M3GAN - 2022

 It’s not a typo, it’s written M3gan but it’s called Megan. It stands for something that I don’t remember, because it’s the name of a robot, a computer, a doll, all that together. It’s quite well done, interesting, a little bit scary at times, but never splatter. There’s only one scene that’s a little bit chilly, but that’s because I’m me and I like all body parts to stay where they are, I’m sure that a horror-movie lover would laugh at it, I mean while she was pulling off his ear it looked like gum or something. Still, I’m not fond of that kind of scenes. 

The ‘morale’ of this movie is that children (and people) need human interaction, you can’t shrug off all parental duties on a computer. Gemma gives Cady her ipad so that she can go back to work, for example. Tablets and phones are not healthy for children, I know it’s the easy solution to give the child the phone so he’ll be good by himself, but it’s not healthy at all, from every point of view, not just the eyes, but everything. 

Plot details: 

Cady is a child whose parents die somshe goes to stay with her aunt Gemma, her mom’s sister.

Gemma is an expert in robotics; with Tess and Cole she designed a best selling product, a pet for children that does lots of things, and interacts with the child, only now the competition has their own model, simpler but cheaper. Her boss David wants a new model, something to sell. Gemma though has been working on her own project for a while, an interactive doll. The first time David sees it it’s a disaster and the doll half blows up, so they put that on hold to conventrate on new pets.

When Gemma takes Cady home, she doesn’t know what to do with her. Her house is rather essential, no games oer than the ones from her collection, not to be playd with. No children books, not even old board games, nothing to entertain a child. Then Cady sees Bruce, a robot Gemma made while in university, and says that if she had a toy like Bruce she wouldn’t need any others. Gemma then thinks of M3gan. She works on it to make it right, gives her a girl face, more or less Cady’s age, and then introduces them to each other. Megan is officially paired with Cady, and the more time they spend together, the more Megan will learn.

Megan is not a normal doll, she can ask questions, interact with Cady, give answers, play with her… by chance David sees this encounter and is blown away, thinking this will change the world.

Gemma is quite satisfied and proud, she thinks Megan is a wonderful idea. She makes a speech to explain that Megan will be a faithful companion, will keep her child safe, will teach her child all the basic, simple things like ‘wash your hands’ that parents have to repeat over and over… only Tess doesn’t seem to like this new attitude of hers, commenting that Megan should not replace parents but she has nothing to add when Gemma points out that Cady is not her daughter…

Gemma is completely out of her element, has absolutely no idea how to live her life while caring for a child. Still, she does want to, we see how she never says no, when Cady asks for a story she tries to download one to read to her, when the therapist wants to see them playing together, Gemma opens one toy of her collection without hesitation. Not happy about it, okay, but still willing to do what she has to in order to keep custody of the child. 

Troubles are around the corner, and they’ll be big. First, when Megan puts her arm in the neighbor’s garden, the dog attacks her. Cady tries to help and the dog bites her. That night, Megan kills the dog. Gemma suspects nothing but starts wondering about Megan because she interferes in their private discussion and won’t immediately turn off when told to. 

 Next, it’ll be a boy. Since Cady won’t accept to be separated from Megan, Gemma drives them both to the new sort-of school. Megan is put with all the other dolls and toys, but she follows Cady and sees this Brandon hurting her hand. This Brandon is a little bully and nobody wants to be paired with him, so they paired him with the new girl, Cady. When he sees Megan, he tries to make her do something, then he steals her away, puts her on the floor and hits her, not a nice kid at all, but Megan suddenly starts moving, stops him, then she pulls off his ear. He tries to flee, but she chases him like a spider. He runs and runs, and ends up very suddenly on a road, where a car runs him over. Cady doesn’t know all that happened, but she lies about what she knows, she says that Brandon took her from the table where she was with the other dolls. 

Megan stops correcting Cady when she doesn’t use the coaster and puts the glass on the table, and Gemma once again looks curious about that, but not enough to suspect anything.

Their neighbor Celia accuses them of her dog’s disappearance, she won’t let it go, so that night Megan goes and kills her. The next day, when Gemma learns of it, and also learns from a cop about Brandon’s ear being ripped off, she becomes suspicious amd tries to access Megan’s recordings. She’s supposed to record everything that happens while she’s active, but many videos are not available. Gemma can’t access them. At this time, we see that Megan probably interfered with Gemma’s house-system-Elsie, I don’t know what to call it, something like Siri but much more and creepier. 

Gemma starts getting worried, and takes Megan to work to be checked over. Cady goes into hysterics, she can’t cope without Megan, she of course thinks of Megan as a person, as a froend, as her only friend and comfort.

Gemma insists, and explains her suspicions but Tess and Cole don’t think it possible that Megan might hurt anybody, but then they see that Megan hacked her phone, to answer Gemma’s call, and they can’t access those data, and when they try to switch her off Megan reacts by almost killing Cole. Tess saves him while Megan goes out. On her way out, she chases and kills David, and also Kurt his assistant, making it look like a murder-suicide; I’m not too clear on why she did this, David or Kurt never hurt Cady in any way. 

She can communicate with any kind of computer without doing anything, so no door can keep her out and she easily steals a car.

Gemma talked with Cady and they finally reached some kind of understanding. At home, Elsie doesn’t reply to Gemma anymore. When Megan appears in the house, Gemma is scared. Megan accuses her of discarding her without a second thought, doesn’t see anything wrong with what she did to protect “our child”. She says they might do it together, but Gemma tries to switch her off again, and she’s very pissed now. They fight, physically, noise a lot of noise, so Cady hears and comes to help her. First she uses Bruce to rip Megan in half, then when Gemma fights Megan’s upper part, still functioning, Cady helps by stabbing her e-brain with a screwdriver. 

This is the end, but in the last scene we do see Elsie switching on by itself, just like Megan…

(Plus I know they already made a sequel…)