Do you ever walk out of a movie theater and think to yourself, “What the heck did I just watch?” Well, this happened to me when I saw the movie M3GAN.
As the world continues to advance in technology, the concept of M3GAN is pretty realistic: M3GAN is a children’s toy that is a life-sized robot made to serve as a child’s best friend. Like in a lot of movies based on artificial intelligence, we learn that this ideal toy has a demented side to it.
After her parents died in a car crash, Cady moves to live with her Aunt Gemma. Gemma is a creator for a popular children’s toy manufacturer, and she attempts to construct the perfect children’s toy: M3GAN. M3GAN is capable of helping children learn and grow, while also serving as a companion for a child. Cady is paired with M3GAN, and the toy company is so fascinated by M3GAN that they decide to launch the toy.
After M3GAN is told to protect Cady at all costs, she takes this assignment very seriously, and does some pretty unimaginable things to ensure Cady’s safety. Gemma comes to realize that M3GAN is seriously hurting people and tries to permanently shut her down.
M3GAN was released last year and is still currently only in theaters. As someone who isn’t the biggest fan of AI films, I think that Gerard Johnstone, the director, did a good job with what he had overall making the audience fearful of M3GAN.
Throughout the entire movie, my eyes were glued to the screen. As the plot of the film unfolded, new surprises presented themselves which kept the audience locked in. While some of these moments were predictable, they still kept me wondering what would happen next in the entire film.
The overall mood of the film was pretty dark and dreary, which emphasized the danger of M3GAN herself. I really like the look of M3GAN because there was a good balance between robotic and realistic human features. Her overall mannerisms were super creepy, and I think that Amir Donald, who played her, did a great job at embodying what the character was meant to be.
While I thought M3GAN was acted well, the rest of the acting really lacking throughout the entire film. It wasn’t very professional across all of the characters, and it was hard to tell whether or not they were being serious. It was at moments like these that the entire audience began to laugh because it felt like the actors were making a joke.
In terms of the cinematography, I enjoyed the different camera angles that were used throughout the film. There were a lot of close up on characters which did add to the seriousness of all of it, and when M3GAN was on camera, the different shots used to show her made her persona even more creepy. At times the camera was a little shaky, and I couldn’t tell if this was on purpose or not.
I do think that M3GAN is a really good movie, but I would wait to watch it at home as I don’t think it’s worth running to the theaters right now. Overall, I really enjoyed the film and thought it had a great lesson about watching what we do with AI in the future.
This story was written by Phoebe Goebel. She can be reached at [email protected].
