A ridiculous, yet strangely compelling horror-comedy that, unfortunately, delivers on the laughs more than it does the scares.

From the moment that I saw the trailer for this movie I knew it was going to be ridiculous in all the best ways. M3GAN does not in any way take itself serious and often cracks jokes at how nonsensical its own plot is. While nothing about the plot is surprising what did surprise me is that this movie's humor works well. There were quite a few times throughout the movie that characters did unexpected things which resulted in laughs from the audience I was a part of. M3GAN learning about the world and starting off as a harmless revolutionary toy and then turning into a sinister AI killing machine was just as interesting as it sounds.
The problem with M3GAN is it might be too funny for its own good. While I enjoyed much of the humor in this movie it took all of the scare factor away from what is an admittedly scary premise. This movie is just not scary at all, there is one cheap jump scare that will probably get most viewers, but the movie definitely feels watered down to appeal to a wider audience. What's here is solid but I can't help but feel that there is a really good R rated version of this movie that ups the gore and violence, a version of this movie that truly makes M3GAN a horror icon. The other issue this movie has is that it is a story that has been done before and done better. The comparisons between this and Child's Play are easily apparent, except Child's Play did this same story over 30 years ago. Even in the less popular Child's Play reboot from 2019 we already got an AI gone wrong version of the toy doll. So, while this first M3GAN movie is a good start I don't see how it does anything new moving forward or if it will have the staying power something like Child's Play has. M3GAN has taken the internet by storm by serving looks, being sassy and dancing better than she has any right to, but what they do with the character moving forward is what I'm more interested in.
M3GAN is a film that is exactly what I expected it to be and nothing more. I was entertained throughout its runtime even if I did have problems with the movie seemingly being watered down. My biggest takeaway from the movie is that it has a lot of potential moving forward as a franchise. M3GAN gave the world a few memorable scenes and I hope that a potential sequel will birth a new horror icon.

-Sheldon Bradford