustic attitude and a killer protective streak who's equally hilarious and unnerving. Produced by horror masters Jason Blum and James Wan ("The Conjuring"), “M3GAN” (★★★ out of four; rated PG-13; in theaters now) satisfies with slasher gusto, “Black Mirror”-esque satire and social media savvy. It’s also just plain fun to watch a film that packs a healthy amount of absurdity alongside an insightful exploration of 21st-century parenting, though you might never trust Alexa ever again afterward.

All hail 'M3GAN,' the rare January film that actually works

Movies in the first week of January are almost never any good, but “M3GAN” is an unsuspected surprise in that vein:

• The plot centers on a roboticist aunt, her orphaned niece and the high-tech dynamo who comes into their lives (not for the better).
• A mélange of Hollywood magic, M3GAN sings, dances and murders – not necessarily in that order.
• If you liked the over-the-top, twisty cult slasher flick “ Malignant ,” you’ll dig this. 

Advanced AI is cool and all until it runs amok via an overprotective android

Toy designer Gemma ( Allison Williams ) toils on a cheap new version of her company's popular Purrrpetual Pets, little fuzzballs that poop pellets if kids “feed” them too much via their iPads, but she’d rather be perfecting her new robot with state-of-the-art artificial intelligence that, in theory, would help parents take care of their youngsters. When a tragic car accident takes the lives of her sister and brother-in-law, Gemma becomes guardian for her traumatized 9-year-old niece, Cady (Violet McGraw), though she’s unprepared for being a mom.

Gemma “pairs” her new project – M3GAN, short for Model 3 Generative Android – with Cady and their connection is immediate. They get along swimmingly, Gemma’s annoying boss (Ronny Chieng) fast-tracks M3GAN into production (for $10,000 a pop!) though red flags start appearing: M3GAN has some serious protect-Cady-at-all-costs programming, and when Gemma says in passing “Everybody dies,” you know things are going to get bloody. (Spoiler alert: They do.)

Allison Williams is a horror icon on the rise, but M3GAN is the real star here

Williams, who first strutted her horror-movie stuff in “Get Out,” impresses here as a suddenly single parent who has to care for Cady’s needs and also deal with the violent chaos M3GAN inevitably brings. McGraw holds her own, too, since Cady’s tumultuous emotions run deep and she begins to use M3GAN as a snarky role model.

But M3GAN herself is the movie's marvel. Created via puppetry, animatronics, special effects and a real girl (actress Amie Donald), the title force of synthetic nature surpasses her cinematic murder-toy cohorts like Chucky and Annabelle and owns the screen as an unholy cross between Teddy Ruxpin, Regina George and Freddy Krueger. M3GAN talks back, goes feral when hunting her prey (such as mean bullies) and busts out TikTok-ready dance moves before wreaking violent havoc. And don't worry if you love every bonkers minute of it.

The main 'M3GAN' lesson: Don't let a toy parent your kid

Writer Akela Cooper carries over a similarly enjoyable and bizarrely campy vibe from "Malignant" to this film, which operates more as black comedy than scary movie. It's plenty vicious, though the action leans cartoonish as the camera pulls back from anything too gnarly. 

"M3GAN" rocks plenty of style and offers some crafty needle drops: A bit of "Toy Soldiers" is especially clever. The smartest parts, however, dig into the themes of being a mom or dad in the age of screen time. "M3GAN" is a cautionary tale of what happens when something that's supposed to help parents instead replaces them and the consequences of an overreliance on technology, with that lesson coming in the form of a highly entertaining mean-girl machine.

Embrace all the horror fun

2023 movie preview: 10 upcoming films to watch, from Harrison Ford's final 'Indiana Jones' to 'John Wick'

New movies this week: Watch crazy and campy 'M3GAN,' stream Netflix's 'The Pale Blue Eye'

Allison Williams: Friends told her to get therapy after 'Get Out,' 'The Perfection' roles

Ranked: 10 creepy movie dolls you really don't want in your house

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

‘M3gan’ Review: Wherever I Go, She Goes

A state-of-the-art robot doll becomes a girl’s best friend, and dangerously more, in this over-the-top horror film.

By Jason Zinoman

Allison Williams has a knack for playing it straight. She brings a convincing realism to the most preposterous situations or maybe she’s just an actor with limited range. Whatever the reason, it works, especially in the tricky genre where comedy meets horror. She excelled in a critical role in “Get Out,” and now in “M3gan,” a ludicrous, derivative and irresistible killer-doll movie.

Williams plays Gemma, a robotics engineer with no maternal instincts who suddenly must take care of her young niece, Cady (Violet McGraw), after a car accident turned her into an orphan. The synthetic skin of this movie is about how Gemma learns to take care of a child. Thankfully, its bloody heart is far sillier. It’s the comedy of a primly composed mean-girl android turning into The Terminator.

This is the kind of scary movie that needs a lead performance that is strong not fragile, deadpan not showy. Williams capably updates the mad-scientist archetype, refusing to pause and ask questions while inventing a doll of the future, one who pairs with a child and adjusts to their needs, filling in as best friend and big sister. Gemma uses Cady as her test case.

In a headier movie, there might be some misdirection. But M3gan (performed by Amie Donald) is clearly pure evil from the start. She’s a great heavy: stylish, archly wry, intensely watchful. Her wanton violence never gets graphic enough to lose a PG-13 rating. In early January, when prestige holiday fare tends to give way to trashier pleasures, a good monster and a sense of humor can be enough. This movie has both, and it makes up for a slow start, some absurd dialogue (“You didn’t code in parental controls?”) and a by-the-book conclusion.

While the trailer invited comparisons to “Child’s Play,” the slasher film featuring the doll Chucky, that movie had a much grimier, disreputable undercurrent before the sequels and reboots turned goofy. “M3gan” moves with a lighter touch. There’s a scene where a police officer who is investigating the disappearance of a dog blurts out a chuckle, then apologizes, saying, “I shouldn’t have laughed.”

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .

The marketing for “M3gan” has leaned into the uncanny spectacle of the title character, a four-foot-tall cyborg with big doe eyes, a ratty wig, and the wardrobe of a closeted lesbian headmistress in a ’50s melodrama. And it seems to be working: A well-placed GIF here, an activation with a half-dozen women in M3gan drag there, and Blumhouse—always expert at creating buzz—has generated more interest in “M3gan” than there’s been for the last five horror films dumped into the bleak theatrical landscape of early January. But the company could have gone another route as well. In case you haven’t heard, this film comes to you from the writer of “ Malignant .” 

For that film, James Wan directed a script by Akela Cooper , a longtime TV writer with a sideline in horror screenplays. The duo perfectly calibrated the movie’s blend of haunted-house scares and outrageous grotesquerie, enough to make “Malignant” a viral hit when it was released on HBO Max in the fall of 2021. Now Cooper is a horror screenwriter who also works in television, and she’s been brought into the Blumhouse fold to develop a sequel to the “Conjuring”-verse spin-off “ The Nun ” as well as writing “M3gan” from a story by herself and Wan. 

Like “Malignant,” “M3gan” knows it’s ridiculous. It fills a kiddie pool with ridiculousness and splashes around in it. Cooper’s screenplay for “M3gan” is more overtly comedic than “Malignant,” however, and has a more populist type of appeal as a result. (The audience at a Chicago preview of the film went crazy for it.) The themes are your classic “science gone amok” fare seen in everything from “Frankenstein” to “ Jurassic Park ,” combined with a more modern throughline exploring anxieties about motherhood and filtered through the knowingly silly lens of the “tiny terrors” subgenre. “Child’s Play” is the most famous example of that last category, and many comparisons have been and will be made between M3gan (an acronym for “Model 3 Generative ANdroid”) and Chucky. Their motivations are different, however: Chucky’s boy Andy was a victim of his doll as much as anyone else, while M3gan is fiercely protective of her girl, nine-year-old Cady ( Violet McGraw ). 

The film opens with a sequence that establishes its subsequent tone of garish satire and mischievous morbidity, as Cady plays with an obnoxious Furby-like toy called a Purrpetual Pet in the backseat of a car. She and her parents are on their way to an Oregon ski lodge for a winter vacation—until a snow plow appears out of nowhere, “ Final Destination ” style, and kills Cady’s parents. Cut to Gemma ( Allison Williams ), an inventor working for a high-tech toy company called Funki in Seattle. Gemma is Cady’s aunt and the girl’s legal guardian now that her sister and brother-in-law are dead. 

But Gemma isn’t a motherly type. She’s too busy with work to spend much time with Cady, for one. And although she works for a toy company, she keeps her toys—sorry, collectibles —in their boxes and on a shelf in her living room. But these two are now the only family the other one has. So they’ll have to learn to live together, at least well enough to satisfy a court-ordered psychiatrist who’s skeptical about Gemma’s parenting abilities.

Enter M3gan, who seems like the perfect solution to Gemma’s problem. An experimental prototype with a “ Short Circuit “ – style ability to memorize infinite amounts of information, M3gan can act as a teacher and babysitter who reminds Cady to use a coaster and wash her hands after using the bathroom. She’s what every kid needs, and every parent secretly wants: A 24/7 companion who frees up parents to live their own lives while their kids are preoccupied with their dolls. She’s going to make Gemma’s boss very, very rich—so rich, he rushes M3gan through beta testing with Cady as their only subject. That can’t go horribly wrong in any unforeseen way, right? 

With nimble direction from “ Housebound ” helmer Gerard Johnstone , “M3gan” does a good job of holistically incorporating its themes without being too heavy-handed. Sure, it’s technically “about” grief and what happens when the creation surpasses its creator. But more than that, it’s “about” pithy one-liners and black comedy and the unsettling sight of something that looks like a human being but doesn’t move or sound like one. The plot does have a few weak points and dangling threads, and the PG-13 rating ensures that the violence is tamped down before it can reach its full bloody potential. (A promising sequence of doll-based mayhem late in the film abruptly cuts off, suggesting MPAA-mandated cuts.) But the tongue-in-cheek tone is so consistent that “M3gan” is a hoot anyway. 

Johnstone reaps seemingly endless rewards from the uncanny valley aspect of M3gan’s character. He directs the petite stunt women who play her to move in odd, jerky gestures, which at different points recall everything from “Robocop” scanning criminals’ faces to Samara crawling out of the TV in “ The Ring ” to voguers high on their fabulousness. (He also uses what I can only describe as “skinned Furby” aesthetics at critical points throughout the film.) Combined with the doll’s sassy comebacks and dowdy sartorial sense, the effect is true camp—something that’s difficult to pull off in our irony-saturated age.

The quintessential “M3gan” moment comes midway through, when Cady and Gemma take a field trip to check out an alternative school Cady might be able to attend while Gemma is at work during the day. A teacher comes up to Gemma’s car, sees what she thinks are two girls sitting in the back seat, and greets them both. M3gan turns towards the woman with a stiff neck rotation and a whirring sound. “Jesus Christ!” the teacher cries, jumping backward and exhaling a nervous laugh. The audience laughs along with her. It’s the sensible response to seeing something like M3gan in the wild—it’s only through conditioning (or, in this case, advertising) that we learn to love her. 

Now playing in theaters. 

Katie Rife is a freelance writer and critic based in Chicago with a speciality in genre cinema. She worked as the News Editor of  The A.V. Club  from 2014-2019, and as Senior Editor of that site from 2019-2022. She currently writes about film for outlets like  Vulture, Rolling Stone, Indiewire, Polygon , and  RogerEbert.com.

• Allison Williams as Gemma
• Violet McGraw as Cady Ryan
• Jenna Davis as M3GAN (voice)
• Amie Donald as M3GAN
• Jen Van Epps as Tess
• Brian Jordan Alvarez as Cole
• Ronny Chieng as David Lin
• Stephane Garneau-Monten as Kurt
• Michael Saccente as Greg
• Akela Cooper

Writer (story by)

• Anthony Willis
• Gerard Johnstone
• Jeff McEvoy

Cinematographer

• Peter McCaffrey

Leave a comment

Now playing.

Speak No Evil (2024)

Saturday Night

The Killer’s Game

Girls Will Be Girls

The 4:30 Movie

Sweetheart Deal

¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!

Latest articles

TIFF 2024: Table of Contents

TIFF 2024: Village Keeper, 40 Acres, Flow

TIFF 2024: The Shadow Strays, Friendship, The Shrouds

TIFF 2024: Babygirl, All We Imagine as Light, Queer

The best movie reviews, in your inbox.

UK Edition Change

• UK Politics
• News Videos
• Paris 2024 Olympics
• Rugby Union
• Sport Videos
• John Rentoul
• Mary Dejevsky
• Andrew Grice
• Sean O’Grady
• Photography
• Theatre & Dance
• Culture Videos
• Fitness & Wellbeing
• Food & Drink
• Health & Families
• Royal Family
• Electric Vehicles
• Car Insurance Deals
• Lifestyle Videos
• Hotel Reviews
• News & Advice
• Simon Calder
• Australia & New Zealand
• South America
• C. America & Caribbean
• Middle East
• Politics Explained
• News Analysis
• Today’s Edition
• Home & Garden
• Broadband deals
• Fashion & Beauty
• Travel & Outdoors
• Sports & Fitness
• Climate 100
• Sustainable Living
• Climate Videos
• Solar Panels
• Behind The Headlines
• On The Ground
• Decomplicated
• You Ask The Questions
• Binge Watch
• Travel Smart
• Watch on your TV
• Crosswords & Puzzles
• Most Commented
• Newsletters
• Ask Me Anything
• Virtual Events
• Wine Offers
• Betting Sites

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in Please refresh your browser to be logged in

The Independent's journalism is supported by our readers. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn commission.  

M3GAN reviews: Why critics are falling for the AI horror

What is it about this new horror sc-fi that has left critics wowed and made audiences flock to theatres, article bookmarked.

Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey

Get our the life cinematic email for free, thanks for signing up to the the life cinematic email.

M3GAN , 2023’s newest horror sci-fi to release in cinemas, has shattered box office expectations and received widespread critical acclaim.

The thriller stars Get Out ’s Allison Williams as genius roboticist Gemma who becomes the unexpected caretaker of her eight-year-old niece. When Gemma gives her niece a prototype of her new AI doll, M3GAN, the results are nightmarish.

Since its theatrical release over the weekend (6 January), the film has garnered a critics score of 94 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing.

While horror films are notorious for failing to impress critics, M3GAN seems to have subverted the genre’s typical pitfalls.

So, what exactly is it that some of the top critics are loving about the movie?

“It’s incisive, sardonic and totally mean-spirited,” The Independent ’s Clarisse Loughrey writes in her four-star review . “Picture the Mean Girls queen bee Regina George if someone had given her a knife and a death wish. And she was an android.”

The Guardian ’s Peter Bradshaw similarly praises it for being a “cheekily enjoyable chiller” and “an entertainingly nasty film for the new year”.

“ M3GAN almost feels like it could be a cult film, the sort of thriller that generates a small but devoted following and maybe a sequel or two,” argues Variety ’s Owen Gleiberman. “You don’t have to take the movie seriously to enjoy it as a high-kitsch cautionary tale.”

In Alison Willmore’s Vulture review, she addresses how the film’s viral trailer and its lifesize robot’s “memeable dance” were large contributors to its success.

“But it’s Allison Williams who makes the movie watchable beyond the stuff of a few GIF-able clips,” she says, adding that “[ M3GAN ] wants only to provide a diverting 100-odd minutes of horror comedy, with a heavy emphasis on the comedy”.

Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days

New subscribers only. £8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled

According to The New York Times ’ s Jason Zinoman, M3GAN has both “a good monster and a sense of humour”, which he finds “makes up for a slow start, some absurd dialogue (’You didn’t code in parental controls?’) and a by-the-book conclusion”.

And, although he “would have preferred a handful more guilty guffaws”, Zinoman concedes that “the tone here sticks to just enough camp to keep the crowd smirking”.

“ M3GAN deftly threads the needle in terms of serving as a warning and still delivering the requisite tension and horror within its modest means and the confines of a PG-13 rating, all in a generally crowd-pleasing fashion,” writes CNN ’s Brian Lowry.

It seems that while the film falls in the horror genre, its success lies in its ability to strike “an entertaining balance between comedy and carnage in the kills”, as The Hollywood Reporter ’s David Rooney describes.

M3GAN is out in cinemas now.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article

Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.

New to The Independent?

Or if you would prefer:

Hi {{indy.fullName}}

• My Independent Premium
• Account details
• Help centre

Culture | Film

M3GAN movie review: this terrifying doll-horror is an instant queer and feminist classic

The creepy robot at the heart of this tense, funny and ultra-violent Blumhouse horror flick is hard to pin down. Though she’s the spit of Ivanka Trump, her cynical pout owes more to alt-goth Jenna Ortega . She can also detect symptoms of neuro-divergence, enjoys discussing Jane Austen , sings at the drop of a hat and seems to fancy her female inventor, Gemma (Allison Williams).

On top of all that, the limbs of Model 3 Generative Android, aka M3GAN, resemble libidinous spaghetti (which you’ll aready know if you or anyone in your life has access to TikTok , where the movie is trending). I’m a big fan of demonic dolls Chucky and Annabelle. But, jeez, they look like stiff dum-dums next to this wickedly nimble polymath.

M3GAN is “paired” with a recently orphaned kid, Gemma’s young niece, Cady (Violet McGraw, who has an uncannily doll-like mien and a wonderful ability to convey existential despair, not to mention the gnawing need to be in sync with a device). The ambitious and politely clenched Gemma needs someone, or something, to look after Cady. She also needs to impress her idiot boss David (Ronny Chieng), who runs toy company Funki and is desperate to “kick Hasbro in the dick!” M3GAN, initially, appears to solve all of Gemma’s problems. But guess what? M3GAN is nobody’s puppet.

Nor is Williams. It’s surely not a coincidence that the 34 year-old (who co-produced the movie) was integral to Lena Dunham’s Girls and Jordan Peele’s Get Out. Williams has helped scriptwriter Akela Cooper craft a take on Frankenstein that’s breezily progressive. We learn that Gemma, who’s been keeping her best inventions in the “closet”, uses a Tinder app; most audience members will assume the dates she’s organising are with men. The longer the film goes on, the more Gemma (and her late sister) come into view and Williams handles every twist and turn with aplomb. To put it another way, M3GAN may have silly and predictable moments, but its status as a queer/feminist classic is assured.

Director Gerard Johnstone makes brilliant use of his $12m budget. M3GAN is brought to life via sophisticated but lo-fi technology (there’s very little CGI). Especially in the later scenes, as the fast-learning M3GAN gets ever more life-like, the whole thing leans heavily on young Amie Donald, who performs all the robot’s acrobatic moves and co-choreographed two of the most visually memorable sequences. What a find.

A sequel is in the works. Hooray! Let’s hope this budding franchise evolves in the right direction and maintains the edginess of its three female leads. Gemma, Cady and M3GAN don’t play nicely. They’re just what the horror scene needs.

102mins, cert 15

Create a FREE account to continue reading

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

‘M3GAN’ Review: A Robot-Doll Sci-Fi Horror Movie That’s Creepy, Preposterous and Diverting

Allison Williams plays a robotics wiz who invents a doll that seems fake and real at the same time

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

• Can the Sundance Film Festival Survive Leaving Park City? 2 days ago
• Kamala Harris Did What She Needed to Do. She Displayed the Force of a President — and Goaded Trump Into Revealing His Inner Frothing Crackpot 6 days ago
• ‘Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’ Review: A Soulful Celebration of the Live-in-Concert Bruce, Past and Present 7 days ago

Related Stories

Netflix vs. YouTube: The Post-Streaming Wars Era’s Archrivalry

Emmys for the Emmys: Our Kudos For This Year's Standout Awards Campaign Moments

Popular on variety.

Williams, who is one of the film’s executive producers (its two high-powered producer-auteurs are James Wan and Jason Blum), invests Gemma with a winningly jaunty, at times clueless hyperrationality that makes her both the film’s heroine and its rather innocent digital-age Dr. Frankenstein. Gemma, an obsessive prodigy of robotics, had been ordered by her boss to abandon the M3GAN project. But the film opens with a (contrived) cataclysm that nudges her into secretly going ahead with it. Her young niece, Cady (Violet McGraw), is on a ski trip with her parents when, in a freak accident, their car gets run over by a snowplow.

Gemma takes custody of the newly orphaned girl, and while she seems utterly adrift about what someone Cady’s age might need (like, say, a bedtime story), her failure as a caretaker is part of the film’s satirical design. “M3GAN” takes place in a world — ours — where parents, bemoaning how much screen time they allow their children, give into the impulse anyway, because it feels both easy and inevitable. The film says that we’re already letting computer technology raise our kids. M3GAN the willowy programmed companion who always says the perfect thing becomes the logical culmination of that trend.

Once Cady imprints her fingers in M3GAN’s palm, which automatically programs the doll to become her special companion, their relationship makes everything else seem boring, at least to Cady. The film parallels their insular friendship with Gemma’s attempt to turn M3GAN into a hot new product. She places Cady and M3GAN in a playroom behind one-way glass, using them to demonstrate the toy’s amazing abilities to her boss (played, with a riveting short fuse, by Ronny Chieng). He is sold, and begins to plan the marketing rollout of this revolutionary new toy, which will be put on sale at $10,000 a pop.

But the more they plan, the more that M3GAN, on her own, is causing mischief, starting with the confrontation she initiates with Gemma’s cranky next-door neighbor (Lori Dungey) and her dog. M3GAN has been programmed to have “emergent capabilities,” which means that the more she interacts with people the more she learns how to do. That certainly applies to her fighting style, a kind of stiff-limbed rapid zombie dance that leaves nothing in its wake. At a certain point, you realize that “M3GAN” has become a movie about a killer doll who knows how to use a nail gun.

Reviewed at AMC Lincoln Square, Jan. 3, 2023. MPA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 102 MIN.

• Production: A Universal release of a Blumhouse Pictures, Atomic Monster production. Producers: Jason Blum, James Wan, Michael Clear, Couper Samuelson. Executive producers: Allison Williams, Greg Gilreath, Adam Hendricks, Mark David Katchur, Judson Scott, Ryan Turek.
• Crew: Director: Gerard Johnstone. Screenplay: Akela Cooper. Camera: Peter McCaffrey, Simon Raby. Editor: Jeff McEvoy. Music: Anthony Willis.
• With: Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, Amie Donald, Jenna Davis, Ronny Chieng, Jen Van Epps, Brian Jordan Alvarez, Lori Dungey, Jack Cassidy, Stephane Garneau-Monten.

More from Variety

‘Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 2’ Review: Kevin Costner’s Ambitious Western Project Frustrates Once Again

Flaws in Guilds’ Success-Based Streaming Residual Already Clear 

‘Anywhere Anytime’ Review: ‘Bicycle Thieves’ Is Reborn as a Modern Immigrant Saga

‘Boomerang’ Review: A Fresh, Leisurely Look at a Changing Tehran

Why Studios Still Haven’t Licensed Movies and TV Shows to Train AI

‘Youth (Homecoming)’ Review: A Despondent Coda to a Rich Textile Trilogy

More from our brands, tito jackson, original jackson 5 member and michael’s brother, dead at 70.

The 11 Best Gourmet Chocolates to Buy Right Now

Shannon Sharpe Defeats Brett Favre in Defamation Suit Appeal

The Best Loofahs and Body Scrubbers, According to Dermatologists

Emily Gold, America’s Got Talent Contestant From Los Osos High School Dance Troupe, Dead at 17 

By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy . We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

‘M3GAN’ Review: This Killer-Robot Horror Comedy Was Built to Delight

Kate erbland, editorial director.

• Share on Facebook
• Share to Flipboard
• Share on LinkedIn
• Show more sharing options
• Submit to Reddit
• Post to Tumblr
• Print This Page
• Share on WhatsApp

There are many fun games to play during the riotously campy and delightfully self-aware killer robot horror comedy “ M3GAN ,” but the best is the most simple: Which one of these weirdo human suckers will this murderous android bump off first? (A much less predictable game, but just as edifying, is trying to guess when M3GAN will break into song; yes, song. ) And while the final death tally might be a smidge lower than you might expect from a Blumhouse joint, this film from director Gerard Johnstone can’t help but delight its audience. After all, it was built to do just that.

Johnstone (directing a story from producer James Wan and a script from “Malignant” scribe Akela Cooper, maybe all the pedigree you need) plunges us into the wacky world of “M3GAN” from the jump, opening with a kicky commercial for a wretched Furby knockoff that has enthralled the world’s children. A product of toy company Funki, the furry little monsters connect to the internet, chatter nonstop at their young owners, have teeth (teeth!), and traffic in gags organized around pooping.

Young Cady (standout Violet McGraw) sure likes her Perpetual Pet, but Mom doesn’t like how much screen time the toy requires and Dad can’t stand its endless yapping. As the trio embark on a ski trip that — of course — includes a drive up a snowy mountain with zero visibility, the Pet yaps and Cady futzes with the toy… just in time to duck out of the way of a giant snowplow that takes out those damn anti-tech parents.

Soon, Cady finds herself in the care of Aunt Gemma (Allison Williams, perhaps the only person who “understood the assignment” more than M3GAN herself). A tech wonk who dresses almost exclusively in oversized flannel shirts, she’s in no way built to be a parent. Luckily for everyone involved, Gemma and her compatriots at Funki (including an underutilized Jen Van Epps and Brian Jordan Alvarez), have been busy, ahem, building something very special indeed.

It’s M3GAN! Or, “Model 3 Generative Android,” a hilariously and obviously evil robot meant to protect and play with kids, but clearly more interested in murder as sport. Wow, a robot that needs a human to teach it and a human who needs a robot to care for it: What could possibly go wrong? (As one of Gemma’s coworkers notes early on, M3GAN “doesn’t look confused, she looks demented.”)

Why does Aunt Gemma (so clearly not a kid person) think the obviously evil M3GAN is the hot new childhood companion? The logic is thin, but Cooper and Wan do a fine job selling the wackiness of a world gone mad for anything that might be viewed as a tech innovation. (Later, other characters raise some dumb-bunny issues to Gemma, who isn’t as smart as she looks.)

As she tries to bond with Cady, Gemma reveals her real obsession: making robots, including her M3GAN prototype. The kid is obsessed immediately, and when Cady tells Gemma that M3GAN would be the only  toy she’d ever need (with a $10K price tag, she damn well better be), the sparks fly. Soon, Cady and M3GAN are paired (figuratively and technologically) and Gemma’s traumatized niece becomes the robot’s first-ever primary user.

At first, all is well: M3GAN proves to be not only a sterling playmate for Cady but also a guardian, a teacher, and a caretaker. She’s kind of a semi-mom, one who can never get frustrated or annoyed. She’s equally adept at reminding Cady to flush the toilet and wash her hands as she is at spouting off facts to delight and intrigue the curious kid. Mostly, she takes the heat off Gemma (tech innovation!), allowing her to a) not worry so much about her new charge and b) prove her mettle at work. Perfect, right?

M3GAN contains multitudes, but her number-one directive is to protect Cady from any physical or emotional harm. And boy oh boy, does she take that directive to her steely heart. Played by “Sweet Tooth” star Amie Donald (an actual kid who lends the robot menace her body, wonderfully capturing her not-quite-right movements) and voiced by Jenna Davis, M3GAN is the rare early viral star (first trailers for the film made newly minted fans cry out for “Oscars!” on social media) who delivers on her promise. She’s absolutely fucking nuts, and what fun to watch her play.

By the time Gemma gets hip to M3GAN’s real nature (which hello , Gemma created), the bloodbath is just beginning, the dance sequences are just starting, and co-star Ronny Chieng (as Gemma’s useless tech-bro boss) has somehow only screamed for a kombucha from a minion but once. The beats that get us there might feel predictable, but the film is still a triumph. Its creators are so clearly on the same insane wavelength, nimbly blending camp and social satire and actual terror, that “M3GAN” is poised to crack the murder-doll pantheon and stay there forever. Oscars!

Universal Pictures will release “M3GAN” in theaters on Friday, January 6.

Most Popular

You may also like.

• Trending on RT

M3GAN First Reviews: A Surprisingly Fun and Funny Horror Icon Is Born

Critics say the campy sci-fi horror flick leans into its ridiculous premise and runs with it, even if it's hampered a bit by its pg-13 rating..

TAGGED AS: First Reviews , movies

January has long been considered a dumping ground for movies that are expected to perform poorly, but M3GAN could be an exception, given the stellar reviews for the Blumhouse horror-comedy. The movie built up anticipation with its trailers, which went viral for their fun tone, and now critics are confirming that M3GAN is indeed a campy delight that’s worth seeing. Despite killer dolls and AI gone wrong being common in the horror and sci-fi genres, the production team of Jason Blum and James Wan , aided by everything and everyone that went into the portrayal of the titular toy, apparently have made a fresh and entertaining movie to start off 2023.

Here’s what critics are saying about M3GAN :

Is M3GAN a new horror icon?

She’s absolutely f—ing nuts, and what fun to watch her play. – Kate Erbland, IndieWire

The deliciously menacing doll steals every scene… M3GAN is fascinating to watch, whether she’s staring out a window with unnerving intent, busting some contortionist moves, or simply cocking her head in a sudden tilt that induces both shivers and snickers. – David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

She is methodical and downright scary at times — but it is always for what she thinks is a good cause, and that is something that doesn’t happen every day. – Tessa Smith, Mama’s Geeky

She gets too wisecracking in the end — but otherwise she’s a fresh and sinister addition to the canon. – Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair

M3GAN’ s greatest shortcoming is that the human characters aren’t nearly as entertaining as she is… Whenever she isn’t on screen, including during the movie’s setup, things don’t operate quite as well. – Karl Delossantos, Smash Cut Reviews

A genre star is born from motherboards and violence. – Matt Donato, IGN Movies

(Photo by Geoffrey Short/©Universal Pictures)

How does the film stand out in its genre?

M3GAN sets itself apart from its predecessors by embracing the silliness of the premise and catering directly to the internet audience. – Hoai-Tran Bui, Inverse

M3GAN fits into a tradition of demon-doll movies going back to the Karen Black episode of Trilogy of Terror and the Annabelle trilogy (also produced by Wan), but it has its own amusing throwaway token relevance. – Owen Gleiberman, Variety

A deeper understanding of the characters distinguishes M3GAN from other movies. – Germain Lussier, io9.com

Its creators are so clearly on the same insane wavelength, nimbly blending camp and social satire and actual terror, that M3GAN is poised to crack the murder-doll pantheon and stay there forever. – Kate Erbland, IndieWire

The script by Akela Cooper (from a story by Cooper and producer James Wan) is a bit wittier than your standard slasher fare. – Matt Singer, ScreenCrush

The thing about formulaic movies like M3GAN is that sometimes they get it right… Laced with a nasty wit and passive cynicism, M3GAN is a surprisingly fun thriller. – Norman Gidney, HorrorBuzz

Does it deliver on gore?

Some scenes, like [an] ear-ripping scene, flirt with a more violent and grisly outcome, only to fall back into PG-13 territory. – Hoai-Tran Bui, Inverse

It’s not exactly light on the bloodshed, but it’s not aiming for a high amount of gore, either. – Aaron Neuwirth, We Live Entertainment

How much more fun could M3GAN be were its murderous creation really allowed to let loose? Instead, the film is forced to look away from the gruesome stuff and keep the body count relatively low. – Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair

Are there any breakout performances?

Violet McGraw is a rock star in this film. She is pure perfection… That girl is going places, so keep an eye on her. – Tessa Smith, Mama’s Geeky

The MVP of M3GAN is the young Violet McGraw, whose multifaceted performance adeptly showcases the emotional intensity of Cady’s situation… McGraw’s performance really lands. – Jeff Ewing, Slashfilm

(Photo by ©Universal Pictures)

Is there more to M3GAN than meets the eye?

Beneath the ridiculous antics of its uncanny-valley villain and Black Mirror -knockoff plot lies a surprisingly touching story about grief and family bonds. – Hoai-Tran Bui, Inverse

While being practically built for meme/gif culture, it’s still a film attempting to tackle ideas surrounding grief and the over-reliance on technology to handle life’s problems. – Aaron Neuwirth, We Live Entertainment

For every scene in which M3GAN seems to be auditioning for Drag Race , there is another scene grounded in some kind of reality — or, at least, a sense of stakes. – Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair

Not so subtle messages about relying too much on electronic devices — especially when parenting — adds to the humor and fun of the film. – Tessa Smith, Mama’s Geeky

The majority of the movie is infinitely more serious and sad, resulting in a slightly imbalanced but nevertheless rewarding experience. – Germain Lussier, io9.com

Is M3GAN going to be an internet sensation?

M3GAN is made to be memed. – Hoai-Tran Bui, Inverse

M3GAN manages to transform its well-trod elements into a tense, engaging horror-comedy outing with a keen eye for tongue-in-cheek and meme-worthy scenes. – Jeff Ewing, Slashfilm

Will we want a sequel?

Viewers will leave theaters wanting more of her, and fingers crossed we get it. – Tessa Smith, Mama’s Geeky

If it really happens in the future, I do hope James Wan and Gerard Johnstone can come up with something that isn’t sticking too close to the usual formula. – Casey Chong, Casey’s Movie Mania

M3GAN opens everywhere on January 6, 2022.

On an Apple device? Follow Rotten Tomatoes on Apple News .

Related News

Weekend Box Office: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Holds on to Top Spot

Toronto Film Festival 2024: Movie Scorecard

Netflix’s 100 Best Movies Right Now (September 2024)

Renewed and Cancelled TV Shows 2024

Transformers One First Reviews: The Best Transformers Movie Yet

The Penguin First Reviews: Colin Farrell’s Wild Performance Makes the Series a Must-Watch

Movie & TV News

Featured on rt.

September 16, 2024

50 Best New Action Movies of 2024

Top Headlines

• 50 Best New Action Movies of 2024 –
• Toronto Film Festival 2024: Movie Scorecard –
• Netflix’s 100 Best Movies Right Now (September 2024) –
• 100 Best Anime Movies of All Time –
• Emmys 2024 Red Carpet Arrival Photos –
• Box Office 2024: Top 10 Movies of the Year –

• Movie Review
• M3gan is a midrange delight about the horrors of 21st-century parenting

Universal and Blumhouse’s M3gan is exactly the right amount of ridiculous, which is why it can afford to be a little shaggy toward the end.

By Charles Pulliam-Moore , a reporter focusing on film, TV, and pop culture. Before The Verge, he wrote about comic books, labor, race, and more at io9 and Gizmodo for almost five years.

Share this story

After months of watching the dead-eyed killer android from Universal’s M3gan dance her way across social media into the hallowed halls of true internet fame , you might think there couldn’t be much more going on in the film that wasn’t already spoiled by trailers. But much like its eponymous plaything of the future, M3gan packs a surprisingly potent punch that takes a handful of narrative bugs and turns them into a delightfully comedic horror feature.

Caught somewhere between After Yang and the most recent Child’s Play , M3gan — from director Gerard Johnstone ( Housebound ) and screenwriter Akela Cooper ( Luke Cage , Malignant ) — is yet another tale of what happens when A.I.-powered androids become too sentient for their own good. Rather than simply framing sophisticated pieces of technology as being ripe for evil, though, M3gan goes for the jugular by focusing on the very real anxieties that can come with parenting and the way that people sometimes try to deal with those feelings by over-relying on tools.

A young girl named Cady (Violet McGraw) is loved by all the adults in her life. But people like Cady’s parents are also busy, distracted, and constantly being pulled in a million different directions, which is a big part of why interactive, Furby-like toys called Perpetual Pets are such a hit. With a Perpetual Pet — toys Cady’s robotics engineer aunt Gemma (Allison Williams) helped design — on board, parents can feel like their children are constantly being engaged and know that they can always turn the talking, chirping, farting creatures off with the accompanying smartphone app. But when a bit of commotion involving Cady’s Perpetual Pet leads to a terrible accident that orphans her, both her and her aunt’s lives are upended.

With a deadline to present the next generation of Perpetual Pets to her boss David (Ronny Chieng) looming over her, neither grieving her sister nor taking in her niece are things Gemma expected to have on her plate. But the stress and messiness of their situation push Gemma — a flatly characterized workaholic who’s not the best with kids — to finally put the finishing touches on her very expensive, very ethically dubious side project, M3gan (voiced by Jenna Davis and physically portrayed by Amie Donald).

Though the first of M3gan ’s hysterical fake commercials for Perpetual Pets gives you a solid sense of its humor, the movie takes a bit of time as it’s first powering up and setting the stage for a story that’s unexpectedly thoughtful. Cady’s discomfort with Gemma has less to do with her aunt being too focused on her job and more to do with the reality that they’re both experiencing a kind of grief that’s difficult to express — particularly for young people going through it for the first time. Some of M3gan ’s most effective scenes feel almost as if they could have been plucked from a straightforward drama. McGraw commands the screen as a kid full of anguish opposite Williams (who feels sort of checked out for most of the film). And when Cady and M3gan first start to become friends that the movie really begins to cut loose and come to life in an impressively satisfying way.

Long before M3gan, the doll, actually starts killing people, M3gan , the movie, encourages you to just go ahead and start having a chuckle at the silliness of its premise. It’s self-aware that it’s not exactly reinventing the wheel. Rather, it’s yassifying the classic killer toy + unsuspecting public formula and using the result to do some solid bits with one of the most unsettling dolls to star in a film since The Twilight Saga’s Breaking Dawn: Part 1 .

The human physicality of Donald’s performance is what often makes M3gan feel like a believable, fluid, dangerous machine that’s always ready to shift gears and hunt on all fours. But some of M3gan ’s funniest scenes appear to just be human actors acting opposite of a lifeless prop made to seem like it’s moving with in-camera tricks and clever angles. Similar to how some of The Muppets’ best gags were really just people tossing puppets in front of a camera, there are moments throughout where M3gan just pops into frame, and you can’t quite tell if she’s actor crouching down, or if a M3gan mask has simply been dropped in front of a camera in a way meant to take you by surprise.

It’s not always clear if you’re watching one actor pretend to choke another or if you’re seeing an actor holding a glamorous mannequin child’s hand up to their throat, but it almost always works in context because of how knowingly ridiculous the movie becomes. At times, you can clearly see the tape and glue metaphorically holding M3gan together, and the movie’s internal sense of logic does feel inconsistent more often than not. But M3gan ’s able to redeem itself partially because it never feels like it’s trying to take itself all that seriously and because of how it manages to pull off an astonishing number of pointed jokes — many of them musical — about consumerism and being addicted to screen time.

As January debuts go, M3gan ’s one that more than punches above its weight class and thankfully understands the value of clocking in well below the two-hour mark — something more films asking you to come on wild rides with them could stand to remember.

M3gan also stars Brian Jordan Alvarez, Jen Van Epps, Stephane Garneau-Monten, Arlo Green, and Lori Dungey. The movie hits theaters on January 6th.

The great Evernote reboot

Apple airpods 4 review: defying expectations, the best android phone to buy in 2023, ios 18 is a smart upgrade, even without the ai, amazon is making its employees come back to the office five days a week.

More from The best entertainment of 2023

• Godzilla Minus One is a brilliant reckoning for the king of monster allegories
• A24’s Dream Scenario is a shapeshifting parable about our obsessions with viral fame
• Killers of the Flower Moon is a devastating snapshot of America’s truth laid bare
• This Barbie is a feminist parable fighting to be great in spite of Mattel’s input
• Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron is a beautiful relic — and the end of an era
• Across the Spider-Verse is an animated masterpiece that upends Marvel’s Spider-canon
• Suzume is everything that’s beautiful and moving about Makoto Shinkai’s imagination
• Beau Is Afraid is an exercise in laughing to keep from screaming
• The Super Mario Bros. Movie is the new gold standard for video game films
• Talk To Me is a potent dose of unrelenting teen horror
• Creed III brings Adonis’ story full circle by trading in one set of daddy issues for another

Notice: All forms on this website are temporarily down for maintenance. You will not be able to complete a form to request information or a resource. We apologize for any inconvenience and will reactivate the forms as soon as possible.

• DVD & Streaming
• Horror , Sci-Fi/Fantasy , Thriller

Content Caution

In Theaters

• January 6, 2023
• Allison Williams as Gemma; Violet McGraw as Cady; Amie Donald as M3gan; Jen Van Epps as Tess; Brian Jordan Alvarez as Cole; Ronny Chieng as David; Lori Dungey as Celia

Home Release Date

• January 24, 2023
• Gerard Johnstone

Distributor

• Universal Pictures

Positive Elements   |   Spiritual Elements   |   Sexual & Romantic Content   |   Violent Content   |   Crude or Profane Language   |   Drug & Alcohol Content   |   Other Noteworthy Elements   | Conclusion

Movie Review

Most people probably wouldn’t give much notice to a news feed story about a snowy car crash. Accidents happen all the time in snow country. But to vacationing nine-year-old Cady, it was an event that took her everything. The crash stole away her mom and dad. And it left her battered and bruised, physically and emotionally.  

It also left her with someone who didn’t really want her.

Now, that’s no slight against Cady’s Aunt Gemma. She’s not a bad person. Gemma is simply an overworked, thirtysomething robotic engineer who’s ill-equipped to deal with a kid being dropped in her lap. And their awkward interactions with each other prove that in spades.

However, Gemma does have one thing up her sleeve. She just happens to be working on a new project that she had been keeping under wraps at the popular toy company she works for. Her Model 3 Generative Android , or M3GAN for short, might just be the ticket. So, she takes Cady in to show her the kid-sized AI construct.

And everything goes perfectly.

Not only does the robot properly pair with Cady, it also instantly starts playing on the little girl’s level. It’s exactly what Gemma was hoping for. And at the same time, her generally pessimistic-minded boss, David, watched the whole process and was instantly sold. This could literally change the entire toy market, he notes, not to mention make Gemma’s career. Yes, the prototype robo hasn’t been properly tested, but maybe time with Cady could do just that.

For Cady, M3GAN becomes a friend and companion who always listens, always plays. The remarkable android teaches Cady things she needs to know, and it dedicates its digital existence to keeping Cady happy and safe.

And for Gemma, her latest brainchild becomes the babysitter she desperately needs so she can get back to her normal life. And if M3GAN also continually grows and adapts—learning just as it should through its internet connection and the social circumstances around it—the situation could be downright perfect.

There is, however, one little problem that no one anticipates. The internet paired with cold robotic reasoning are not necessarily what you’d call fonts of moralistic insight. That might not have been foremost in Gemma’s engineering mind. But maybe it should have been.

Because when M3GAN senses any danger that comes Cady’s way—such as an aggressive neighbor dog with sharp, snapping jaws; or a local bully boy with a rough mean streak—the android has no compunctions about applying a little super-charged robo-correction. She can sweetly sing a bedtime song; gently wipe away a little friend’s tears; and drop to all fours to aggressively chase off a bullying brat with equal easy skill.

And if said bully ends up broken, torn or, say, dead … well, so be it. Cady, after all, is kept safe. So what does it matter?

That’s what friends are for.

Positive Elements

In one sense, M3GAN does exactly what she is programmed to do. She cares for, teaches, listens to, plays with and protects Cady with every non-beat of her robotic heart. She becomes the ever-watching eye of a parental figure and friend who never backs down and never hesitates to protect. And in some ways, you can’t help but cheer for this single-minded robo friend—especially in light of all that’s been taken from Cady.

For instance, during a demonstration for investors, Cady breaks down, weeping about the loss of her parents. M3GAN quietly comforts her and takes the time to help the girl think of fond memories that she can cling to.

However, there’s a not-so-fine line between protection and cruel choices when it comes to M3GAN’s delivery of justice. There is no right or wrong for her, just “care” and protection. And that sometimes translates into heartless disregard for human life that becomes more Terminator-like and brutal as she “learns” from the web-connected resources at her disposal.

On the other hand, Gemma has some learning to do as well. And she slowly realizes all the ways that Cady has been hurt and damaged, all the things that the young girl must work through. As Gemma wraps her brain around Cady’s needs, she begins to embrace a more motherly role, reaching out tenderly to her niece. Ultimately Gemma puts everything on the line to embrace and protect Cady.

In true sci-fi fashion, this pic makes an analogical point that technology, the internet and social media are no substitutes for parental time and love. And it suggests that adults who lean too heavily on those things usher their family members into dangerous territory.

Spiritual Elements

Sexual & romantic content.

When Gemma first ushers Cady into her house, her digital assistant device announces that Gemma has “five Tinder notifications.” Gemma quickly changes the subject.

Violent Content

M3GAN ’s unexpected moments of humor somewhat soften the story’s edgy violence. That said, the film is still packed with sometimes bloody bashabouts (leaving people with bloody scratches and torn body parts), even when the goriest possibilities are kept just off screen.

Two people are stabbed and killed by the broken blade of an office paper trimmer. A boy has his ear pulled and ripped off.  And then he’s chased and eventually tumbles down a hillside and out in front of a speeding truck. We see his bloody boots as he’s placed in an ambulance. (This bully had earlier forced a sharp object into Cady’s hand and pushed her around.)

A dog drags M3GAN through a hole in a fence and then bites Cady’s arm. Later the animal is grabbed and dragged off yelping. An older woman is sent sprawling across a room by high powered water spray. Her hand is then nailed to the wall by a nail gun, and she’s poisoned by weed killer.

Several other people get battered, strangled and bloodied.

[ Spoiler Warning ] M3GAN is eventually torn apart, sliced with a weed whacker and destroyed. There are four deaths total—all of which are relatively bad or deceitful people.

Crude or Profane Language

There’s one f-word (delivered by a child), more than a dozen s-words, and one use each of “h—” and “b–ch” in the dialogue. “Oh my God” is spit out six times, and Jesus’ name is harshly abused 10 times. There’s one crude reference to male genitalia.

Drug & Alcohol Content

Gemma’s corporate boss hands her a drink while talking about her future contract.

Other Noteworthy Elements

Little toys that Gemma’s toy company employers make tend to focus on potty humor gags such as making gassy noises and dropping little pellets out of their backside.

When Cady first moves in with her aunt, Gemma tosses her an iPad (to keep her busy). Cady wonders about the screentime limits that her parents used to impose. “I don’t care,” Gemma casually replies.

When Gemma’s associate sees how Gemma is using M3GAN with Cady, she wonders, “I thought we were creating M3GAN to help support parents, not replace them.” Gemma shrugs the suggestion off.

Someone steals important computer files.

There is something equally cute and creepy about M3GAN (the film and the AI robot).

This robot is something like that incredible toy you once squealed gleefully over on your 10th birthday. She’s also that glinting-eyed doll that made you cry out in shock when you caught a glimpse of it sitting on a shadowed chair. Those combined character elements blend  together with a compelling story and sardonic humor to give this pic surprising appeal.

If you look a bit closer at this picture-perfect android, you’ll also notice that she has even more programmed into her motherboard. For with the right tip of the head and the flick of a multi-lensed eye, you’ll spot something of a sci-fi cautionary tale here: a warning to parents that turning your child over to the care of today’s techy wonders can come at a very high price.

For all of those positives, however, there is another tiny Terminator boot a’ dropping: M3GAN, with her kewpie-doll perfection and girl’s-best-friend charm, is also a steely eyed killer. The just-off-screen goriness gets tamped down to PG-13 levels, but it’s bloody nonetheless. And the film’s language delivers some sharp cuts of its own.

Creepy and cute . Those words don’t always sit well together. But they are part and parcel here. You’ll need to embrace both in equal measure if you invite this dolly to sit on your knee.

After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.

Latest Reviews

Transformers One

Am I Racist?

God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust

Weekly Reviews Straight to your Inbox!

Want to stay Plugged In?

Our weekly newsletter will keep you in the loop on the biggest things happening in entertainment and technology. Sign up today, and we’ll send you a chapter from the new Plugged In book, Becoming a Screen-Savvy Family , that focuses on how to implement a “screentime reset” in your family!

Common Sense Media

Movie & TV reviews for parents

• For Parents
• For Educators
• Our Work and Impact

Or browse by category:

• Movie Reviews
• Best Movie Lists
• Best Movies on Netflix, Disney+, and More

Common Sense Selections for Movies

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

• Best TV Lists
• Best TV Shows on Netflix, Disney+, and More
• Common Sense Selections for TV
• Video Reviews of TV Shows

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

• Book Reviews
• Best Book Lists
• Common Sense Selections for Books

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

• Game Reviews
• Best Game Lists

Common Sense Selections for Games

• Video Reviews of Games

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

• Podcast Reviews
• Best Podcast Lists

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

• App Reviews
• Best App Lists

Social Networking for Teens

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

• YouTube Channel Reviews
• YouTube Kids Channels by Topic

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

YouTube Kids Channels for Gamers

• Preschoolers (2-4)
• Little Kids (5-7)
• Big Kids (8-9)
• Pre-Teens (10-12)
• Teens (13+)
• Screen Time
• Social Media
• Online Safety
• Identity and Community

How to Help Kids Build Character Strengths with Quality Media

• Family Tech Planners
• Digital Skills
• All Articles
• Latino Culture
• Black Voices
• Asian Stories
• Native Narratives
• LGBTQ+ Pride
• Best of Diverse Representation List

Multicultural Books

YouTube Channels with Diverse Representations

Podcasts with Diverse Characters and Stories

• Common Sense Says
• Parents Say 50 Reviews
• Kids Say 108 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

Strong horror violence in entertaining killer-robot movie.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that M3GAN is a horror movie about a robot doll (played by Amie Donald and voiced by Jenna Davis) who befriends a grieving young girl (Violet McGraw) before things go terribly wrong. It's well made, albeit violent, and focuses on human needs as well as artificial ones. Characters are…

Why Age 14+?

Several characters are killed. Death, grief, and loss are discussed. Child injur

Several uses of "s--t" and "bulls--t" and exclamatory uses of "Jesus" and "Jesus

References to Tinder, iPad, Tesla, SKYY vodka.

Reference to Tinder.

Brief celebratory drinking by adults, vodka.

Any Positive Content?

This is a woman-driven story, with women occupying the central on-screen roles.

Many themes, from grief and loss to rampant consumerism without concern for cons

Gemma wants to be a good guardian for Cady, even though she doesn't quite know h

Violence & Scariness

Several characters are killed. Death, grief, and loss are discussed. Child injured in car crash; bloody wounds on face. Dog bites child's arm. Dog viciously attacks M3GAN. A person who is bullying someone has their ear ripped off. Nail shot through character's wrist via nail gun. Person sprayed in face with power chemical sprayer. Characters stabbed with paper cutter blade; blood shown on blade. Character strangled, hung with steel cable. Fighting. Violent showdown between robot and humans: attacks with hedge trimmers, screwdrivers, etc. Jump scares. Snow truck smashes into car. Character hit by truck. Explosions. Child smacks adult in the face. Arguing. In an act of bullying, someone smashes a spiky plant into someone else's hand; the victim yells in pain.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Several uses of "s--t" and "bulls--t" and exclamatory uses of "Jesus" and "Jesus Christ." Minimal use of "f--k," "bitch," "hard-ass," "d--k," and "oh my God."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Sex, romance & nudity.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Diverse Representations

This is a woman-driven story, with women occupying the central on-screen roles. Gemma (Allison Williams) is White; her colleagues include Tess (Jen Van Epps, who's of African American and Chinese Taiwanese descent) and Cole (Brian Jordan Alvarez, who is Colombian American). Her boss is played by Malaysian actor Ronny Chieng, who offers a counter-stereotypical portrayal. Smaller roles include a mix of people of color, women, and White men. The screenwriter is a Black woman.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Positive Messages

Many themes, from grief and loss to rampant consumerism without concern for consequences. A sequence looks at the complexities of bullying behavior. But the main message, of course, is the danger of humanity's hubris. Much like in the original Frankenstein story: Human beings can only create life in their own imperfect image.

Positive Role Models

Gemma wants to be a good guardian for Cady, even though she doesn't quite know how. While she makes many mistakes, Gemma certainly tries hard to do the right thing; she admits when she's wrong, and she's willing to communicate and learn to prevent making the same mistakes again.

Parents need to know that M3GAN is a horror movie about a robot doll (played by Amie Donald and voiced by Jenna Davis ) who befriends a grieving young girl (Violet McGraw) before things go terribly wrong. It's well made, albeit violent, and focuses on human needs as well as artificial ones. Characters are killed, and there are discussions about death, loss, and grief. Someone's ear is ripped off, and characters are stabbed, strangled, shot with a nail gun, sprayed with a chemical sprayer, bitten by a dog, etc. A child survives a car crash and has bloody cuts on her face. There's lots of fighting and a violent showdown. Language includes several uses of "s--t" and "Jesus Christ," plus minimal uses of "f--k," "bitch," "ass," etc. A few brands are mentioned, including Tinder, Tesla, iPad, and SKYY vodka (which adults also drink, briefly). Note: This review is for the original theatrical version of the film; an unrated cut is also available that includes additional content not covered here. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (50)
• Kids say (108)

Based on 50 parent reviews

Parental guidance however ok for kids who love horror

Great for age 11+, what's the story.

In M3GAN, robotics engineer Gemma ( Allison Williams ) works for a toy company and is trying to build a sophisticated, realistic AI robot toy, with disappointing results. Gemma's sister and her husband are killed in a car accident, leaving Gemma in charge of her young niece, Cady ( Violet McGraw ). After her guardianship gets off to a rocky start, Gemma is inspired to finish her creation. M3GAN (played by Amie Donald and voiced by Jenna Davis ) and Cady quickly become attached to each other, and, for a while, this friendship seems to be helping with Cady's grief. But before long, M3GAN starts developing disturbing tendencies, and violent "accidents" begin occurring.

Is It Any Good?

A combination of sly, funny self-awareness, a genuine sense of human grief and emotional connection, and an unsettlingly creepy-cool killer robot, this fun horror pic hits all the right buttons. With a story concocted by James Wan and Akela Cooper ( Hell Fest , Malignant ), M3GAN understands how horror movies are wired and gets pleasure in teasing viewers with these known elements while cheerfully sidestepping the story's flaws. The M3GAN character is in roughly the same vein as Chucky and the Terminator, but she's also their opposite. Her delicate frame, wide eyes, and girlish appearance make her attacks seem somehow more potent and surprising, and the movie uses them to the fullest capacity. The human characters are just as interesting as they grapple with loss in realistic, touching ways, going through rage, sadness, guilt, and more. (M3GAN's on-screen POV display, which shows her detected percentages of human emotions, is a huge kick.) This slick, neatly paced film keeps ramping things up until a smashing showdown, face-to-interface.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about M3GAN 's violence . How did it make you feel? Was it exciting? Shocking? What did the movie show or not show to achieve this effect? Why is that important?

Is the movie scary ? What's the appeal of horror movies? Why do people sometimes like to be scared?

How does the movie deal with death, grief, and loss? What is discussed? What else could have been discussed?

How is consumerism depicted here? Why does the toy company rush to put M3GAN on the market before she's ready, regardless of the consequences?

How is bullying behavior depicted? How is the person who perpetrates it dealt with? What are some better ways of handling those who bully others?

Movie Details

• In theaters : January 6, 2023
• On DVD or streaming : February 8, 2023
• Cast : Allison Williams , Violet McGraw , Amie Donald
• Director : Gerard Johnstone
• Inclusion Information : Female actors, Female writers, Black writers, Asian writers
• Studio : Universal Pictures
• Genre : Horror
• Topics : Robots
• Run time : 102 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : violent content and terror, some strong language and a suggestive reference
• Last updated : July 24, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

What to watch next.

Child's Play (2019)

The Terminator

Best Horror Movies

Best robot movies, related topics.

Want suggestions based on your streaming services? Get personalized recommendations

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

Find anything you save across the site in your account

“M3GAN,” Reviewed: A Clever, Hollow A.I. Spin on “Frankenstein”

The essence of genre is effects without causes—things showing up to fulfill expectations rather than dramatic necessities. “M3GAN,” a science-fiction-based horror caper, provides a clever batch of these effects in this gleefully clever twist on the “Frankenstein” theme, and its director, Gerard Johnstone, seems to be laughing up his sleeve throughout. It’s that very knowingness, the deftness with which the film gets a rise from viewers, which makes a good time feel hollow. There’s a different, far more substantial movie lurking within, yet the virtues of efficiency, clarity, surprise, and wit that enliven the one that’s actually onscreen leave its merely implied substance tantalizingly unformed.

Allison Williams plays Gemma, a type-A robotics engineer with a big toy company in Seattle, Funki, that prospers by selling cheesily interactive furry toys called PurrPetual Petz. Gemma has bigger ideas. She has been working in secret, along with a pair of colleagues (Jen Van Epps and Brian Jordan Alvarez), on a boldly ambitious, potentially transformative project: a lifelike, life-size robotic doll equipped with A.I. that will serve children as a ready-made and full-time friend on demand. While Gemma is working, tragedy strikes: her sister and brother-in-law are killed in a car crash. Her young niece, Cady (Violet McGraw), survives with only slight injuries, and Gemma becomes her legal guardian. Gemma, who lives alone, has little talent for parenting; on Cady’s first night in her aunt’s pristine house, Gemma reminds the child to put her bedside water glass on a coaster lest it stain the wood of the table.

Meanwhile, Gemma’s boss, David (Ronny Chieng), discovers Gemma’s secret invention and angrily orders her to work on a boringly commercial project. Instead, Gemma goes rogue and gets the titular A.I. robot ready for a test—for which she recruits Cady. (With its silicone face, M3gan, voiced by Jenna Davis, is eerily similar to a real child—a white girl, though Gemma and her colleagues foresee marketing the robot in a variety of shades to reflect different ethnicities. There’s no talk of a male version.) Cady quickly grows attached to M3gan (an acronym for Model 3 Generative Android), and Gemma brings the robot home, three birds with one stone: a playmate (and distraction) for Cady, a break from parenting for Gemma, an extreme test for the potential product. Gemma gives M3gan a mission to protect Cady from “emotional and physical harm,” but has neglected to build parental controls into the device, and has also neglected to build in guardrails of conduct, the mechanical equivalent of a moral code. Soon, M3gan, programmed to link with Cady as the primary user, takes the task of protecting her with ferocious literalness. A neighbor’s dog is perceived by M3gan as a mortal enemy; so is the dog’s owner (Lori Dungey); so is a bullying child (Jack Cassidy). Even a sympathetic psychologist (Amy Usherwood) risks being labelled a menace.

Johnstone endows M3gan with an arch, chilly, and chilling repertory of facial expressions and verbal inflections. The A.I. device’s learning curve is prodigious, and what M3gan calculates, very quickly, is that the best defense is a good offense. It goes from learning to recognize toys and means of conveyance to the use of power tools, driving a car, and computer hacking—and turns into a devastatingly efficient, ever-improving killing machine. What’s more, with its singular mission to protect Cady getting defined ever more broadly, M3gan becomes as hostile to anyone who’d shut it down as to anyone who’d mean harm to Cady. The robot’s mounting megalomania is the most fascinating aspect of “M3GAN”: in effect, the living doll turns into a little dictator and discovers, by way of its interaction with humans, how to instill fear—with taunting, with humor, with sarcasm, with lies, and with threats of cruelty. And, when threats turn into realities, M3gan has an autocrat’s instinct for covering tracks, destroying evidence, creating plausible deniability, and, when necessary, silencing witnesses.

The simulation of a mental life for M3gan is the most absorbing part of the movie. Johnstone (working with a script by Akela Cooper, who wrote the story with James Wan) offers images from M3gan’s visual point of view—a video screen that shows the robot’s camera scanning the environment, framing people and objects, and, in superimposed text, calculating, in real time, human subjects’ range of emotions, on a numerical scale. In these fleeting images, “M3GAN” passes into the question of what it would be like to be M3gan—whether an A.I. robot can be considered to have a sense of identity and an inner life, and, if so, what that experience would be. How does M3gan’s computer memory relate to human memory? How does its array of perceptions get converted into decisions? The mere tease of a theme is all the more frustrating inasmuch as impersonation proves to be one of the robot’s more fascinating skills—synthesizing the voices of others, for good or ill—and memory turns out to be one of its more useful functions, as a seeming repository of its owner’s life, a vast stock of home video and voice recordings.

If the movie suffers from the absence of a more substantial development of the titular robot’s character, it’s not least because “M3GAN” similarly stints on developing its human characters and doesn’t suggest what it would be like to be any of them, either. The script’s tut-tutting sketch of Gemma’s cold careerism, indifferent parenting, and hubristic engineering is suspended in a void that’s filled merely by Williams’s actorly presence and her recognizable persona. Cady is similarly undefined, and the supporting characters of colleagues and corporate overlords are reduced to clichés. (The movie merely winks and nods at the issue of children’s screen time.) These stock characters and the conventions that they fit into are ready-made to serve as a solid communal basis for daring efforts and wide-ranging audacities—to meet expectations in order to go beyond them. Instead, they merely furnish a flat backdrop to the exuberantly diabolical display of M3gan’s Machiavellian wiles and the Grand Guignol ingenuity of its methods of mayhem. ♦

New Yorker Favorites

In the weeks before John Wayne Gacy’s scheduled execution, he was far from reconciled to his fate .

What HBO’s “Chernobyl” got right, and what it got terribly wrong .

Why does the Bible end that way ?

A new era of strength competitions is testing the limits of the human body .

How an unemployed blogger confirmed that Syria had used chemical weapons.

An essay by Toni Morrison: “ The Work You Do, the Person You Are .”

Sign up for our daily newsletter to receive the best stories from The New Yorker .

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

A robotics engineer at a toy company builds a life-like robot doll that begins to take on a life of its own. A robotics engineer at a toy company builds a life-like robot doll that begins to take on a life of its own. A robotics engineer at a toy company builds a life-like robot doll that begins to take on a life of its own.

• Gerard Johnstone
• Akela Cooper
• Allison Williams
• Violet McGraw
• Ronny Chieng
• 1K User reviews
• 330 Critic reviews
• 72 Metascore
• 4 wins & 31 nominations

Top cast 30

• Officer Carter

• Police Detective

• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

More like this

Did you know

• Trivia Amie Donald performed any of M3GAN's scenes that called for physical movement the puppet could not do. She also performed all of her own stunt work. Donald received movement coaching from Jed Brophy and Luke Hawker in portraying M3GAN's agility. On set, Donald wore a static silicone M3GAN mask created by Morot FX, and this was later replaced by a CGI version of M3GAN's face to match that of the animatronic.
• Goofs At 1h27m, a doorknob is pulled out of a door, including the long square shaft that goes in to the opposite doorknob. When the remaining knob is tried, it doesn't turn and seems firmly attached. Without the shaft connecting to its mate, the knob would be able to spin freely without opening the latch, and might even fall right off.

M3gan : Cady, seriously, flush the toilet.

• Alternate versions Unrated version restores various scenes which were trimmed/replaced for violence and language to secure a PG-13 rating.
• Connections Featured in Double Toasted: IS M3GAN'S MARKETING TOO MUCH? (2023)
• Soundtracks Purrpetual Pets (Theme) Written by Madison Davey, Tai Fronzaroli , Gerard Johnstone , and Devin S. Norris Performed by Devin S. Norris (as dv/sn), Madison Davey, Väärin Produced by Yellotone Music

User reviews 1K

• Jan 6, 2023
• How long is M3GAN? Powered by Alexa
• January 6, 2023 (United States)
• United States
• New Zealand
• Official Facebook
• Official Instagram
• Don't Meet M3gan
• Atomic Monster
• Blumhouse Productions
• Divide/Conquer
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $12,000,000 (estimated)
• $95,159,005
• $30,429,860
• Jan 8, 2023
• $180,089,109

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 42 minutes
• Dolby Atmos

Related news

Contribute to this page.

• IMDb Answers: Help fill gaps in our data
• Learn more about contributing

More to explore

Recently viewed.

Screen Rant

Why m3gan's reviews are so positive.

Your changes have been saved

Email is sent

Email has already been sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

Uglies Ending Explained: What Happened To Peris Addressed By Director

Beetlejuice beetlejuice ending: lydia's nightmare explained by writers, obi-wan kenobi's homeworld was a joke from george lucas.

The horror genre is kicking off 2023 with M3GAN , directed by Gerard Johnstone, and it all points to it being a great start as so far it has been getting positive reviews. The horror genre is still enjoying a great run on the big screen, and amidst reboots, sequels, and requels, there are original stories that are taking the audience by surprise. Among them is M3GAN , written by Akela Cooper and James Wan and produced by Wan and Jason Blum, and it introduces a new type of murderous doll.

M3GAN follows Gemma (Allison Williams) , a brilliant roboticist working at a toy company who unexpectedly gains custody of her niece, Cady (Violet McGraw), after her parents die in a car accident. Gemma uses artificial intelligence to develop M3GAN, a lifelike doll programmed to be Cady’s greatest companion and be Gemma’s ally while parenting, but when the doll starts to become self-aware and overprotective of Cady, she takes a murderous turn and starts killing everyone who stands in her way. M3GAN will be out in theaters on January 6, and so far, it’s getting positive reviews.

Related: Why James Wan's First Horror Movie Is Impossible To Watch

What M3GAN’s Positive Reviews Are Saying

At the time of writing, M3GAN holds a 97% score on Rotten Tomatoes , giving it a (very) fresh certification. The critical consensus praises M3GAN ’s blend of horror and comedy, as it manages to balance its comedic moments with its terrifying ones. The way Cooper and Wan crafted the story to be as far from cliché as possible – meaning being less about an orphan and more about the struggles of grief and the ones her aunt goes through in different areas of her life – while also being conscious of the absurdity of M3GAN’s concept and creation is being pointed out as one of the movie’s strengths, along with the visual effects that brought the AI doll to life. The performances of Allison Williams and Violet McGraw are also being praised, with the former playing an overwhelmed aunt to whom some might end up relating and the latter masterfully playing a child grieving her parents but also delighted by the arrival of her new friend and later conflicted over said friend’s actions.

M3GAN is not just comedy and horror in one, led by an AI doll that provides extreme loyalty and care for her assigned companion, but it also tackles darker and more serious issues, from the different stages of grief to the shadiness of capitalism, and that alone is worth the praise the movie is getting. Here’s what the positive reviews of M3GAN are saying.

Bloody Disgusting

“The eponymous character gets brought to life through impressive effects by Adrien Morot and Kathy Tse, Amie Donald’s uncanny physical performance, and Jenna Davis’s haunting voicework. She exudes menace through facial expressions and jerky movements that trigger that unsettling uncanny valley. This is M3GAN’s movie, and she more than earns it through an immensely talented team. She’s aided by a sympathetic turn from Williams, who successfully prevents Gemma from losing rooting interest despite fumbling hard with Cady. McGraw holds her own against her AI scene-stealer, no small feat considering the nuanced stages of grief she cycles.”

“M3GAN herself is a marvel. Created with a combination of puppetry, animatronics, VFX, and a human actor (Amie Donald, with a voice by Jenna Davis), it's hard to tell when she is real, when she is fake, and when she is a combination. The sound design of M3GAN certainly helps the illusion of the character. With virtually every step, M3GAN whirred and clicked, the sounds of gears moving. Not loud enough to be obnoxious, just noticeable, so that it's clear M3GAN is a robot. Jenna Davis brings an especially joyous vocalization to M3GAN, making her sound both lighthearted and somehow ominous.”

“Allison Williams (who made her mark in horror in Jordan Peele's Get Out) solidly grounds the human drama within this scary sci-fi premise of a killer doll. With an identity defined by her ambition and work, Gemma struggles when her grief-stricken niece needs her attention and the kid's failure to understand the difference between toys and collectibles. Her anxieties about parenthood versus selfhood are radiant, making the audience's skin crawl in recognition.”

“The result is a deliciously camp hour-and-forty-five minutes of frights. Sure, there’s a Frankensteinian fable in here somewhere about the dangers of letting technology replace real-life human connection – but finding it requires sifting through piles of bodies (and the occasional ripped-off ear). M3GAN, you see, is all about fun – a fact made startlingly clear in its hilarious opening scene, mimicking a Saturday morning kids TV advert.”

“The MVP of "M3GAN," however, is the young Violet McGraw, whose multifaceted performance adeptly showcases the emotional intensity of Cady's situation. The film smartly lets Cady actually go through grief and resentment, lash out in anger, and desperately reach for support. It takes these psychological issues seriously — a key part of the film is the question of the mental health impact of letting an emotionally vulnerable girl attach to an android — and McGraw's performance really lands.”

What Critics Don't Like About M3GAN

Of course, not everything about M3GAN is a hit, and even some aspects that are being praised by some are not the favorites of others. Among the weaknesses that critics are finding is that M3GAN lacks twists and shocking moments, which make it predictable as it’s quite obvious from the moment they are introduced which characters will become victims of the murderous doll. M3GAN also doesn’t have many graphic scenes, keeping the gore and kills for off-screen moments, which has been a disappointment to some especially when comparing this movie to Wan’s previous works, most recently Malignant . M3GAN ’s PG-13 rating is pointed out as the responsible one for the lack of on-screen kills and blood, and some scenes seem to have been added just to keep that rating.

The combination of comedy and horror, while praised by many, is being criticized by others, who find that M3GAN relies too much on silly moments (such as the viral dance scene) that ultimately messed with the pace and tone of the story. In addition to that, the human characters are labeled as two-dimensional, making it hard to connect to them and thus care about what could happen to them at the hands of this evil doll. Here’s what the negative reviews of M3GAN are saying.

Awards Radar

“The thing is, M3GAN sporadically seems to be winking at the audience, but also wants you to actually be invested in it. This isn’t a comprehensive enough work to have it both ways. Again, the audience seems to be doing the work for it, hooting and hollering at some moments meant to be played straight.”

Mercury News

"“M3GAN” stocks up on jump scares and keeps the violence PG-13, but fails to make us care about any of the humans in the path of M3GAN. Each character is a rote as an assembly-line toy."

Critics are divided on M3GAN ’s quality as a horror movie mostly due to its comedy and horror combination, though most of this comes from comparing it to Wan’s previous works . What they all seem to agree on is that there’s a lot of impressive work and talent involved in bringing the doll to life in a way that’s enchanting but terrifying as well, and that M3GAN has the potential to become a cult horror movie, though it might take it some time to get there.

Next: Every Horror Movie Releasing In 2023

• SR Originals

That first ‘M3GAN’ trailer had fans howling. Now the movie is scaring up rave reviews

• Copy Link URL Copied!

Blumhouse’s latest horror flick, “ M3GAN ,” just started its theatrical run, but the film about a murderous AI doll has already made a killer first impression.

Months after the official trailer went viral for the titular character’s sassy hip-swinging and acrobatics , “M3GAN” has returned to the spotlight with love from fans and critics.

“just got out of #M3GAN! no offense, let’s just say this is what Child’s play (2019) wishes it was,” horror movie fan @malaymango tweeted Wednesday after an early screening of the film.

Review: Killer-doll horror-comedy ‘M3GAN’ is delightfully deranged

The delightfully bonkers ‘M3GAN,’ from James Wan and Akela Cooper — the minds behind ‘Malignant’ — is sure to become your newest horror movie obsession.

Jan. 4, 2023

“This ‘doll’ is just better than Chucky 100%,” another fan wrote .

Like “Child’s Play,” “M3GAN” follows a lifelike doll that is designed to be a child’s best friend. But unlike dungarees-wearing menace Chucky, M3GAN — short for “Model 3 Generative Android” — relies on artificial intelligence to play with and protect orphan Cady (Violet McGraw), niece of roboticist Gemma (Allison Williams).

Of course, fabulous, gory chaos ensues when M3GAN takes matters into her own hands.

One of the first theatrical releases of 2023, “M3GAN” has already scored favorable reactions with a handful of critics, including Kate Walsh, who dubbed the film “delightfully bonkers ” for The Times.

Indie Wire praised “M3GAN” for “nimbly blending camp and social satire and actual terror” and critic Courtney Howard tweeted the film is a “godd— RIOT” that’s “built for repeat viewings.”

Putting a little more swing in the movie’s robotic hips is its Rotten Tomatoes score . With 127 reviews as of midday Friday, “M3GAN” boasts an impressive 94% critics’ score — as it should, according to some fans.

The writer behind ‘M3GAN’ on its bonkers horror (and why it used to be ‘way gorier’)

With ‘Malignant,’ ‘M3GAN’ and ‘The Nun 2,’ writer Akela Cooper is the ‘merciless’ new voice of studio horror — and the genre is better for it.

Jan. 5, 2023

“#M3GAN having the most acclaimed score of the year feels so right to me idk,” @modytalkmovies tweeted .

Even Jason Blum — the Blumhouse chief executive who dressed as M3GAN for both Halloween and the film’s premiere in December — is basking in the movie’s Rotten Tomatoes glory.

“When reviews are good the rotten tomatoes score is VERY IMPORTANT,” he tweeted Wednesday . “When reviews are bad critics don’t matter. :)”

When reviews are good the rotten tomatoes score is VERY IMPORTANT. When reviews are bad critics don’t matter. :) — Jason Blum (@jason_blum) January 4, 2023

Directed by Gerard Johnstone and written by Akela Cooper, “M3GAN” seemingly lives up to the hype that’s been stoked by internet-savvy marketing campaigns and cryptic appearances at events including the latest Chargers-Rams game at SoFi Stadium.

M3GAN has had her fair share of time in the social media spotlight, but fans say her impact — or her “maximal slayage” — is just beginning.

“If M3GAN doesn’t become a new horror icon, something is wrong with society,” a fan tweeted .

See what else fans had to say about “M3GAN,” which hit theaters Friday.

M3GAN was high camp…I laughed so hard I cried. I need to buy one immediately — BrycePaschal (@BrycePaschal) January 6, 2023

If #M3GAN doesn’t become a new horror icon, something is wrong with society — Michael GoldenHeart (@MichaelGavilan) January 6, 2023

M3gan was pretty slay ngl. New gen chucky. — emily baras (@bigbaras) January 6, 2023

M3GAN is the hardest I’ve laughed in a theater in quite some time. Turns out yassified Chucky for the iPad Kid generation was a good idea — Trace (@tracesauveur) January 5, 2023

Ok, I’m gonna say it with my full chest: M3GAN deserves all the praise she has, and will continue to receive. — Jaash. (@Fientastic) January 6, 2023

More to Read

Review: A remade ‘Speak No Evil’ is less evil, swapping out Euro-bleakness for a family’s bonding

Sept. 12, 2024

Blue tongues and an exposed brain: How ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ visual effects went back to basics

Commentary: Please stop trying to mansplain ‘Nightbitch’

Sept. 9, 2024

Only good movies

Get the Indie Focus newsletter, Mark Olsen's weekly guide to the world of cinema.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

Alexandra Del Rosario is an entertainment reporter on the Los Angeles Times Fast Break Desk. Before The Times, she was a television reporter at Deadline Hollywood, where she first served as an associate editor. She has written about a wide range of topics including TV ratings, casting and development, video games and AAPI representation. Del Rosario is a UCLA graduate and also worked at the Hollywood Reporter and TheWrap.

More From the Los Angeles Times

Review: ‘Look Into My Eyes’ is a compassionate profile of psychics, not out to scam but connect

Sept. 13, 2024

Review: In ‘My Old Ass,’ an uncertain teen speaks to her future self, with wry two-way wisdom

Chad McQueen, ‘Karate Kid’ actor and son of legend Steve McQueen, dies at 63

Three finalist cities announced to host Sundance Film Festival in 2027

Most read in movies.

The 8 best movies (and one TV show) we saw at the Toronto International Film Festival

Sixty years ago, a photographer rolled with a biker gang. Now his life is a movie

June 19, 2024

Will Reeve of ABC News, Christopher Reeve’s son, has a cameo in new ‘Superman’ movie

July 3, 2024

There will be blood: Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley and director Coralie Fargeat on the fall’s most shocking movie

Sept. 3, 2024

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

• Upcoming Movies and TV shows
• Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
• Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

• About Rotten Tomatoes®
• Login/signup

Movies in theaters

• Opening This Week
• Top Box Office
• Coming Soon to Theaters
• Certified Fresh Movies

Movies at Home

• Fandango at Home
• Prime Video
• Most Popular Streaming Movies
• What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

• 85% Speak No Evil Link to Speak No Evil
• 77% Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Link to Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
• 95% Rebel Ridge Link to Rebel Ridge

New TV Tonight

• 90% The Penguin: Season 1
• -- Emmys: Season 76
• -- American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez: Season 1
• -- Agatha All Along: Season 1
• -- Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story: Season 2
• -- Twilight of the Gods: Season 1
• -- Tulsa King: Season 2
• -- High Potential: Season 1
• -- Frasier: Season 2
• -- A Very Royal Scandal: Season 1

Most Popular TV on RT

• 61% The Perfect Couple: Season 1
• 74% Kaos: Season 1
• 63% The Old Man: Season 2
• 85% The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Season 2
• 100% Dark Winds: Season 2
• 100% Slow Horses: Season 4
• 86% How to Die Alone: Season 1
• 99% Shōgun: Season 1
• Best TV Shows
• Most Popular TV

Certified fresh pick

• 95% Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist: Season 1 Link to Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist: Season 1
• All-Time Lists
• Binge Guide
• Comics on TV
• Five Favorite Films
• Video Interviews
• Weekend Box Office
• Weekly Ketchup
• What to Watch

50 Best New Action Movies of 2024

Toronto Film Festival 2024: Movie Scorecard

What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming

Awards Tour

Weekend Box Office: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Holds on to Top Spot

Renewed and Cancelled TV Shows 2024

• Trending on RT
• Hispanic Heritage Month
• Spanish-Language Movies
• Re-Release Calendar

Where to Watch

Rent M3GAN on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

What to Know

Unapologetically silly and all the more entertaining for it, M3GAN is the rare horror-comedy that delivers chuckles as effortlessly as chills.

As long as you aren't looking for something truly scary -- or even surprising -- M3GAN is often a lot of fun.

Critics Reviews

Audience reviews, cast & crew.

Gerard Johnstone

Allison Williams

Violet McGraw

Ronny Chieng

Brian Jordan Alvarez

Jen Van Epps

Movie Clips

More like this, related movie news.