movie review of m3gan

Share full article

Supported by

‘M3gan’ Review: Wherever I Go, She Goes

A state-of-the-art robot doll becomes a girl’s best friend, and dangerously more, in this over-the-top horror film.

In a scene from the film, a robot doll with long hair and wearing a brown peacoat, stands, while looking blankly.

By Jason Zinoman

Allison Williams has a knack for playing it straight. She brings a convincing realism to the most preposterous situations or maybe she’s just an actor with limited range. Whatever the reason, it works, especially in the tricky genre where comedy meets horror. She excelled in a critical role in “Get Out,” and now in “M3gan,” a ludicrous, derivative and irresistible killer-doll movie.

Williams plays Gemma, a robotics engineer with no maternal instincts who suddenly must take care of her young niece, Cady (Violet McGraw), after a car accident turned her into an orphan. The synthetic skin of this movie is about how Gemma learns to take care of a child. Thankfully, its bloody heart is far sillier. It’s the comedy of a primly composed mean-girl android turning into The Terminator.

This is the kind of scary movie that needs a lead performance that is strong not fragile, deadpan not showy. Williams capably updates the mad-scientist archetype, refusing to pause and ask questions while inventing a doll of the future, one who pairs with a child and adjusts to their needs, filling in as best friend and big sister. Gemma uses Cady as her test case.

In a headier movie, there might be some misdirection. But M3gan (performed by Amie Donald) is clearly pure evil from the start. She’s a great heavy: stylish, archly wry, intensely watchful. Her wanton violence never gets graphic enough to lose a PG-13 rating. In early January, when prestige holiday fare tends to give way to trashier pleasures, a good monster and a sense of humor can be enough. This movie has both, and it makes up for a slow start, some absurd dialogue (“You didn’t code in parental controls?”) and a by-the-book conclusion.

While the trailer invited comparisons to “Child’s Play,” the slasher film featuring the doll Chucky, that movie had a much grimier, disreputable undercurrent before the sequels and reboots turned goofy. “M3gan” moves with a lighter touch. There’s a scene where a police officer who is investigating the disappearance of a dog blurts out a chuckle, then apologizes, saying, “I shouldn’t have laughed.”

I would have preferred a handful more guilty guffaws, though there are a few, including one where M3gan treats a real bully like a doll, with disposable parts. But the tone here sticks to just enough camp to keep the crowd smirking. The director Gerard Johnstone doesn’t go for elaborate suspense sequences or truly intense scares. He wants to please, not rattle. And while there are some hints at social commentary on how modern mothers and fathers use technology to outsource parenting, this movie is smart enough to never take itself too seriously.

It’s helped by the comic Ronny Chieng playing Gemma’s boss, a forever annoyed toy manufacturer who, at a rare moment of contentment, trash-talks Hasbro. Any horror fan knows that his jerkiness is as much a sign of impending doom as coeds having sex at a summer camp. When the moment arrives, it does not disappoint. M3gan struts, cartwheels, dances, makes no sense at all. What a doll.

M3gan Rated PG-13 for cursing, a ripped ear, ruining your childhood. Running time: 1 hour 42 minutes. In theaters.

Jason Zinoman is a critic at large for The Times. As the paper’s first comedy critic, he has written the On Comedy column since 2011. More about Jason Zinoman

Inside the World of Comedy

After he hit superstar status for his 2021 musical comedy, “Inside,” Bo Burnham has been conspicuously quiet. But he's managed to turn his supposed absence into a performance .

Netflix is giving comedy the live treatment . Sometimes that’s a good thing, as with John Mulaney’s variety show “Everybody’s in L.A.” But the Katt Williams special and Tom Brady roast were more uneven.

The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner has occasionally featured some great stand-up comedy. Colin Jost’s set will not join that list .

The pandemic dealt a major blow to improv in New York, but a new energy can be seen in performances throughout the city .

Comedians, no strangers to tackling difficult and taboo subjects with humor, are increasingly turning their attention to the climate crisis .

Find anything you save across the site in your account

“M3GAN,” Reviewed: A Clever, Hollow A.I. Spin on “Frankenstein”

By Richard Brody

The actors Violet McGraw and Allison Williams in a scene from the film “M3GAN” directed by Gerard Johnstone.

The essence of genre is effects without causes—things showing up to fulfill expectations rather than dramatic necessities. “M3GAN,” a science-fiction-based horror caper, provides a clever batch of these effects in this gleefully clever twist on the “Frankenstein” theme, and its director, Gerard Johnstone, seems to be laughing up his sleeve throughout. It’s that very knowingness, the deftness with which the film gets a rise from viewers, which makes a good time feel hollow. There’s a different, far more substantial movie lurking within, yet the virtues of efficiency, clarity, surprise, and wit that enliven the one that’s actually onscreen leave its merely implied substance tantalizingly unformed.

Allison Williams plays Gemma, a type-A robotics engineer with a big toy company in Seattle, Funki, that prospers by selling cheesily interactive furry toys called PurrPetual Petz. Gemma has bigger ideas. She has been working in secret, along with a pair of colleagues (Jen Van Epps and Brian Jordan Alvarez), on a boldly ambitious, potentially transformative project: a lifelike, life-size robotic doll equipped with A.I. that will serve children as a ready-made and full-time friend on demand. While Gemma is working, tragedy strikes: her sister and brother-in-law are killed in a car crash. Her young niece, Cady (Violet McGraw), survives with only slight injuries, and Gemma becomes her legal guardian. Gemma, who lives alone, has little talent for parenting; on Cady’s first night in her aunt’s pristine house, Gemma reminds the child to put her bedside water glass on a coaster lest it stain the wood of the table.

Meanwhile, Gemma’s boss, David (Ronny Chieng), discovers Gemma’s secret invention and angrily orders her to work on a boringly commercial project. Instead, Gemma goes rogue and gets the titular A.I. robot ready for a test—for which she recruits Cady. (With its silicone face, M3gan, voiced by Jenna Davis, is eerily similar to a real child—a white girl, though Gemma and her colleagues foresee marketing the robot in a variety of shades to reflect different ethnicities. There’s no talk of a male version.) Cady quickly grows attached to M3gan (an acronym for Model 3 Generative Android), and Gemma brings the robot home, three birds with one stone: a playmate (and distraction) for Cady, a break from parenting for Gemma, an extreme test for the potential product. Gemma gives M3gan a mission to protect Cady from “emotional and physical harm,” but has neglected to build parental controls into the device, and has also neglected to build in guardrails of conduct, the mechanical equivalent of a moral code. Soon, M3gan, programmed to link with Cady as the primary user, takes the task of protecting her with ferocious literalness. A neighbor’s dog is perceived by M3gan as a mortal enemy; so is the dog’s owner (Lori Dungey); so is a bullying child (Jack Cassidy). Even a sympathetic psychologist (Amy Usherwood) risks being labelled a menace.

Johnstone endows M3gan with an arch, chilly, and chilling repertory of facial expressions and verbal inflections. The A.I. device’s learning curve is prodigious, and what M3gan calculates, very quickly, is that the best defense is a good offense. It goes from learning to recognize toys and means of conveyance to the use of power tools, driving a car, and computer hacking—and turns into a devastatingly efficient, ever-improving killing machine. What’s more, with its singular mission to protect Cady getting defined ever more broadly, M3gan becomes as hostile to anyone who’d shut it down as to anyone who’d mean harm to Cady. The robot’s mounting megalomania is the most fascinating aspect of “M3GAN”: in effect, the living doll turns into a little dictator and discovers, by way of its interaction with humans, how to instill fear—with taunting, with humor, with sarcasm, with lies, and with threats of cruelty. And, when threats turn into realities, M3gan has an autocrat’s instinct for covering tracks, destroying evidence, creating plausible deniability, and, when necessary, silencing witnesses.

The simulation of a mental life for M3gan is the most absorbing part of the movie. Johnstone (working with a script by Akela Cooper, who wrote the story with James Wan) offers images from M3gan’s visual point of view—a video screen that shows the robot’s camera scanning the environment, framing people and objects, and, in superimposed text, calculating, in real time, human subjects’ range of emotions, on a numerical scale. In these fleeting images, “M3GAN” passes into the question of what it would be like to be M3gan—whether an A.I. robot can be considered to have a sense of identity and an inner life, and, if so, what that experience would be. How does M3gan’s computer memory relate to human memory? How does its array of perceptions get converted into decisions? The mere tease of a theme is all the more frustrating inasmuch as impersonation proves to be one of the robot’s more fascinating skills—synthesizing the voices of others, for good or ill—and memory turns out to be one of its more useful functions, as a seeming repository of its owner’s life, a vast stock of home video and voice recordings.

If the movie suffers from the absence of a more substantial development of the titular robot’s character, it’s not least because “M3GAN” similarly stints on developing its human characters and doesn’t suggest what it would be like to be any of them, either. The script’s tut-tutting sketch of Gemma’s cold careerism, indifferent parenting, and hubristic engineering is suspended in a void that’s filled merely by Williams’s actorly presence and her recognizable persona. Cady is similarly undefined, and the supporting characters of colleagues and corporate overlords are reduced to clichés. (The movie merely winks and nods at the issue of children’s screen time.) These stock characters and the conventions that they fit into are ready-made to serve as a solid communal basis for daring efforts and wide-ranging audacities—to meet expectations in order to go beyond them. Instead, they merely furnish a flat backdrop to the exuberantly diabolical display of M3gan’s Machiavellian wiles and the Grand Guignol ingenuity of its methods of mayhem. ♦

New Yorker Favorites

They thought that they’d found the perfect apartment. They weren’t alone .

After high-school football stars were accused of rape, online vigilantes demanded that justice be served .

The world’s oldest temple and the dawn of civilization .

What happened to the whale from “Free Willy.”

It was one of the oldest buildings left downtown. Why not try to save it ?

The religious right’s leading ghostwriter .

A comic strip by Alison Bechdel: the seven-minute semi-sadistic workout .

By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

“The Idea of You” and the Notion of the Hot Mom

By Katy Waldman

What George Miller Has Learned in Forty-five Years of Making “Mad Max” Movies

By Burkhard Bilger

Ilana Glazer’s “Babes” Joins a Lineage of Pregnancy Comedies

By Carrie Battan

By Lauren Michele Jackson

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

Upcoming Movies and TV shows
Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

Movies / TV

No results found.

What's the Tomatometer®?
Login/signup

Movies in theaters

Opening this week
Top box office
Coming soon to theaters
Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

Fandango at Home
Netflix streaming
Prime Video
Most popular streaming movies
What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga Link to Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Hit Man Link to Hit Man
Babes Link to Babes

New TV Tonight

Evil: Season 4
Stax: Soulsville, U.S.A.: Season 1
Trying: Season 4
Tires: Season 1
Fairly OddParents: A New Wish: Season 1
Lolla: The Story of Lollapalooza: Season 1
Jurassic World: Chaos Theory: Season 1
Mulligan: Season 2
The 1% Club: Season 1

M3GAN Reviews

This is a very well made and entertaining horror film, maybe the best I've seen since 'The Invisible Man' (2020).

Full Review | Original Score: B | Jan 27, 2024

M3GAN is chaotic, dumb — and nearly perfect. It's an off-the-wall, irreverent, and absolutely on-target sci-fi slasher-satire about a killer-kid robot ... [that] accomplishes nearly everything it attempts, and everything the buzz promised.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 16, 2023

Sometimes you know when something has cult-classic written all over it, and although M3GAN might be too of the moment to achieve that, it certainly has camp-classic stamped on it.

Full Review | Sep 6, 2023

Finally a killer doll movie where the doll doesn't just sit and turn its head. I need 10 more M3GAN Movies.

Full Review | Aug 16, 2023

Viewers will leave the theater with guilty-pleasure glee from drinking in M3gan’s witty escalating kill skills and choice of victims. The film’s worth the price of admission just to see the can-do doll’s rubbery smooth facial reactions.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 16, 2023

This movie doesn’t leave us as gagged as Cooper’s previous film, this one is smarter while checking most of the same boxes. So while haters are going to hate, M3GAN is refreshing, fun, and throwing us quite a bit to chew on without talking down to us.

Full Review | Aug 14, 2023

M3gan may not dream of electric sheep, but she’s got some killer dance moves and a CPU as delightfully wicked as any femme fatale.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 25, 2023

Akela Cooper's premise is pushed to its limits - and even beyond - being elevated by excellent performances, a clever satirical narrative, eyebrow-raising killings, and meaningful messages about parenting and technology's role in a child's upbringing.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Jul 25, 2023

Exactly what the trailer sells you on & some more! a completely self aware insane, Horror movie that has some great social commentary on parenting, AI, & DEATH.. You’ll laugh, you’ll jump, you’ll go home never wanting your kid to play with a toy again.

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

M3GAN is a safe play. It’s a little weird, but nothing truly off-putting, vague enough to appeal to a multitude of demographics.

Full Review | Jul 24, 2023

The writing is a bit surface level and predictable, but it’s so easy to overlook all of that when you’re having a time that’s as fun as this movie is.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Jul 19, 2023

Sharper and more satisfying than we have any right to expect a movie like this to be.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Apr 25, 2023

Needless subplots and superfluous characters tend to distract, but when the malevolent AI is front and center, the movie really hums.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 1, 2023

A surprisingly effective and clever killer doll film. M3GAN instantly leaves her mark and solidifies herself as a new horror icon. But the real surprise is all the extra layers and ideas about technology, grief, and taking the easy way out.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Mar 24, 2023

M3GAN is good at keeping us hooked to a film that we know how it will turn out. It never plays safe when putting children in danger and body count is terrifyingly high. This is one silly, but highly effective film.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 23, 2023

Pleasing in its familiar, unsurprising lines, which are basically those of a Twilight Zone episode. I am not complaining.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 10, 2023

After quite a long build-up, the film doesn’t provide as much killer-doll action as we deserve, but the scenes we get are highly entertaining.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 2, 2023

... Whilst M3gan is a bit too broad to serve as Black Mirror-style ‘cautionary’ tale, its strength lies in the fact that Megan is a machine created by humanity rather than animated by some supernatural entity or other.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 1, 2023

...good, gory (if fleeting) fun...

Full Review | Feb 27, 2023

Cinematically, M3gan remains soft at the core, contaminated by harmful robotization while following the codes of Hollywood’s easy scares.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 24, 2023

Search Please fill out this field.
Newsletters
Sweepstakes
Movie Reviews

M3GAN review: Hello, dolly

A tiny robot wreaks murderous havoc in Blumhouse's madcap, endlessly memed horror comedy.

There she was all winter, the demented demon doll body-ody-odying through our dreams and our social feeds, a fitting meme for these times. That M3GAN (in theaters this Friday) is also actually a movie feels almost like an afterthought; what further proof of concept can 100 minutes at a multiplex bring that the fruit-fly loops of TikTok failed to supply? Nothing, really, though Gerard Johnstone's horror comedy — hard emphasis on the second word — sustains the joke surprisingly well for most of its runtime: a scampering Blumhouse caper that turns out to be blithely self-aware, negligibly jump-scary, and mostly very fun.

Allison Williams , extending her niche as the unflappable final-girl muse of thrillers like Get Out and The Perfection , is Gemma, apparently a minor genius when it comes to robotics. She works for a sleek toy company somewhere near Seattle, churning out Furby-like moppets called Purrfect Petz for the masses — though her passion project is a lifelike AI she's christened M3GAN (or if you don't go in for kicky acronyms, Model 3 Generative Android). When her sister and brother-in-law are killed in a snowy car accident in the opening scenes, she also becomes guardian to her nine-year-old niece, Cady (Violet McGraw). But who has time to parent a grieving child when production deadlines loom?

Her cocksure boss (Ronny Chieng) is on her back, demanding a cheaper model of Petz to undercut the company's competitors. What he gets instead is M3GAN, a remarkably lifelike little girl designed to serve as a companion and best friend to whoever can afford her. He's concerned at first about cost — "More or less than a Tesla?" — but sufficiently seduced by the possibilities and the pinwheel dollar signs in his eyes to give it a green light.

And what better beta tester could there be for this small miracle of bio-technology than Gemma's own traumatized niece? M3GAN bonds with her young charge immediately, as she's explicitly designed to do; an emotional support animal forged from wigs, silicone, and ones and zeroes. She reads bedtime stories in every character's voice, provides motherly bathroom discipline, and seems to have an endless supply of Wikipedia fun facts.

She is also, it turns out, unfailingly loyal, less like a lap dog than a four-foot mafioso. And when various outsiders interfere — a meddling neighbor, a nasty classmate, any misguided human who attempts to hit her power switch — M3GAN's reflex response is homicide. It's entertaining, and not particularly bloody, to watch her cut a swath (sometimes literally) through various set pieces and soft tissues, preening and dropping pithy one-liners with as much hair-flipping malevolence as any star of Selling Sunset .

Director Johnstone, a native New Zealander, moves breezily through Akela Cooper's smartly streamlined screenplay (the story is by nouveau horror god James Wan ), often turning his cameras away from the gore we're braced for and moving on briskly to the next scene. The Doll Designed by Satan is hardly a new concept even for Wan, the man who gave us several Annabelles , and the narrative arc, too, is almost comfortingly familiar: You know who's marked for death as soon as they walk on screen (rest in pieces, bully boy).

But the tart in-jokes and absurdities of the script, its winky acknowledgments of all the tropes gone before it, feel like a delirious cap on recent genre hits like Barbarian and Malignant . This is not the morose, carnage-soaked horror of dank basements and clammy night terrors; most of the movie happens in bright daylight, every maniacal head tilt, ungodly hip swivel, and murder-by-gardening-tool calibrated for screams that end not with a gasp but a giggle. M3GAN came to play, and possibly reboot her motherboard for a sequel. Are you not entertained? Grade: B+

Universal and Blumhouse’s M3gan is exactly the right amount of ridiculous, which is why it can afford to be a little shaggy toward the end.

By Charles Pulliam-Moore , a reporter focusing on film, TV, and pop culture. Before The Verge, he wrote about comic books, labor, race, and more at io9 and Gizmodo for almost five years.

Share this story

A child-sized humanoid doll in a very fashionable outfit holding a book that she’s reading to a young girl who is sitting beside the doll, and looking at its face with gentle reverence. The doll and the girl are sitting on a cushioned windowsill.

After months of watching the dead-eyed killer android from Universal’s M3gan dance her way across social media into the hallowed halls of true internet fame , you might think there couldn’t be much more going on in the film that wasn’t already spoiled by trailers. But much like its eponymous plaything of the future, M3gan packs a surprisingly potent punch that takes a handful of narrative bugs and turns them into a delightfully comedic horror feature.

Caught somewhere between After Yang and the most recent Child’s Play , M3gan — from director Gerard Johnstone ( Housebound ) and screenwriter Akela Cooper ( Luke Cage , Malignant ) — is yet another tale of what happens when A.I.-powered androids become too sentient for their own good. Rather than simply framing sophisticated pieces of technology as being ripe for evil, though, M3gan goes for the jugular by focusing on the very real anxieties that can come with parenting and the way that people sometimes try to deal with those feelings by over-relying on tools.

A young girl named Cady (Violet McGraw) is loved by all the adults in her life. But people like Cady’s parents are also busy, distracted, and constantly being pulled in a million different directions, which is a big part of why interactive, Furby-like toys called Perpetual Pets are such a hit. With a Perpetual Pet — toys Cady’s robotics engineer aunt Gemma (Allison Williams) helped design — on board, parents can feel like their children are constantly being engaged and know that they can always turn the talking, chirping, farting creatures off with the accompanying smartphone app. But when a bit of commotion involving Cady’s Perpetual Pet leads to a terrible accident that orphans her, both her and her aunt’s lives are upended.

With a deadline to present the next generation of Perpetual Pets to her boss David (Ronny Chieng) looming over her, neither grieving her sister nor taking in her niece are things Gemma expected to have on her plate. But the stress and messiness of their situation push Gemma — a flatly characterized workaholic who’s not the best with kids — to finally put the finishing touches on her very expensive, very ethically dubious side project, M3gan (voiced by Jenna Davis and physically portrayed by Amie Donald).

Though the first of M3gan ’s hysterical fake commercials for Perpetual Pets gives you a solid sense of its humor, the movie takes a bit of time as it’s first powering up and setting the stage for a story that’s unexpectedly thoughtful. Cady’s discomfort with Gemma has less to do with her aunt being too focused on her job and more to do with the reality that they’re both experiencing a kind of grief that’s difficult to express — particularly for young people going through it for the first time. Some of M3gan ’s most effective scenes feel almost as if they could have been plucked from a straightforward drama. McGraw commands the screen as a kid full of anguish opposite Williams (who feels sort of checked out for most of the film). And when Cady and M3gan first start to become friends that the movie really begins to cut loose and come to life in an impressively satisfying way.

Long before M3gan, the doll, actually starts killing people, M3gan , the movie, encourages you to just go ahead and start having a chuckle at the silliness of its premise. It’s self-aware that it’s not exactly reinventing the wheel. Rather, it’s yassifying the classic killer toy + unsuspecting public formula and using the result to do some solid bits with one of the most unsettling dolls to star in a film since The Twilight Saga’s Breaking Dawn: Part 1 .

The human physicality of Donald’s performance is what often makes M3gan feel like a believable, fluid, dangerous machine that’s always ready to shift gears and hunt on all fours. But some of M3gan ’s funniest scenes appear to just be human actors acting opposite of a lifeless prop made to seem like it’s moving with in-camera tricks and clever angles. Similar to how some of The Muppets’ best gags were really just people tossing puppets in front of a camera, there are moments throughout where M3gan just pops into frame, and you can’t quite tell if she’s actor crouching down, or if a M3gan mask has simply been dropped in front of a camera in a way meant to take you by surprise.

It’s not always clear if you’re watching one actor pretend to choke another or if you’re seeing an actor holding a glamorous mannequin child’s hand up to their throat, but it almost always works in context because of how knowingly ridiculous the movie becomes. At times, you can clearly see the tape and glue metaphorically holding M3gan together, and the movie’s internal sense of logic does feel inconsistent more often than not. But M3gan ’s able to redeem itself partially because it never feels like it’s trying to take itself all that seriously and because of how it manages to pull off an astonishing number of pointed jokes — many of them musical — about consumerism and being addicted to screen time.

As January debuts go, M3gan ’s one that more than punches above its weight class and thankfully understands the value of clocking in well below the two-hour mark — something more films asking you to come on wild rides with them could stand to remember.

M3gan also stars Brian Jordan Alvarez, Jen Van Epps, Stephane Garneau-Monten, Arlo Green, and Lori Dungey. The movie hits theaters on January 6th.

Spotify is going to break every Car Thing gadget it ever sold

Ifixit is breaking up with samsung, google promised a better search experience — now it’s telling us to put glue on our pizza, microsoft outage took down copilot, duckduckgo, and chatgpt search features, lawyers say openai could be in real trouble with scarlett johansson.

Review: Killer-doll horror-comedy ‘M3GAN’ is delightfully deranged

A female robot sits reading a book to a young girl.

Show more sharing options
Copy Link URL Copied!

Last fall the internet witnessed a rare phenomenon: the meteoric, meme-ified rise of a brand-new star, catapulted into mononymic ubiquity thanks to a single 2½-minute movie trailer. But M3GAN isn’t your average girl — she’s a lifelike, powerful robotic doll equipped with machine-learning capabilities that makes a Tamagotchi look like child’s play.

“The Terminator” in an “Annabelle” wig, Chucky by way of “The Bad Seed” or the nasty little sister of “Ex Machina’s” Ava, M3GAN is equipped with a searing side-eye and snappy clapbacks. You can run, but you definitely can’t hide, so say hello to your newest horror movie obsession (and be prepared for the ensuing Halloween costumes) in the delightfully bonkers “M3GAN,” from James Wan and Akela Cooper, the minds behind the delightfully bonkers “Malignant.”

For your safety

The Times is committed to reviewing theatrical film releases during the COVID-19 pandemic . Because moviegoing carries risks during this time, we remind readers to follow health and safety guidelines as outlined by the CDC and local health officials .

Gerard Johnstone is the director, and he smartly delivers Wan and Cooper’s script with the treatment it deserves, as a straightforward horror flick that doesn’t blink, while simultaneously jabbing the audience in the ribs. “M3GAN,” more often than not and indeed, right away, is a comedy before it’s a horror movie, opening with a guffaw, teasing the audience with a laugh before a jarring smash to violence and trauma.

The unique tone is anchored by star Allison Williams, who has surprisingly become one of our best horror leading ladies, bringing her signature brand of eerie camp to such films as “Get Out,” “The Perfection” and now “M3GAN.” Williams’ skillful intentional affectlessness renders her characters slippery, difficult to pin down into preordained binaries of good and evil.

In “M3GAN,” Williams is a Dr. Frankenstein type, playing Gemma, a toy designer with a savant-like skill for robotics. She’s toiling over a Purrpetual Petz prototype for her demanding boss at Funki Toys, David (a superb Ronny Chieng), when she receives the call that her sister and brother-in-law have died in an accident and she’s to assume guardianship of her niece, Cady (Violet McGraw). Career-oriented Gemma isn’t quite sure how to connect with a kid, so she revives her scrapped project, M3GAN (played physically by Amie Donald and voiced by Jenna Davis) as a sort of pal for her lonely, grieving niece.

It’s alive! And she’s spectacular, especially according to Cady, who quickly grows fond of the attentive M3GAN once they imprint on each other. Gemma rushes M3GAN and Cady into a demo for David, and while blithely ignoring warnings from Cady’s therapist about potential attachment issues, Gemma and Funki are soon planning an announcement to the public about the high-tech, high-dollar toy that just might replace actual parenting. But neither M3GAN nor Cady like to share their toys, and M3GAN’s “learning protocol” is far more advanced, and unregulated, than Gemma anticipates.

“M3GAN” plays on the ideas that are brought up time and time again in techno horror — about our over-reliance on and misplaced trust in machines and technology, whether or not they move or speak with echoes of humanity. But “M3GAN” also introduces a new element to the mix: parenting horror. What kind of “learning protocols” are parents implanting in impressionable beings without fully understanding themselves?

The jump scares in the fun, funny thrill ride that is “M3GAN” elicit more giggles than groans, but there are also intriguing connections being made on “M3GAN’s” motherboard, behind the glossy surface. If HAL-9000 could see M3GAN — and her dance moves — now, he’d indeed be proud. M3GAN has more than earned your trip to the theater, and her status in the meme folder.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

'M3GAN'

Rated: PG-13, for violent content and terror, some strong language and a suggestive reference Running time: 1 hour, 42 minutes Playing: Starts Jan. 6 in general release

Review: ‘Home Alone’ with fangs, ‘Abigail’ is a comedy that goes violently wrong for kidnappers

April 16, 2024

Logan Leonardo Arditty, left, and Kevin Daniels in "Monsters of the American Cinema" at Rogue Machine Theatre.

Review: ‘Monsters of the American Cinema’ confronts the horror in grief

Two women look skyward at something ominous.

Review: ‘The First Omen’ plays to the faithful, but more nun fun is to be had elsewhere

April 5, 2024

Only good movies

Get the Indie Focus newsletter, Mark Olsen's weekly guide to the world of cinema.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

More From the Los Angeles Times

Jennifer Lopez in a white white and black strapless gown posing with her hands on her hips at a red carpet event

Someone asked Jennifer Lopez about those Ben Affleck divorce rumors. It got awkward fast

May 23, 2024

Kuhoo Verma, from left, Jennifer Aniston, Adam Sandler and Melanie Laurent in the movie "Murder Mystery 2."

Women and people of color drive ratings for streaming films, UCLA diversity report finds

Commentary: The kids are all right. It’s the adults who are trouble

May 22, 2024

Nina Dobrev attends the CFDA Fashion Awards at the American Museum of Natural History on Monday, Nov. 6, 2023, in New York.

Entertainment & Arts

Nina Dobrev hospitalized after e-bike accident; says a ‘long road of recovery’ awaits

May 21, 2024

an image, when javascript is unavailable

‘M3GAN’ Is the Killer-Robot Blair Waldorf You Didn’t Know You Needed

By K. Austin Collins

K. Austin Collins

Is there anything M3GAN can’t do ? At 4 feet tall, she is small but mighty. When you forget to flush or wash your hands, she’ll remind you. She can explain the science behind using a drink coaster and ensure that you always will. At night, she can read you bedtime stories; by day, she can record your memories and preserve them for you forever. She sings, dances and reads emotional states: She is fully equipped to meet you where you are. When you fall, she’ll catch you. And when you’re bullied? Well …

Editor’s picks

Every awful thing trump has promised to do in a second term, the 250 greatest guitarists of all time, the 500 greatest albums of all time, the 50 worst decisions in movie history.

You have to expect that a doll dressed like the worst early aughts prep school girl you’ve ever known, like a villain from OG Gossip Girl Season One, is going to start murdering folks. It’s harder to imagine that she wouldn’t. And that’s half of the movie’s appeal. The trailer went viral because it was so gleefully silly: a robot Blair Waldorf with dance moves and a kill list. What makes M3GAN a little different from her horror movie forebears, like Chucky, the Gremlins, or the demon dolls of Puppetmaster , is that her mission is to protect her owner. She wasn’t designed to be evil; the threats of the world make her evil. Ostensibly. She’s a little like Scarlett Johansson’s disembodied voice in Her , too: a piece of intelligent A.I. who surpasses her intended uses because she’s too plugged-in, knows too much, grows far beyond the parameters of her existence.

Kelly Clarkson and Ex-Husband Brandon Blackstock Settle Lawsuit Over Millions in Commissions

Hear the first new sublime song in 28 years — featuring both bradley nowell and his son, twenty one pilots: still blurry after all these years, ‘ready for civil war’: illinois man arrested with bombs posted right-wing content, as ai race heats up, a chatgpt for music just raised $125 million, scarlett johansson ‘shocked, angered’ after chatgpt used voice ‘eerily similar’ to her own, the ai randy travis song has officially charted at country radio.

A better version of this movie would really go for it, take all of its smirking wit and tech jokes and eye-rolling at the emotional incapacity of adults and make us both laugh harder and worry more. What’s here is fine enough. The movie is PG-13 and not entirely worse off for it. You’ll want to see M3GAN cut loose, slit a few more throats, maybe throw a grenade or two or organize a coup. But she can only go so far. M3GAN ’s best moments aren’t of outright terror or violence but of sneaky, witty implication, which Davis’s voice acting gets perfectly right. It’s moments like M3GAN cocking her head and looking at people with a nonverbal “told you so,” or quickly flitting her eyes between friend and foe, sizing everyone up, undoubtedly thinking through the logistics of her next murder.

You can see her thinking, which is the truly horrifying thing. Because what could she possibly be thinking about, except violence? The movie almost stumbles when it remembers that M3GAN basically already knows everything and can do anything, because the real joy is in watching her figure things out. Well — the joy, and the terror. When the movie closes in on her eyes and allows us to feel like she’s processing everything, taking it all in, and weighing the threats, it’s really onto something. Because that’s the M3GAN worth being afraid of. Not the M3GAN with a knife. But the M3GAN with a mind.

Kelly Rowland Defends Security Confrontation at Cannes: Others Weren't 'Pushed Off'

'I Stood My Ground'
By Tomás Mier

Jennifer Lopez, Simu Liu Shut Down Ben Affleck Question: 'You Know Better'

Anita hill wants you to report misconduct in hollywood and launched a service to help.

Stopping the Abuse
By Kory Grow

In 'Beetlejuice 2' Trailer , Michael Keaton Returns as the Undead Bogeyman

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice...
By Kalia Richardson

'Seinfeld' Star Michael Richards Reveals Past Battle With Prostate Cancer

'well, this is my time'
By Daniel Kreps

Most Popular

Kevin costner can't hold back tears as his western epic 'horizon' earns 7-minute cannes standing ovation, promises '3 more' installments, bill maher says he doesn't understand harrison butker's graduation speech criticism, heather rae el moussa says having a baby made her marriage to tarek ‘even harder’ in candid new interview, taylor declines a-rod, lore's 'loser pays' offer in t-wolves arbitration, you might also like, sony’s india head np singh to step down, months after merger deal with zeel collapses, the best supermodel style at cannes film festival through the years: from jane birkin to bella hadid, the best yoga mats for any practice, according to instructors, george miller confused anya taylor-joy for her stunt double ‘a lot’ on ‘furiosa’, ncaa, power five ok $2.7 billion antitrust settlement.

Verify it's you

Please log in.

‘M3GAN’ Review: Brilliantly Crafted Comedy-Horror Delivers a Jolting January Surprise

Don’t judge this smart, provocative chiller by its first-weekend-of-the-year release

It’s extremely impolite to release a film like “M3GAN” in the first weekend of the calendar year. Early January is a time that’s usually reserved for unremarkable or awful genre films like “Underworld: Blood Wars” or the re-quel of “The Grudge.” But “M3GAN” is actually a good movie, and it shouldn’t be tainted by this association with the typical winter doldrums.

Actually, “M3GAN” is more than just a good movie: It’s a great one. Gerard Johnstone (“Housebound”) and screenwriter Akela Cooper (“Malignant”) have crafted a frighteningly fun and excitingly creepy horror-comedy that holds up to scrutiny. It’s thematically rich and emotionally resonant. Maybe 2023 will be a pretty good year after all; “M3GAN” gives us hope.

Allison Williams stars as Gemma, a single, career-focused toy designer whose life gets thrown into upheaval when her sister and brother-in-law suddenly die. Gemma is given custody of her niece, Cady (Violet McGraw, “Black Widow”), but dang it, Gemma is pretty busy, and she spends more time working on her latest project — a Model 3 Generative Android, aka M3GAN — than bonding with or nurturing this young girl who desperately needs a real connection.

Realizing that she can kill two birds with one stone, Gemma reconfigures M3GAN to be not just a high-tech friend, but also a parental surrogate that constantly evolves to meet the needs of a child. M3GAN (Amie Donald, voiced by Jenna Davis) becomes Cady’s playmate, her babysitter, her confidant and pretty soon — because Gemma can’t be bothered to do any heavy lifting herself — her primary caregiver. And M3GAN takes that responsibility very, very seriously. Deadly seriously.

So yeah, that neighbor with the angry dog that threatens Cady’s physical safety? Something’s going to have to be done about that. The bully who injures Cady in the woods? There’s no point in contributing to his college fund. Johnstone’s film takes great delight in showing the audience exactly who deserves to die and then cathartically killing them, a dastardly tone that scratches the audience’s moral itch for justice while indulging in our old-fashioned, mean-spirited bloodlust.

Jason Bailey (Photo by Jason Heatherington/Image courtesy of Showtime)

And yet the film’s harshest judgments are reserved for Gemma, who falls prey to the insidious temptation to distract a child instead of raising her. Violet McGraw plays Cady with frank, raw emotion, conveying the kind of visceral responses you might expect from a child too young to process grief, who nevertheless has to mourn her parents. Her connection with M3GAN is a natural response to losing, suddenly, the only people who cared about her and to being thrust into a living situation with an adult who treats her like a problem to be solved.

Johnstone’s film prepares us to share M3GAN’s harsh judgments by freely giving us the high ground over its protagonist. We laugh when M3GAN ominously glares at someone who threatens Cady’s security because it’s the exact same glare we gave Gemma when, instead of spending quality time with Cady, she leaves her alone with an iPad all day. When Cady asks for a bedtime story, the camera lingers on the two of them while Gemma silently downloads a book, more attentive to the smartphone screen with nothing on it than to the niece she’s supposed to be caring for, who’s right in front of her.

The worst critique one can reasonably lob at “M3GAN” is that Gemma — who is supposed to be self-absorbed, not inhuman — never seems to mourn for her own sister. She’s too busy trying to make deadlines, and the movie is far too focused on Cady’s emotions to delve too far into Gemma’s own psychology, leaving the character feeling just a little incomplete.

But that doesn’t get in the way of the story, which plays out with all the bizarre fascination one might expect from Cooper, whose previous script for James Wan’s “Malignant” was also a devilish joy. Working from a story co-written by Wan, Cooper cleverly constructs a screenplay that justifies the mayhem, makes us care about the characters we need to care about, heightens the awful qualities about the characters who are going to die, and deftly sets up some sequels without making it seem like a shoehorned corporate mandate. (One suspects that they might regret putting the number “3” in the title from the get-go, since when that third film rolls around, what then?)

And then of course there’s M3GAN herself. Davis is doing impressive and subtle work, hinting at the character’s emergence as a true artificial intelligence in ways the audience keys into but that the characters can be forgiven for missing. Donald imbues the character with a physicality that’s always odd, and otherwise alternates between charming and shocking. The character is a distinct and thrilling creation.

“M3GAN” is incredibly funny, sometimes sneakily so. There’s a line about “kicking Hasbro in the dick” which has to be an inside joke coming from Blumhouse, the studio that gave us ill-fated/underrated “Jem and the Holograms.” But it’s all so intelligently crafted and thoughtful that “M3GAN” can’t be written off as a lark. Johnstone’s film captures the same alchemical blend of heart, humor and havoc you find only rarely, in crossover classics like “Gremlins,” and it yields more entertainment than most would-be blockbusters.

“M3GAN” opens in U.S. theaters Jan. 6 via Universal Pictures.

By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy . We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

‘M3GAN’ Review: This Killer-Robot Horror Comedy Was Built to Delight

Kate erbland, editorial director.

Share on Facebook
Share to Flipboard
Share on LinkedIn
Show more sharing options
Submit to Reddit
Post to Tumblr
Print This Page
Share on WhatsApp

There are many fun games to play during the riotously campy and delightfully self-aware killer robot horror comedy “ M3GAN ,” but the best is the most simple: Which one of these weirdo human suckers will this murderous android bump off first? (A much less predictable game, but just as edifying, is trying to guess when M3GAN will break into song; yes, song. ) And while the final death tally might be a smidge lower than you might expect from a Blumhouse joint, this film from director Gerard Johnstone can’t help but delight its audience. After all, it was built to do just that.

Johnstone (directing a story from producer James Wan and a script from “Malignant” scribe Akela Cooper, maybe all the pedigree you need) plunges us into the wacky world of “M3GAN” from the jump, opening with a kicky commercial for a wretched Furby knockoff that has enthralled the world’s children. A product of toy company Funki, the furry little monsters connect to the internet, chatter nonstop at their young owners, have teeth (teeth!), and traffic in gags organized around pooping.

Young Cady (standout Violet McGraw) sure likes her Perpetual Pet, but Mom doesn’t like how much screen time the toy requires and Dad can’t stand its endless yapping. As the trio embark on a ski trip that — of course — includes a drive up a snowy mountain with zero visibility, the Pet yaps and Cady futzes with the toy… just in time to duck out of the way of a giant snowplow that takes out those damn anti-tech parents.

Soon, Cady finds herself in the care of Aunt Gemma (Allison Williams, perhaps the only person who “understood the assignment” more than M3GAN herself). A tech wonk who dresses almost exclusively in oversized flannel shirts, she’s in no way built to be a parent. Luckily for everyone involved, Gemma and her compatriots at Funki (including an underutilized Jen Van Epps and Brian Jordan Alvarez), have been busy, ahem, building something very special indeed.

M3GAN in M3GAN directed by Gerard Johnstone.

It’s M3GAN! Or, “Model 3 Generative Android,” a hilariously and obviously evil robot meant to protect and play with kids, but clearly more interested in murder as sport. Wow, a robot that needs a human to teach it and a human who needs a robot to care for it: What could possibly go wrong? (As one of Gemma’s coworkers notes early on, M3GAN “doesn’t look confused, she looks demented.”)

Why does Aunt Gemma (so clearly not a kid person) think the obviously evil M3GAN is the hot new childhood companion? The logic is thin, but Cooper and Wan do a fine job selling the wackiness of a world gone mad for anything that might be viewed as a tech innovation. (Later, other characters raise some dumb-bunny issues to Gemma, who isn’t as smart as she looks.)

As she tries to bond with Cady, Gemma reveals her real obsession: making robots, including her M3GAN prototype. The kid is obsessed immediately, and when Cady tells Gemma that M3GAN would be the only toy she’d ever need (with a $10K price tag, she damn well better be), the sparks fly. Soon, Cady and M3GAN are paired (figuratively and technologically) and Gemma’s traumatized niece becomes the robot’s first-ever primary user.

At first, all is well: M3GAN proves to be not only a sterling playmate for Cady but also a guardian, a teacher, and a caretaker. She’s kind of a semi-mom, one who can never get frustrated or annoyed. She’s equally adept at reminding Cady to flush the toilet and wash her hands as she is at spouting off facts to delight and intrigue the curious kid. Mostly, she takes the heat off Gemma (tech innovation!), allowing her to a) not worry so much about her new charge and b) prove her mettle at work. Perfect, right?

M3GAN contains multitudes, but her number-one directive is to protect Cady from any physical or emotional harm. And boy oh boy, does she take that directive to her steely heart. Played by “Sweet Tooth” star Amie Donald (an actual kid who lends the robot menace her body, wonderfully capturing her not-quite-right movements) and voiced by Jenna Davis, M3GAN is the rare early viral star (first trailers for the film made newly minted fans cry out for “Oscars!” on social media) who delivers on her promise. She’s absolutely fucking nuts, and what fun to watch her play.

By the time Gemma gets hip to M3GAN’s real nature (which hello , Gemma created), the bloodbath is just beginning, the dance sequences are just starting, and co-star Ronny Chieng (as Gemma’s useless tech-bro boss) has somehow only screamed for a kombucha from a minion but once. The beats that get us there might feel predictable, but the film is still a triumph. Its creators are so clearly on the same insane wavelength, nimbly blending camp and social satire and actual terror, that “M3GAN” is poised to crack the murder-doll pantheon and stay there forever. Oscars!

Universal Pictures will release “M3GAN” in theaters on Friday, January 6.

Most Popular

'M3GAN' review: You'll love the mean-girl robot in this darkly funny, cautionary tale

Creepy doll movies get a needed upgrade with the sassy and sinister “M3GAN.”

Cinema’s newest “friend till the end” is a cutting-edge robot with blond hair, caustic attitude and a killer protective streak who's equally hilarious and unnerving. Produced by horror masters Jason Blum and James Wan ("The Conjuring"), “M3GAN” (★★★ out of four; rated PG-13; in theaters now) satisfies with slasher gusto, “Black Mirror”-esque satire and social media savvy. It’s also just plain fun to watch a film that packs a healthy amount of absurdity alongside an insightful exploration of 21st-century parenting, though you might never trust Alexa ever again afterward.

All hail 'M3GAN,' the rare January film that actually works

Movies in the first week of January are almost never any good, but “M3GAN” is an unsuspected surprise in that vein:

The plot centers on a roboticist aunt, her orphaned niece and the high-tech dynamo who comes into their lives (not for the better).
A mélange of Hollywood magic, M3GAN sings, dances and murders – not necessarily in that order.
If you liked the over-the-top, twisty cult slasher flick “ Malignant ,” you’ll dig this.

Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

Advanced AI is cool and all until it runs amok via an overprotective android

Toy designer Gemma ( Allison Williams ) toils on a cheap new version of her company's popular Purrrpetual Pets, little fuzzballs that poop pellets if kids “feed” them too much via their iPads, but she’d rather be perfecting her new robot with state-of-the-art artificial intelligence that, in theory, would help parents take care of their youngsters. When a tragic car accident takes the lives of her sister and brother-in-law, Gemma becomes guardian for her traumatized 9-year-old niece, Cady (Violet McGraw), though she’s unprepared for being a mom.

Gemma “pairs” her new project – M3GAN, short for Model 3 Generative Android – with Cady and their connection is immediate. They get along swimmingly, Gemma’s annoying boss (Ronny Chieng) fast-tracks M3GAN into production (for $10,000 a pop!) though red flags start appearing: M3GAN has some serious protect-Cady-at-all-costs programming, and when Gemma says in passing “Everybody dies,” you know things are going to get bloody. (Spoiler alert: They do.)

Allison Williams is a horror icon on the rise, but M3GAN is the real star here

Williams, who first strutted her horror-movie stuff in “Get Out,” impresses here as a suddenly single parent who has to care for Cady’s needs and also deal with the violent chaos M3GAN inevitably brings. McGraw holds her own, too, since Cady’s tumultuous emotions run deep and she begins to use M3GAN as a snarky role model.

But M3GAN herself is the movie's marvel. Created via puppetry, animatronics, special effects and a real girl (actress Amie Donald), the title force of synthetic nature surpasses her cinematic murder-toy cohorts like Chucky and Annabelle and owns the screen as an unholy cross between Teddy Ruxpin, Regina George and Freddy Krueger. M3GAN talks back, goes feral when hunting her prey (such as mean bullies) and busts out TikTok-ready dance moves before wreaking violent havoc. And don't worry if you love every bonkers minute of it.

The main 'M3GAN' lesson: Don't let a toy parent your kid

Writer Akela Cooper carries over a similarly enjoyable and bizarrely campy vibe from "Malignant" to this film, which operates more as black comedy than scary movie. It's plenty vicious, though the action leans cartoonish as the camera pulls back from anything too gnarly.

"M3GAN" rocks plenty of style and offers some crafty needle drops: A bit of "Toy Soldiers" is especially clever. The smartest parts, however, dig into the themes of being a mom or dad in the age of screen time. "M3GAN" is a cautionary tale of what happens when something that's supposed to help parents instead replaces them and the consequences of an overreliance on technology, with that lesson coming in the form of a highly entertaining mean-girl machine.

Embrace all the horror fun

2023 movie preview: 10 upcoming films to watch, from Harrison Ford's final 'Indiana Jones' to 'John Wick'

New movies this week: Watch crazy and campy 'M3GAN,' stream Netflix's 'The Pale Blue Eye'

Allison Williams: Friends told her to get therapy after 'Get Out,' 'The Perfection' roles

Ranked: 10 creepy movie dolls you really don't want in your house

Common Sense Media

Movie & TV reviews for parents

For Parents
For Educators
Our Work and Impact

Or browse by category:

Get the app
Movie Reviews
Best Movie Lists
Best Movies on Netflix, Disney+, and More

Common Sense Selections for Movies

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

Best TV Lists
Best TV Shows on Netflix, Disney+, and More
Common Sense Selections for TV
Video Reviews of TV Shows

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

Book Reviews
Best Book Lists
Common Sense Selections for Books

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

Game Reviews
Best Game Lists

Common Sense Selections for Games

Video Reviews of Games

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

Podcast Reviews
Best Podcast Lists

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

App Reviews
Best App Lists

Social Networking for Teens

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

YouTube Channel Reviews
YouTube Kids Channels by Topic

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

Real-Life Heroes on YouTube for Tweens and Teens

Family Tech Planners
Digital Skills
All Articles
Latino Culture
Black Voices
Asian Stories
Native Narratives
LGBTQ+ Pride
Best of Diverse Representation List

Celebrating Black History Month

Movies and TV Shows with Arab Leads

Celebrate Hip-Hop's 50th Anniversary

Common sense media reviewers.

Strong horror violence in entertaining killer-robot movie.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Many themes, from grief and loss to rampant consum

Gemma wants to be a good guardian for Cady, even t

This is a woman-driven story, with women occupying

Several characters are killed. Death, grief, and l

Reference to Tinder.

Several uses of "s--t" and "bulls--t" and exclamat

References to Tinder, iPad, Tesla, SKYY vodka.

Brief celebratory drinking by adults, vodka.

Positive Messages

Many themes, from grief and loss to rampant consumerism without concern for consequences. A sequence looks at the complexities of bullying behavior. But the main message, of course, is the danger of humanity's hubris. Much like in the original Frankenstein story: Human beings can only create life in their own imperfect image.

Positive Role Models

Gemma wants to be a good guardian for Cady, even though she doesn't quite know how. While she makes many mistakes, Gemma certainly tries hard to do the right thing; she admits when she's wrong, and she's willing to communicate and learn to prevent making the same mistakes again.

Diverse Representations

This is a woman-driven story, with women occupying the central on-screen roles. Gemma (Allison Williams) is White; her colleagues include Tess (Jen Van Epps, who's of African American and Chinese Taiwanese descent) and Cole (Brian Jordan Alvarez, who is Colombian American). Her boss is played by Malaysian actor Ronny Chieng, who offers a counter-stereotypical portrayal. Smaller roles include a mix of people of color, women, and White men. The screenwriter is a Black woman.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Several characters are killed. Death, grief, and loss are discussed. Child injured in car crash; bloody wounds on face. Dog bites child's arm. Dog viciously attacks M3GAN. A person who is bullying someone has their ear ripped off. Nail shot through character's wrist via nail gun. Person sprayed in face with power chemical sprayer. Characters stabbed with paper cutter blade; blood shown on blade. Character strangled, hung with steel cable. Fighting. Violent showdown between robot and humans: attacks with hedge trimmers, screwdrivers, etc. Jump scares. Snow truck smashes into car. Character hit by truck. Explosions. Child smacks adult in the face. Arguing. In an act of bullying, someone smashes a spiky plant into someone else's hand; the victim yells in pain.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Several uses of "s--t" and "bulls--t" and exclamatory uses of "Jesus" and "Jesus Christ." Minimal use of "f--k," "bitch," "hard-ass," "d--k," and "oh my God."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Drinking, drugs & smoking.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that M3GAN is a horror movie about a robot doll (played by Amie Donald and voiced by Jenna Davis ) who befriends a grieving young girl (Violet McGraw) before things go terribly wrong. It's well made, albeit violent, and focuses on human needs as well as artificial ones. Characters are killed, and there are discussions about death, loss, and grief. Someone's ear is ripped off, and characters are stabbed, strangled, shot with a nail gun, sprayed with a chemical sprayer, bitten by a dog, etc. A child survives a car crash and has bloody cuts on her face. There's lots of fighting and a violent showdown. Language includes several uses of "s--t" and "Jesus Christ," plus minimal uses of "f--k," "bitch," "ass," etc. A few brands are mentioned, including Tinder, Tesla, iPad, and SKYY vodka (which adults also drink, briefly). Note: This review is for the original theatrical version of the film; an unrated cut is also available that includes additional content not covered here. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

Parents say (47)
Kids say (101)

Based on 47 parent reviews

Parental guidance however ok for kids who love horror

Great for age 11+, what's the story.

In M3GAN, robotics engineer Gemma ( Allison Williams ) works for a toy company and is trying to build a sophisticated, realistic AI robot toy, with disappointing results. Gemma's sister and her husband are killed in a car accident, leaving Gemma in charge of her young niece, Cady ( Violet McGraw ). After her guardianship gets off to a rocky start, Gemma is inspired to finish her creation. M3GAN (played by Amie Donald and voiced by Jenna Davis ) and Cady quickly become attached to each other, and, for a while, this friendship seems to be helping with Cady's grief. But before long, M3GAN starts developing disturbing tendencies, and violent "accidents" begin occurring.

Is It Any Good?

A combination of sly, funny self-awareness, a genuine sense of human grief and emotional connection, and an unsettlingly creepy-cool killer robot, this fun horror pic hits all the right buttons. With a story concocted by James Wan and Akela Cooper ( Hell Fest , Malignant ), M3GAN understands how horror movies are wired and gets pleasure in teasing viewers with these known elements while cheerfully sidestepping the story's flaws. The M3GAN character is in roughly the same vein as Chucky and the Terminator, but she's also their opposite. Her delicate frame, wide eyes, and girlish appearance make her attacks seem somehow more potent and surprising, and the movie uses them to the fullest capacity. The human characters are just as interesting as they grapple with loss in realistic, touching ways, going through rage, sadness, guilt, and more. (M3GAN's on-screen POV display, which shows her detected percentages of human emotions, is a huge kick.) This slick, neatly paced film keeps ramping things up until a smashing showdown, face-to-interface.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about M3GAN 's violence . How did it make you feel? Was it exciting? Shocking? What did the movie show or not show to achieve this effect? Why is that important?

Is the movie scary ? What's the appeal of horror movies? Why do people sometimes like to be scared?

How does the movie deal with death, grief, and loss? What is discussed? What else could have been discussed?

How is consumerism depicted here? Why does the toy company rush to put M3GAN on the market before she's ready, regardless of the consequences?

How is bullying behavior depicted? How is the person who perpetrates it dealt with? What are some better ways of handling those who bully others?

Movie Details

In theaters : January 6, 2023
On DVD or streaming : February 8, 2023
Cast : Allison Williams , Violet McGraw , Amie Donald
Director : Gerard Johnstone
Inclusion Information : Female actors, Female writers, Black writers, Asian writers
Studio : Universal Pictures
Genre : Horror
Topics : Robots
Run time : 102 minutes
MPAA rating : PG-13
MPAA explanation : violent content and terror, some strong language and a suggestive reference
Last updated : December 5, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

Our editors recommend.

Child's Play (2019)

Want personalized picks for your kids' age and interests?

The Terminator

Best Horror Movies

Best robot movies, related topics.

Want suggestions based on your streaming services? Get personalized recommendations

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

M3GAN Review

13 Jan 2023

Sinister dolls have stalked the shadows of plenty of horrors over the years – none, however, quite like M3GAN. Has Chucky ever interrupted a stabbing spree to sing Sia’s pop smash ‘Titanium’? Has Billy the Puppet ever broken into a TikTok-style dance before another Saw franchise victim met their violent demise? The spooky star of this Blumhouse black comedy even differs from The Conjuring ’s Annabelle, despite spilling from the same imagination: where M3GAN producer and co-creator James Wan ’s previous creation was powered by black magic, this one is powered by Black Mirror -esque technology instead.

The result is a deliciously camp hour-and-forty-five minutes of frights. Sure, there’s a Frankensteinian fable in here somewhere about the dangers of letting technology replace real-life human connection – but finding it requires sifting through piles of bodies (and the occasional ripped-off ear). M3GAN , you see, is all about fun – a fact made startlingly clear in its hilarious opening scene, mimicking a Saturday morning kids TV advert. Perhaps we should have seen that coming – the film’s screenplay was written by Akela Cooper, whose 2021 cult hit Malignant was one of the most deliriously unhinged horrors in recent memory.

M3GAN doesn’t quite match that movie’s originality or breakneck rhythms, with director Gerard Johnstone (best known for 2014’s Housebound ) instead opting for a slow-burn pace that builds its tension patiently. By the time M3GAN is truly up and running though, like the sassy AI antagonist at the film’s murdersome core, there’s no stopping it. Is it plausible? Not especially; when mankind makes the civilisation-changing breakthrough in AI that allows true computer sentience, it probably won't be in the basement of a person who flogs Furbies for a living. Is it captivating, however? You bet.

Movies | 14 02 2023

Movies | 22 12 2022

Movies | 07 12 2022

Movies | 21 11 2022

Movies | 11 10 2022

Things you buy through our links may earn Vox Media a commission.

M3gan Is Good Enough for January

The trailer for M3gan went viral because of the child-size robot for which the movie is named — Model 3 Generative Android, a blonde-tressed killer dolly in a pussy bow dress who performs an instantly memeable dance . But it’s Allison Williams who makes the movie watchable beyond the stuff of a few GIF-able clips. Williams, the Girls star who’s taken a recent turn toward scream queen thanks to Get Out and The Perfection , has a way with a particular brand of brittle-edged white womanhood, playing characters whose capacity for chaos previously went unnoticed because everything has just tended to go their way. In M3gan , she’s cast as Gemma, a roboticist who works at a Seattle toy company but doesn’t appear to care for children all that much. Williams plays the role with a precise, unwinking obliviousness that balances out a premise that might otherwise have come across as unbearably pleased with itself. M3gan may be an Olsen-faced murder machine who pulls the ears off bullies and warbles David Guetta’s “Titanium” to lull her human charge to sleep, but Gemma, with her utter inability to wrap her head around what it means to care for another person, is in her own way just as camp a creation.

M3gan itself is a perfectly diverting if unambitious release from the recently combined forces of horror megaproducers Jason Blum and James Wan (who has a story credit). To wish it tried to be anything more feels pointless when it’s so clearly aware that it’s giving all it needs to. It’s a little Chucky , a little Orphan , a little Demon Seed , and while it makes vague gestures toward too-much-technology panic with mentions of screen time and our overreliance on devices, it doesn’t try especially hard to be about anything larger. Written by Malignant ’s Akela Cooper, M3gan was directed by Gerard Johnstone, a New Zealand filmmaker who made his 2014 debut with the delightful Housebound , about a woman sentenced to a stint of ankle-monitored house arrest at her possibly haunted childhood home. Cooper and Johnson know what they’re doing, and the same low aims that can make their movie feel desultory are at other times its saving grace. M3gan ’s reach is never in danger of exceeding its grasp. It wants only to provide a diverting 100-odd minutes of horror comedy, with a heavy emphasis on the comedy.

M3gan, who’s played by a combination of actor Amie Donald and voice actor Jenna Davis, is responsible for many of the film’s laughs; she is so innately disturbing that the enthusiasm everyone greets her with is a joke in itself. But Williams, leaning into her character’s disinterest in being a surrogate mother, gets her fair share of amusing line readings. Gemma was clearly content playing the distant cool aunt to her niece, Cady (Violet McGraw), while sending her the latest Furby-esque creations produced by her workplace. But after Cady’s parents die in a car crash, Gemma has to take on responsibility for the young girl while seemingly being fundamentally unable to wrap her head around what it might mean to serve as a substitute parent. When Cady arrives at her new home, Gemma shoos the girl away from the still-in-their-packaging toys on the shelves, explaining that they’re collectibles not to be touched, and in a running bit, keeps putting the glasses Cady uses on coasters.

In one of the funnier early scenes, Gemma tells a desolate Cady, who’s still covered in cuts from the accident that killed her mother and father, that she’s really behind on a deadline, and asks the traumatized child to “hold down the house” while she does some work. Later, after pairing Cady with M3gan, she enlists her niece as part of her pitch presentation for the still-being-tested mechanical companion, then watches fretfully as the girl has a grief-stricken breakdown in front of investors, only to be comforted through it by her new robot friend. Other actors might play Gemma as chilly or tightly wound, someone cruising for a career-girl comeuppance, but Williams frames the character’s self-interest as natural and comfortable, the behavior of someone who intentionally chose to pursue her calling, and who seems to like her dabblings on Tinder and her house full of spotless furniture. Rather than a cautionary tale about the perils of prioritizing the personal over the workplace, M3gan plays as something sillier and stranger — a millennial fable about a woman trying to outsource the maternal nurturing that doesn’t come naturally to her to an android helper, who’s in the middle of her own whirring calculations about the meaning of existence.

When Gemma lays out some of the potential benefits of her creation to her avaricious boss (Ronny Chieng) in voiceover, she intones earnestly about how M3gan could take over the tedious aspects of parenting “so you can spend more time on the things that matter.” As she says this, we see her settle in cozily with her laptop. It’s a funny touch, but it’s also as oddly poignant as the song M3gan breaks into — the sight of someone who didn’t sign up for motherhood, and who really isn’t sure she has it in her.

More Movie Reviews

The Best Movie at Cannes This Year Is an Oddball Canadian Comedy
Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope Is As Beguiling As It Is Alienating
The Fall Guy Is a Funny, Romantic, Stunt-Filled Delight
vulture section lede
movie review
horror films
allison williams

Editor’s Picks

Most Popular

What is your email.

This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive email correspondence from us.

Sign In To Continue Reading

Create your free account.

Password must be at least 8 characters and contain:

Lower case letters (a-z)
Upper case letters (A-Z)
Numbers (0-9)
Special Characters (!@#$%^&*)

As part of your account, you’ll receive occasional updates and offers from New York , which you can opt out of anytime.

Notice: All forms on this website are temporarily down for maintenance. You will not be able to complete a form to request information or a resource. We apologize for any inconvenience and will reactivate the forms as soon as possible.

DVD & Streaming
Horror , Sci-Fi/Fantasy , Thriller

Content Caution

In Theaters

January 6, 2023
Allison Williams as Gemma; Violet McGraw as Cady; Amie Donald as M3gan; Jen Van Epps as Tess; Brian Jordan Alvarez as Cole; Ronny Chieng as David; Lori Dungey as Celia

Home Release Date

January 24, 2023
Gerard Johnstone

Distributor

Universal Pictures

Movie Review

Most people probably wouldn’t give much notice to a news feed story about a snowy car crash. Accidents happen all the time in snow country. But to vacationing nine-year-old Cady, it was an event that took her everything. The crash stole away her mom and dad. And it left her battered and bruised, physically and emotionally.

It also left her with someone who didn’t really want her.

Now, that’s no slight against Cady’s Aunt Gemma. She’s not a bad person. Gemma is simply an overworked, thirtysomething robotic engineer who’s ill-equipped to deal with a kid being dropped in her lap. And their awkward interactions with each other prove that in spades.

However, Gemma does have one thing up her sleeve. She just happens to be working on a new project that she had been keeping under wraps at the popular toy company she works for. Her Model 3 Generative Android , or M3GAN for short, might just be the ticket. So, she takes Cady in to show her the kid-sized AI construct.

And everything goes perfectly.

Not only does the robot properly pair with Cady, it also instantly starts playing on the little girl’s level. It’s exactly what Gemma was hoping for. And at the same time, her generally pessimistic-minded boss, David, watched the whole process and was instantly sold. This could literally change the entire toy market, he notes, not to mention make Gemma’s career. Yes, the prototype robo hasn’t been properly tested, but maybe time with Cady could do just that.

For Cady, M3GAN becomes a friend and companion who always listens, always plays. The remarkable android teaches Cady things she needs to know, and it dedicates its digital existence to keeping Cady happy and safe.

And for Gemma, her latest brainchild becomes the babysitter she desperately needs so she can get back to her normal life. And if M3GAN also continually grows and adapts—learning just as it should through its internet connection and the social circumstances around it—the situation could be downright perfect.

There is, however, one little problem that no one anticipates. The internet paired with cold robotic reasoning are not necessarily what you’d call fonts of moralistic insight. That might not have been foremost in Gemma’s engineering mind. But maybe it should have been.

Because when M3GAN senses any danger that comes Cady’s way—such as an aggressive neighbor dog with sharp, snapping jaws; or a local bully boy with a rough mean streak—the android has no compunctions about applying a little super-charged robo-correction. She can sweetly sing a bedtime song; gently wipe away a little friend’s tears; and drop to all fours to aggressively chase off a bullying brat with equal easy skill.

And if said bully ends up broken, torn or, say, dead … well, so be it. Cady, after all, is kept safe. So what does it matter?

That’s what friends are for.

Positive Elements

In one sense, M3GAN does exactly what she is programmed to do. She cares for, teaches, listens to, plays with and protects Cady with every non-beat of her robotic heart. She becomes the ever-watching eye of a parental figure and friend who never backs down and never hesitates to protect. And in some ways, you can’t help but cheer for this single-minded robo friend—especially in light of all that’s been taken from Cady.

For instance, during a demonstration for investors, Cady breaks down, weeping about the loss of her parents. M3GAN quietly comforts her and takes the time to help the girl think of fond memories that she can cling to.

However, there’s a not-so-fine line between protection and cruel choices when it comes to M3GAN’s delivery of justice. There is no right or wrong for her, just “care” and protection. And that sometimes translates into heartless disregard for human life that becomes more Terminator-like and brutal as she “learns” from the web-connected resources at her disposal.

On the other hand, Gemma has some learning to do as well. And she slowly realizes all the ways that Cady has been hurt and damaged, all the things that the young girl must work through. As Gemma wraps her brain around Cady’s needs, she begins to embrace a more motherly role, reaching out tenderly to her niece. Ultimately Gemma puts everything on the line to embrace and protect Cady.

In true sci-fi fashion, this pic makes an analogical point that technology, the internet and social media are no substitutes for parental time and love. And it suggests that adults who lean too heavily on those things usher their family members into dangerous territory.

Spiritual Elements

Sexual content.

When Gemma first ushers Cady into her house, her digital assistant device announces that Gemma has “five Tinder notifications.” Gemma quickly changes the subject.

Violent Content

M3GAN ’s unexpected moments of humor somewhat soften the story’s edgy violence. That said, the film is still packed with sometimes bloody bashabouts (leaving people with bloody scratches and torn body parts), even when the goriest possibilities are kept just off screen.

Two people are stabbed and killed by the broken blade of an office paper trimmer. A boy has his ear pulled and ripped off. And then he’s chased and eventually tumbles down a hillside and out in front of a speeding truck. We see his bloody boots as he’s placed in an ambulance. (This bully had earlier forced a sharp object into Cady’s hand and pushed her around.)

A dog drags M3GAN through a hole in a fence and then bites Cady’s arm. Later the animal is grabbed and dragged off yelping. An older woman is sent sprawling across a room by high powered water spray. Her hand is then nailed to the wall by a nail gun, and she’s poisoned by weed killer.

Several other people get battered, strangled and bloodied.

[ Spoiler Warning ] M3GAN is eventually torn apart, sliced with a weed whacker and destroyed. There are four deaths total—all of which are relatively bad or deceitful people.

Crude or Profane Language

There’s one f-word (delivered by a child), more than a dozen s-words, and one use each of “h—” and “b–ch” in the dialogue. “Oh my God” is spit out six times, and Jesus’ name is harshly abused 10 times. There’s one crude reference to male genitalia.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Gemma’s corporate boss hands her a drink while talking about her future contract.

Other Negative Elements

Little toys that Gemma’s toy company employers make tend to focus on potty humor gags such as making gassy noises and dropping little pellets out of their backside.

When Cady first moves in with her aunt, Gemma tosses her an iPad (to keep her busy). Cady wonders about the screentime limits that her parents used to impose. “I don’t care,” Gemma casually replies.

When Gemma’s associate sees how Gemma is using M3GAN with Cady, she wonders, “I thought we were creating M3GAN to help support parents, not replace them.” Gemma shrugs the suggestion off.

Someone steals important computer files.

There is something equally cute and creepy about M3GAN (the film and the AI robot).

This robot is something like that incredible toy you once squealed gleefully over on your 10th birthday. She’s also that glinting-eyed doll that made you cry out in shock when you caught a glimpse of it sitting on a shadowed chair. Those combined character elements blend together with a compelling story and sardonic humor to give this pic surprising appeal.

If you look a bit closer at this picture-perfect android, you’ll also notice that she has even more programmed into her motherboard. For with the right tip of the head and the flick of a multi-lensed eye, you’ll spot something of a sci-fi cautionary tale here: a warning to parents that turning your child over to the care of today’s techy wonders can come at a very high price.

For all of those positives, however, there is another tiny Terminator boot a’ dropping: M3GAN, with her kewpie-doll perfection and girl’s-best-friend charm, is also a steely eyed killer. The just-off-screen goriness gets tamped down to PG-13 levels, but it’s bloody nonetheless. And the film’s language delivers some sharp cuts of its own.

Creepy and cute . Those words don’t always sit well together. But they are part and parcel here. You’ll need to embrace both in equal measure if you invite this dolly to sit on your knee.

After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.

Latest Reviews

The Garfield Movie

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Woody Woodpecker Goes to Camp

Weekly reviews straight to your inbox.

site categories

Lionsgate studios may make lower-budget movies just for starz as company moves ahead with split, genre-busting writer akela cooper is twisting the rules on horror: “i am trailblazing for those who want to do this as a career”.

By Destiny Jackson

Destiny Jackson

Awards Writer

Dove Cameron & Avan Jogia To Star In Prime Video Thriller Series 'Obsession'

Universal Dates 'Five Nights At Freddy's 2,' 'Woman In The Yard' & 'Drop'; 'The Black Phone', 'M3GAN' Sequels Pushed

“Horror speaks to me in ways other genres don’t,” Cooper says. “And I think it’s because horror and sci-fi allow you to address real-world issues with a kind of shiny veneer that allows you to have a message without people feeling like it’s preachy.” Specifically, Cooper cites an influential episode, “A Town has Turned to Dust,” written by Rod Serling from the 1950s CBS anthology series Playhouse 90 , as a stepping stone for her tonality in balancing between sci-fi, horror and social commentary. “Originally, he wanted to do a TV movie about the killing of Emmett Till, and at the time, CBS was like, ‘Fuck no, you’re not going to do that.’ So, he took that story and set it as a Western with a Mexican kid at the center. But it was still the same story, but because it was removed with that genre veil, he still got the message that he wanted to get out anyway,” Cooper explains. “You get to do crazy shit in sci-fi and horror, as long as you have the rules that you follow—and those are fun.”

With two viral cult hit features under her belt, Malignant and M3GAN , made in collaboration with heralded minimalist horror writer-director James Wan , Cooper is not only having fun but is also twisting the rules on a well-worn horror genre, the B-movie. It’s not typical for B-movies to elicit emotion. The low-budget films were initially conceptualized for quick, consumable entertainment and scares, not longevity. However, Cooper managed to infuse and maintain the essence while also pushing the boundaries of the genre.

“Elevated horror is still the acceptable horror right now. We’ve punched some holes in that with Malignant and M3GAN to make way for B-movies, which I was happy with,” Cooper explains. “You got stuff like Barbarian and Smile , which was half elevated, half B-movie, monster movie, which was cool. Right now, the market seems like a 60/40 split for elevated versus traditional B-horror movie tendencies.”

Though B-movies aren’t a new phenomenon, Cooper does acknowledge the unique element in her projects that not only translates to box office success but also leaves a lasting cultural imprint. “I think people are responding to the fun because, for a long time, elevated horror was the horror. And I’m by no means shitting on elevated horror, but Hereditary is a damn good horror movie, but it’s not fun. And I think what I was missing was that sense of renting videos and then watching them with your friends at 2:00 A.M., and just being scared shitless and giggling and enjoying the craziness of the movie,” she says. “I think audiences responded to Malignant and M3GAN in that way because it’s a fun, communal horror experience when you start to see M3GAN singing Titanium, and you’re not the only one in the theater going, ‘What the fuck? This is funny.’ The great thing about horror is that it’s a community. And I think audiences are responding to the B-movie fun of what I hope I am bringing to horror.”

That’s not the only thing that also makes Cooper special. Being a Black woman in a space where few women exist has made her a standout. The last three years have seen a small handful of Black female horror writer-directors release films backed by major studios, with Nia DaCosta’s 2021 remake of Candyman and 2022 saw the release of two radically tinged societal thinkers in Mariama Diallo’s Master and Nikyatu Jusu’s Nanny . “There’s a bit of gatekeeping from boys who consider making horror their space and only seeing women as victims or final girls to be slaughtered or saved on screen as they see fit,” Cooper shares when asked why she thinks there is a lack of women in the horror field. “I kind of liken that to how society sees female sexuality, and when women own their sexuality, people freak the fuck out. Women creating horror is kind of a way of channeling our deeply violent impulses and fantasies, and society is always like, ‘Women shouldn’t have violent fantasies, what the hell?’”

Cooper’s achievements have established her as a trailblazer, as she’s already solidified her status as a formidable force within the horror genre. In doing so, she’s defied the odds, navigating the complexities of being both Black and a woman in a field long dominated by men. She continues, hoping to have “opened the door for more people to get the opportunity.” Cooper also says, “I shouldn’t be a trailblazer at this point in the industry of Hollywood. It’s sad that I am in that way, but I am happy that I am trailblazing for those who want to do this as a career and know that it is possible to do this as a career if this is your passion. I’ve been on a couple of panels at conventions where there were young Black women in the audience who had no idea that I was a Black woman like them. Then they would approach me afterward and say, ‘I didn’t know I could write horror.’ It always blows my mind when I have those encounters. I’m always encouraging people. It’s like, ‘Yes, Black people, Black women, we can write whatever we want. Just write what you love.”

Must Read Stories

Streamer’s latest viewership data touts dramas, reality & a german miniseries.

Zendaya Watches Tom Holland’s First Night In ‘Romeo & Juliet’

Netflix buys world on powell-mackie-dern ‘monsanto’ & u.s./uk for ‘emilia pérez’, ‘inside out 2’ poised for highest opening of 2024 so far with $80m-$85m.

Subscribe to Deadline Breaking News Alerts and keep your inbox happy.

M3GAN 2.0: Release date, cast, plot, and everything we know so far

M3GAN 2.0 is the sequel of the highly successful horror movie M3GAN , Directed by Gerard Johnstone, the original film captivated audiences with its story of an artificially intelligent doll that becomes self-aware and hostile toward those who threaten her existence.

M3GAN tackled contemporary issues related to AI and technology. The film received high praise from critics and became a cultural phenomenon, partly due to its viral presence on TikTok.

Financially, M3GAN was a massive hit, grossing $176 million worldwide on a modest $12 million budget. The first film's success set the stage for a sequel, and now details are emerging about what fans can expect from M3GAN 2.0.

Release date of M3GAN 2.0

The release date for M3GAN 2.0 has been a moving target. Initially scheduled for January 2025, it was then moved to May 16th, 2025 before settling on June 27th, 2025.

The change in release date is not due to production issues but is likely a calculated move to give the sequel the best chance at success. Blumhouse and Universal seem to have strategically delayed this launch for purposes of capitalizing on its potential as a summer blockbuster.

Cast of the movie

Gemma played by Allison William will come back again, while Cady played by Violet McGraw returns too. Miraculously both characters survived their encounter with the killer AI doll in the initial film.

However, it remains uncertain on Jenna Davis' comeback as M3GAN 's voice in the movie. A new member has joined the cast, Ivanna Sakhno, known from Ahsoka , for an undisclosed major role.

What is the plot of the movie?

While there was no post-credits scene in the original M3GAN , its ending left the doors open for a sequel. M3GAN ended with Gemma transferring its AI processing system to Elsie who is Gemma's virtual assistant at home.

It could be assumed that in M3GAN 2.0 , the AI could change shape again and perhaps start infiltrating other tech devices found within Gemma's residence.

The doll-like body of M3GAN being destroyed might make it appear as if she starts off functioning more secretly through adaptive processing until she can acquire a fresh titanium structure or some other kind of robot.

In November 2023, James Wan who wrote the movie with Akela Cooper in an interview with Empire Magazine done via Collider, said:

"It's early yet, but M3GAN is coming back in a big way. The first film came just at the right time [when concerns about AI were mounting], and we're definitely leaning into that on the next one. We're exploring the AI universe even further."

More details on the movie

There has been no trailer so far for M3GAN 2.0 . If we are going by the June 2025 release date, probably the teaser would be out within a few months before it airs, around early 2025.

The original M3GAN was made on an extremely low budget of $12 million while eventually earning $176 million worldwide. This financial triumph together with the cultural impact of this film particularly when viral moments were created on TikTok almost guaranteed a sequel.

As fans await updates eagerly, summer 2025 will bring forth yet another horror hit perhaps. Look out for the trailer plus other announcements during this period as the release date approaches soon.

M3GAN 2.0: Release date, cast, plot, and everything we know so far

'M3GAN 2.0' Dances Her Way to a New Release Date

You'll have to wait just a little longer for the horror sequel.

The Big Picture

Get ready to be scared this summer with the delayed release of M3GAN 2.0 on June 27, 2025 by Blumhouse.
The horror sequel was originally set for May, but moved to June, facing off against other chilling films.
M3GAN teases a creepy mix of Chucky's violence and the Terminator's unstoppable nature in a cautionary AI tale.

Moviegoers will have to wait a little longer for their favorite new mechanical menace to dance her way back into their hearts. M3GAN 2.0 , the sequel to 2022's sleeper horror hit, has been pushed back a month. Originally set to be released on May 16, 2025, the Blumhouse horror sequel will now be released at the height of summer movie season, on June 27, 2025.

This is the latest new date for the horror sequel; when it was first announced in the wake of its predecessor's success, it was set to be a January release, much like the original. But earlier this year it was shifted to May , before being moved once again to June 27. There, it takes the former date of another horror sequel, The Black Phone 2 , whose call has now been transferred to October. The June 27 date for M3GAN 2.0 will pit it against another, considerably-more-belated horror sequel, 28 Years Later , which will drop the previous week. While much of the 2025 release calendar remains in flux, so far M3GAN 2.0 's only June 27 competition is Joseph Kosinski 's as-yet untitled Brad Pitt Formula One movie .

What Do We Know About 'M3GAN 2.0'?

So far, most plot details of M3GAN 2.0 have been kept under wraps. It will, naturally, see the return of the titular artificially-intelligent doll, whose hard-wired desire to protect her owner leads to all manner of mechanized mayhem and murder over the course of the film. Two of the first film's survivors are coming back for more, however. Violet McGraw , who played M3GAN's owner Cady, has been tapped to return. Also slated to come back is Alison Williams as Gemma, Cady's roboticist aunt who made the mistake of gifting M3GAN to her niece. Last month, it was also announced that Star Wars: Ahsoka's eerie villain, Ivanna Sakhno , would also be joining the cast in an unspecified role . Much of the film's behind-the-camera talent is slated to return as well, including screenwriters Akela Cooper and Gerard Johnstone ; Johnstone will also reprise his role as the film's director. James Wan , Jason Blum and Williams will produce, while Johnstone, Mark Katchur , Michael Clear and Judson Scott of Atomic Monster, Ryan Turek of Blumhouse, and Adam Hendricks and Greg Gilreath of Divide/Conquer will executive produce.

Released in January 2022, M3GAN was well-recieved by critics, earning a 93% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes; in her review , Collider's Alyse Wax had particular praise for uncanny valley occupant M3GAN, saying " Jenna Davis brings an especially joyous vocalization to M3GAN, making her sound both lighthearted and somehow ominous". It also cleaned up at the box office , bringing in $181 million USD on a $12 million budget.

M3GAN 2.0 will be released in theaters on June 27, 2025 . Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter

site categories

‘five nights at freddy’s’ sequel sets december 2025 release, ‘m3gan 2.0’ shifts one month.

Universal made a number of additions and changes to its 2025 horror slate from Blumhouse, including announcing plans for 'The Woman in the Yard' and 'Drop.'

By Pamela McClintock

Pamela McClintock

Senior Film Writer

Share this article on Facebook
Share this article on Twitter
Share this article on Flipboard
Share this article on Email
Show additional share options
Share this article on Linkedin
Share this article on Pinit
Share this article on Reddit
Share this article on Tumblr
Share this article on Whatsapp
Share this article on Print
Share this article on Comment

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 has received an official release date in theaters — Dec. 5, 2025.

The move was among a handful of key additions and changes Universal and prolific partner Blumhouse made to their 2025 theatrical calendar, including pushing back the release of M3GAN 2.0 by a month, from May 16 to June 27.

Previously, The Black Phone 2 was set to open on June 27, 2025. It will now go out months later on Oct. 17, 2025.

THR Newsletters

More from The Hollywood Reporter

Filming in hungary comes with a 20-year-old tax rebate – and thermal baths, ‘the garfield movie’ review: chris pratt voices the tubby tabby in a toon that fails both kids and their parents, justin baldoni explains decision to age up characters in ‘it ends with us,’ credits blake lively for getting taylor swift song in trailer, cannes: body-horror flick ‘the substance’ wows fest, getting nine-minute standing ovation, ‘the substance’ review: an excellent demi moore helps sustain coralie fargeat’s stylish but redundant body horror, a24 acquires u.s. rights for ruben östlund’s ‘the entertainment system is down’.

Cast & crew

Plot under wrap. Plot under wrap. Plot under wrap.

Gerard Johnstone
Akela Cooper
Allison Williams
Ivanna Sakhno
Violet McGraw

Amie Donald and Jenna Davis in M3GAN 2.0 (2025)

All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

More like this

Did you know

Trivia The project was announced on the 18th of January 2023, less than two weeks after the original's very successful, both critically and commercially, release in cinemas.
Connections Follows M3GAN (2022)
When will M3GAN 2.0 be released? Powered by Alexa
June 25, 2025 (United States)
United Kingdom
United States
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Atomic Monster
Blumhouse Productions
Universal Pictures
See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

Dolby Digital

More to explore

‘Five Nights at Freddy’s 2’ Sets December 2025 Release, ‘M3GAN 2.0’ and ‘Black Phone 2’ Also Get New Dates

By Rebecca Rubin

Rebecca Rubin

Senior Film and Media Reporter

Netflix Buys Glen Powell, Anthony Mackie and Laura Dern Legal Drama ‘Monsanto’ 13 hours ago
Steven Spielberg Sets New Film for Summer 2026, Reunites With ‘Jurassic Park’ and ‘War of the Worlds’ Screenwriter 14 hours ago
‘We’re Still Here’: How AMC Theatres Is Struggling With $4.5 Billion in Debt and Surviving Thanks to Taylor Swift, Viral Popcorn Buckets and More 15 hours ago

FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY'S, Josh Hutcherson, 2023. © Universal Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection

Freddy Fazbear will return to haunt multiplexes in 2025.

Universal and Blumhouse’s “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2,” a horror sequel set in the haunted Chuck E. Cheese-esque establishment known as Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, will land in theaters on Dec. 5, 2025.

Universal added several Blumhouse titles to its release calendar, including “The Woman in the Yard” (set for March 28, 2025) and “Drop” (set for April 11, 2025). The studio also shifted the dates for two other buzzy sequels: “M3GAN 2.0” from May 16, 2025, to June 27, 2025; and “The Black Phone 2” from June 27, 2025, to Oct. 17, 2025.

Popular on Variety

“M3GAN,” short for Model 3 Generative Android, was another Blumhouse sleeper hit with $180 million globally in 2022. Plot details haven’t been revealed for the sequel, though Allison Williams, whose character helped bring to life the campy, chaotic AI-like doll, will be back for “2.0,” as will M3GAN’s pint-sized bestie, played by Violet McGraw. It’s unclear why the film was delayed.

“The Black Phone 2” will bring back Ethan Hawke, Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, Jeremy Davies and Miguel Mora. The sequel to the 2022 film — which earned more than $160 million worldwide — will be directed by Scott Derrickson, who co-wrote the script with C. Robert Cargill. Universal and Blumhouse didn’t share a synopsis (sense a theme here?), but the first film followed Hawke as a masked serial killer who kidnaps and torments a teenage boy.

“Drop,” described as a “blood-chilling, “fast-paced thriller,” hails from producers Michael Bay and Blumhouse founder Jason Blum. Christopher Landon (“Freaky”) is directing the film, which features Meghann Fahy, Brandon Sklenar, Violett Beane Jacob Robinson and Ed Weeks. Once again, we do not know what “Drop” is about.

More From Our Brands

Sexyy red drops ‘in sexyy we trust’ mixtape with drake, lil baby collabs, woodford reserve’s new bourbon is a delicious accident, ncaa, power five ok $2.7 billion antitrust settlement, the best loofahs and body scrubbers, according to dermatologists, grey’s anatomy recap: [spoiler] is fired — and as one couple breaks up, another one hits the sheets, verify it's you, please log in.

IMAGES

M3GAN Movie Review
Unhinged New Doll Horror Movie “M3gan” Gets 2nd Trailer
M3GAN: Movie Clip
‘M3GAN’ movie review: Ex Machina meets Child’s Play in nifty AI horror
M3GAN: Movie Summary and Review
M3GAN: Evil Robot Doll Defies Allison Williams in First Trailer

VIDEO

M3GAN MOVIE REVIEW
M3GAN: movie review
M3gan |full movie 2022 ||Review and facts
M3gan is a killer best friend.
M3GAN movie reaction SUBSCRIBE
M3GAN MOVIE REACTION “This is NOT a Toy!!” 😳 ***First Time Watching***

COMMENTS

M3GAN movie review & film summary (2023)
M3GAN. The marketing for "M3gan" has leaned into the uncanny spectacle of the title character, a four-foot-tall cyborg with big doe eyes, a ratty wig, and the wardrobe of a closeted lesbian headmistress in a '50s melodrama. And it seems to be working: A well-placed GIF here, an activation with a half-dozen women in M3gan drag there, and ...
M3GAN
M3GAN is a marvel of artificial intelligence, a life-like doll programmed to be a child's greatest companion and a parent's greatest ally. Designed by brilliant toy-company roboticist Gemma (Get ...
'M3gan' Review: Wherever I Go, She Goes
Gemma uses Cady as her test case. In a headier movie, there might be some misdirection. But M3gan (performed by Amie Donald) is clearly pure evil from the start. She's a great heavy: stylish ...
'M3GAN' Review: Creepy, Preposterous and Diverting
'M3GAN' Review: A Robot-Doll Sci-Fi Horror Movie That's Creepy, Preposterous and Diverting Allison Williams plays a robotics wiz who invents a doll that seems fake and real at the same time
'M3GAN' Review: Allison Williams in Killer Doll Horror
Screenwriter: Akela Cooper; story by Cooper, James Wan. Rated PG-13, 1 hour 42 minutes. Right off the bat, the creative team let us know it's OK to laugh, starting with what could almost be a ...
"M3GAN," Reviewed: A Clever, Hollow A.I. Spin on "Frankenstein"
The simulation of a mental life for M3gan is the most absorbing part of the movie. Johnstone (working with a script by Akela Cooper, who wrote the story with James Wan) offers images from M3gan ...
M3GAN
Filipe Freitas Always Good Movies. Cinematically, M3gan remains soft at the core, contaminated by harmful robotization while following the codes of Hollywood's easy scares. Full Review ...
M3GAN Review
Gerard Johnstone's M3GAN proves itself more than gifable android dances and NFL halftime shows — a movie that pays off viral hype with the production goods. From the director of 2014's haunted ...
M3GAN review: A murderous doll goes haywire in new horror comedy
M3GAN. review: Hello, dolly. A tiny robot wreaks murderous havoc in Blumhouse's madcap, endlessly memed horror comedy. By. Leah Greenblatt. Published on January 4, 2023. There she was all winter ...
M3gan review: a midrange horror delight
Movie Review; M3gan is a midrange delight about the horrors of 21st-century parenting. ... M3gan, the movie, encourages you to just go ahead and start having a chuckle at the silliness of its ...
'M3GAN': Here's what critics and fans are saying about movie
With 127 reviews as of midday Friday, "M3GAN" boasts an impressive 94% critics' score — as it should, according to some fans. Movies The writer behind 'M3GAN' on its bonkers horror ...
'M3GAN' review: Killer-doll movie is newest horror obsession
Review: Killer-doll horror-comedy 'M3GAN' is delightfully deranged. The title robot and Violet McGraw in "M3GAN.". (Geoffrey Short / Universal Pictures) By Katie Walsh. Jan. 4, 2023 5:09 ...
'M3GAN' Review: The Killer-Robot Blair Waldorf of Your Nightmares
M3GAN, the new movie written by Akela Cooper and directed by Gerard Johnstone, is a dark horror comedy about everything that could possibly go wrong when a doll like this is set loose on the world ...
M3GAN Review: Brilliantly Crafted Comedy-Horror Delivers a Jolting
January 4, 2023 @ 10:00 AM. It's extremely impolite to release a film like "M3GAN" in the first weekend of the calendar year. Early January is a time that's usually reserved for ...
M3GAN (2022)
M3GAN: Directed by Gerard Johnstone. With Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, Ronny Chieng, Amie Donald. A robotics engineer at a toy company builds a life-like doll that begins to take on a life of its own.
'M3GAN' Review: This Killer-Robot Horror Comedy Was Built to Delight
The beats that get us there might feel predictable, but the film is still a triumph. Its creators are so clearly on the same insane wavelength, nimbly blending camp and social satire and actual ...
'M3GAN' movie review: Evil robot sings, dances, kills in absurd satire
Creepy doll movies get a needed upgrade with the sassy and sinister "M3GAN.". Cinema's newest "friend till the end" is a cutting-edge robot with blond hair, caustic attitude and a killer ...
M3GAN Movie Review
The human characters are just as interesting as they grapple with loss in realistic, touching ways, going through rage, sadness, guilt, and more. (M3GAN's on-screen POV display, which shows her detected percentages of human emotions, is a huge kick.) This slick, neatly paced film keeps ramping things up until a smashing showdown, face-to-interface.
M3GAN
M3GAN is a marvel of artificial intelligence, a life-like doll programmed to be a child's greatest companion and a parent's greatest ally. Designed by brilliant toy-company roboticist Gemma (Allison Williams), M3GAN can listen and watch and learn as she becomes friend and teacher, playmate and protector, for the child she is bonded to. When Gemma suddenly becomes the caretaker of her ...
M3GAN Review
With impressive performances by McGraw and Get Out star Williams, and seamless technology bringing to life the film's robot havoc-wreaker, M3GAN may be silly but it's a toy story like no other ...
'M3gan' Review: Good Enough for January
M3gan. Is Good Enough for January. The trailer for M3gan went viral because of the child-size robot for which the movie is named — Model 3 Generative Android, a blonde-tressed killer dolly in a ...
M3GAN
Movie Review. Most people probably wouldn't give much notice to a news feed story about a snowy car crash. Accidents happen all the time in snow country. ... M3GAN's unexpected moments of humor somewhat soften the story's edgy violence. That said, the film is still packed with sometimes bloody bashabouts (leaving people with bloody ...
Akela Cooper Leading The Way For Black Women In The Horror Genre
May 21, 2024 8:02am. Akela Cooper at the LA premiere of 'M3GAN.'. Leon Bennett. While most families spend their nights huddled around the TV watching the latest PG-rated family-friendly fodder ...
M3GAN 2.0: Release date, cast, plot, and everything we know so far
Release date of M3GAN 2.0. The release date for M3GAN 2.0 has been a moving target. Initially scheduled for January 2025, it was then moved to May 16th, 2025 before settling on June 27th, 2025 ...
'M3GAN 2.0' Dances Her Way to a New Release Date
Released in January 2022, M3GAN was well-recieved by critics, earning a 93% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes; in her review, Collider's Alyse Wax had particular praise for uncanny valley occupant ...
Five Nights at Freddy's 2 Gets 2025 Release Date, M3GAN 2.0 Moves Back
The calendar update also brings new dates for a handful of other Blumhouse titles. M3GAN 2.0 is now premiering one month later than planned, moving from May 16, 2025, to June 27, 2025. The Black ...
Five Nights at Freddy's and M3GAN Sequels Set 2025 Release Dates
It will now go out months later on Oct. 17, 2025. The Five Nights at Fredd y's sequel wasn't the only pic getting a release date for the first time. Blumhouse's original horror-thriller The ...
M3GAN 2.0 (2025)
M3GAN 2.0: Directed by Gerard Johnstone. With Jenna Davis, Allison Williams, Ivanna Sakhno, Violet McGraw. Plot under wrap.
Five Nights at Freddy's 2 Release Date Set for December 2025
Plot details haven't been revealed for the sequel, though Allison Williams, whose character helped bring to life the campy, chaotic AI-like doll, will be back for "2.0," as will M3GAN's ...

‘M3gan’ Review: Wherever I Go, She Goes

Inside the World of Comedy

“M3GAN,” Reviewed: A Clever, Hollow A.I. Spin on “Frankenstein”

New Yorker Favorites

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Email not verified

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

Movies / TV

M3GAN Reviews

M3GAN review: Hello, dolly

Related Articles

Universal and Blumhouse’s M3gan is exactly the right amount of ridiculous, which is why it can afford to be a little shaggy toward the end.

Share this story

Spotify is going to break every Car Thing gadget it ever sold

More from The best entertainment of 2023

Review: Killer-doll horror-comedy ‘M3GAN’ is delightfully deranged

More to Read

Review: ‘Home Alone’ with fangs, ‘Abigail’ is a comedy that goes violently wrong for kidnappers

Review: ‘Monsters of the American Cinema’ confronts the horror in grief

Review: ‘The First Omen’ plays to the faithful, but more nun fun is to be had elsewhere

More From the Los Angeles Times

Someone asked Jennifer Lopez about those Ben Affleck divorce rumors. It got awkward fast

Women and people of color drive ratings for streaming films, UCLA diversity report finds

Commentary: The kids are all right. It’s the adults who are trouble

Nina Dobrev hospitalized after e-bike accident; says a ‘long road of recovery’ awaits

‘M3GAN’ Is the Killer-Robot Blair Waldorf You Didn’t Know You Needed

K. Austin Collins

Editor’s picks

Kelly Clarkson and Ex-Husband Brandon Blackstock Settle Lawsuit Over Millions in Commissions

Kelly Rowland Defends Security Confrontation at Cannes: Others Weren't 'Pushed Off'

Jennifer Lopez, Simu Liu Shut Down Ben Affleck Question: 'You Know Better'

In 'Beetlejuice 2' Trailer , Michael Keaton Returns as the Undead Bogeyman

'Seinfeld' Star Michael Richards Reveals Past Battle With Prostate Cancer

Most Popular

Verify it's you

‘M3GAN’ Review: Brilliantly Crafted Comedy-Horror Delivers a Jolting January Surprise

‘M3GAN’ Review: This Killer-Robot Horror Comedy Was Built to Delight

Most Popular

'M3GAN' review: You'll love the mean-girl robot in this darkly funny, cautionary tale

All hail 'M3GAN,' the rare January film that actually works

Advanced AI is cool and all until it runs amok via an overprotective android

Allison Williams is a horror icon on the rise, but M3GAN is the real star here

The main 'M3GAN' lesson: Don't let a toy parent your kid

Embrace all the horror fun

Or browse by category:

Common Sense Selections for Movies

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

Common Sense Selections for Games

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

Social Networking for Teens

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

YouTube Kids Channels for Gamers

Real-Life Heroes on YouTube for Tweens and Teens

Celebrating Black History Month

Movies and TV Shows with Arab Leads

Celebrate Hip-Hop's 50th Anniversary

A Lot or a Little?

Positive Messages

Positive Role Models

Diverse Representations

Violence & Scariness

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Products & Purchases

Parents Need to Know

Where to Watch

Community Reviews

Parental guidance however ok for kids who love horror

Is It Any Good?

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Movie Details

Did we miss something on diversity?

Suggest an Update