Harefooted Halloween: M3gan

What I Liked: M3gan’s design is fairly disturbing.  The uncanny valley face, the large pale dead eyes, the pursed lips, the rubbery complexion, she’s really tall for a doll at four feet and etc.  The part that puts her over the top though are the clothes, and to a lesser extent her hair style.  They’re aggressively hideously 70’s and I swear that’s what contributes at least fifty percent to her unsettling appearance.  And to be clear all these choices are intentional for a horror movie.  At least I think so.  If she’s supposed to look cute, cuddly and unassuming then I don’t know what the fuck the filmmakers were thinking.

What I Didn’t like: The biggest issue is the pacing.  It takes so long for anything to happen and when M3gan finally strikes it’s another long stretch before we get to the next event.  We spend a ton of time with this aunt and her niece awkwardly developing a relationship after the kid’s parents die and it’s just not very interesting or captivating.  Even when M3gan is introduced we hang on this new relationship for a long while to hammer home how strained things have become due to the robot basically replacing the aunt.  While there’s some tension building most of the action is crammed into the last twenty mins or so.  It’s not a lengthy movie either at only around an hour forty but damn does it drag.

Unfortunately M3gan doesn’t have much of a personality.  In the beginning she starts out as a somewhat stiff friend and slightly terse babysitter and later with the evil turn she becomes a full on pompous asshole.  Her character is largely her outdated wardrobe and waxy face.  She’s also too human with her plotting to take over the family and speaking in sinister sayings.  We see that she can tap into other devices to take control of them but this isn’t used in any meaningful way.  She can move all weirdly spider-like by crawling on all fours and do flips and whatever but again, she only busts them out to intimidate or show off.  The infamous dance scene is meant to distract her target while she creates a makeshift machete from a table top paper slicer but she could’ve ran up to the guy and crushed his throat with her speed and strength.  Yea I know the dance is for entertainment value and I’m supposed to shut up and soak in the fun but I can’t help being annoying by some of this stuff.

Alright this is a weird thing to bring up but there’s no mystery or wonder as to how the filmmakers brought M3gan to life.  She’s obviously just a person in a costume most of the time which does have a certain creep factor because her movements seem too smooth for a machine.  However, there aren’t moments when I didn’t understand what effects they were using or how they achieved a certain shot.  The end result is it makes the film feel oddly cheap.

Overall Impressions: Honestly I don’t exactly get why this was such a big hit with audiences and critics.  Sure, the story is very straight forward and M3gan herself is a bit memorable for having an off-putting appearance and performing some wacky movements in two scenes.  But other than that I’m kinda scratching my head.  The movie is a real slow burn which audiences don’t usually respond great to, the film doesn’t stand out in any particular area of production nor does it do anything unique with the killer doll concept.  The plot is almost exactly the same as the 2019 Child’s Play (including opening with a fake toy commercial).  And while I’m not a huge fan of that picture it’s at least better looking, has a well executed setup and the doll fully uses its ability to control other machines as a method of attack.

So why was M3gan a smash and the 2019 Child’s Play a flop?  The single biggest reason could be as simple as M3gan being a much less gory and violent PG-13.  I’m sure other factors like the doll being a girl this time and the niece being a more appropriate age for the toy played into its success as well.

This one didn’t get me though.  It’s just very whatever.