M3GAN Review

I’m 100% confident that M3GAN was ALWAYS going to be the film that got me back into regularly going to the movies. Not only was I -- like the majority of the internet -- enthralled by the trailer cuts of her dancing before casually stalking a victim while they ran for their lives, but seeing the reactions to everyone who saw the film during special screenings and the now more commonplace Thursday night screenings finally made the switch in my brain to want to watch this as soon as possible flick on, and the only way I could do that was to watch it in theaters.

And boy am I glad I did.

As the trailers show, Cady lost both of her parents in a car accident and goes to live with her aunt on her mother’s side named Gemma, a roboticist who works for a toy company. And while we see that Gemma struggles with forming an interpersonal relationship with Cady because she’s more so dedicated to her field of work in the original trailer -- thus, the reason she had Cady pair with M3GAN once she and her team were reinspired to complete her -- we see the full extent of how she views Cady early on in the movie.

While she wants to be supportive because she also lost her apparently beloved sister and brother-in-law, there’s a disconnect because she doesn’t know the first thing about comforting a child while going through the same form of grief. She wants to retain guardianship of Cady when the therapist begins her evaluation, but grows uncomfortable when she’s being pressured to disturb her already established sense of normalcy in order to prove that she’s capable.

It’s clear throughout the first act of the movie that Gemma was absolutely fine with just being Cady’s rich single aunt who doesn’t want children of her own because she can just gift Cady things on birthdays and holidays and love her from a distance. Just living out her meme-ified Bayonetta fantasies, except she’s not in a romantic relationship with another woman to properly unleash the gift reckoning on Christmas because of their double-income, no kids status. It’s all her.

This was the avenue that I was both interested in seeing how the writing of the movie handled the most. Because while this is a feat that Gemma needs to get over now that she’s been placed in this scenario that I’m absolutely sure both her and her sister thought would never truly happen, the handing off of Cady to M3GAN because she has the capabilities of doing the job you never wanted in the first place can both prove to lead to some dangerous levels of unintentional codependency, and serve as a character development hurdle for Gemma to overcome in realizing that because she truly wants to be Cady’s guardian that she needs to be there for her in every aspect of her grief and eventual healing.

Both of these angles I thought the movie handled very well without diving into the conservative preachiness of choosing children over your career. A focal point that, thanks to the overturning of Roe V. Wade, I was worried was going to be taken into account in more ways than just M3GAN trying to get into Gemma’s head.

Thankfully, this movie was written by The Nun 2 and Malignant writer Akela Cooper, a black woman who understands what it means to truly be pro-choice and adapted that philosophy into the film in a way that, I believe, doesn’t alienate individuals who live, support, or aim to one day accomplish Gemma’s initial decision of focusing on herself as depicted in the first act and the first half of the second.

And Allison Williams -- who I didn’t even realize was the girlfriend from “Get Out” until I was preparing to leave to go to the AMC to watch this movie -- does a great job at projecting that initial comfortability and the disturbance Cady brings to it, all while juggling her initial desire to want to be Cady’s guardian and seeing what’s happening to her upon making the decision to have M3GAN be her only support to get through Cady’s grief instead of herself.

Now that’s not to say that I don’t look at M3GAN as nothing more than a developmental hurdle for Gemma and Cady to jump over, because there’s so much to unpack regarding what she brings to the overall narrative. Of course, M3GAN’s personality and her overprotectiveness of Cady is the reason why the film is declared a black comedy horror in the first place. While the line delivery was quick, witty, and their one use of the word “fuck” because of its PG-13 rating was perfection, the way she moved on camera also played a huge factor into both the enjoyment and eeriness of the character.

There was so much care and precision in order to make sure every turn, strut, flip and narrowed eye was delivered flawlessly. While everyone immediately refers to the way she walked down the hallway after the dance performance that immediately made her a queer icon in the first trailer, my favorite display of her was how smoothly she went from power hose to aiming with a nail gun after only seeing clips of the transition in the trailer.

And while Akela Cooper states that there’s elements of the concept of found family in the movie that helps establish a less superficial connection to M3GAN with the LGBTQIA+ community according to individuals within her circle that she asked, I personally sensed criticisms of more problematic elements that are reinforced within members of the community. Quickly becoming overly attached to individuals without putting in the proper amount of work to truly get to know an individual first being one of them.

All this to say that I’m glad that out of all the films to choose going back to the movies in 2023, M3GAN was the one I started with first. I’m extremely glad and relieved that the themes of Gemma learning how to interpersonally connect with her niece Cady in a way for both of them to properly grow were explored without condemning individuals who don’t want to have children, and loved every minute of interaction with M3GAN as both an antagonist and yet another reflection of queerness that individuals can claim. While I was surprised to see that the film was PG-13, I cannot deny after seeing it for myself that it works, and I honestly cannot wait for the unrated version of the film that was announced by Akela Cooper during the writing of this review.

That, along with its well-deserved upcoming sequel.