Move over Chucky. There’s a new killer toy in town and her name is M3GAN.

She’s a living doll not to be toyed with.

First, let me just say that M3GAN is simply fantastic and without a doubt the best movie of the year. Granted, the year is less than a week old. But still, director Gerrard Johnstone has cobbled together a killer toy story that is creepy, scary cool and has the good sense to pack it’s thrills, chills and kills into a sit-through-able 1 hour and 42 minutes.

M3GAN, short for Model 3 Generative Android, the character, is state of the art next generation artificial intelligence. “She’s” a life-like doll programmed to be a little girl’s best friend, guardian and a parent’s stand-in when mommy needs to wind down with some wine time. Designed by the fictitious toy company Funki’s top roboticist Gemma (smartly played by Allison “Get Out” Williams) M3GAN is all eager ears, sparkly eyes and quick on the uptick as she becomes BFF, tutor and bodyguard to whatever spoiled little darling is lucky enough to be her paired with her as her primary user. Parental overrides not included. Oopsie…

So, when Gemma suddenly has to assume custody of her orphaned 8-year-old niece Cady, (very well played by Violet “The Haunting of Hill House” McGraw) she feels overwhelmed, unprepared and a little pissed off about having her work/life balance and social calendar thrown off kilter. No more Tinder messages for you, little missy.

Under intense deadline and budget pressure at work, Gemma gets the brilliant (or at least it seemed so at the time) idea to introduce her M3GAN prototype to Cady. And faster than you can say fart knocker, new parenting problems solved. But not for long, since things have to go from all’s well to bloody hell in under two hours.

Without giving too much away (I’ll let the trailer below do that) I will say that M3GAN was better than expected. The combination of special effects and live action make it easy to forget that there’s an actual kid in a costume (nimbly performed by Amie Donald and expertly voiced by Jenna Davis) splattering all that red on the silver screen. Speaking of blood, M3GAN amasses a pretty high body count for a PG-13 picture. Something parents more responsible than Gemma may want to think about before bringing their own little ones out to the multiplex for a Saturday matinee of movie night.

In conclusion, like the headline of this review reads, think of M3GAN as a well mannered, better dressed Chucky of Child’s Play infamy. She’s sugar and spice and quite polite. But much like Talking Tina from the Twilight Zone, you definitely want to stay on her good side.

Thanks a Hell of a lot for reading. If you enjoyed the ride, please peruse the other raves and tirades on my Movie Reviews list.

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© 2023 by Spyder Darling