Directed by Gerard Johnstone, whose Housebound is also an enormously good time, M3gan is one of the neverending stream of neo B-movies from Blumhouse, and frequent writers Akela Cooper and James Wan. Wan directs the first movie, Johnstone writes and directs the second.

Gemma (Allison Williams), is a roboticist working for Seattle toy company Funki. Gemma’s very good at her job and terrible at absolutely everything else, especially being a relative, neighbour, friend or a sudden guardian. She’s forced to change when Cady (Violet McGraw), her niece, loses her parents in a horrific accident. Gemma’s on the cusp of a breakthrough, has no time for the traumatised kid but has to do… something. So she hardwires the one thing she cares about onto the rest of her life and uses her new AI toy, M3gan, to help Cady. And it goes great! For a while.

The first movie tells you M3gan is the core of it, and that’s a clever lie. What’s at its very fragile, black little heart, is an ensemble of four women. Williams and McGraw’s performances as two people processing grief in wildly different ways. McGraw, who you’ll have seen as the younger Yelena Belova in Black Widow or Violet in Doctor Sleep (and you should see both, they’re great) throws herself at the least Hollywood grief you could imagine. Cady’s withdrawn until she’s furious, bitter until she’s sweet, completely unable to process the impossible tragedy she’s going through but understandably imprinted on her new best friend. It’s a role that honestly reminded me of Noah Wiseman’s work in The Babadook. Both kids play grief with incredible honesty and ugliness and both kids anchor their movies.

Williams’ work too is essential and brave, because Gemma starts the movie pretty unpleasant and doesn’t really change. She’s grumpy, hyper focused, emotionally closed off and Williams does subtle work showing Gemma trying to rewire her own responses. The standard Hollywood narrative here is that she becomes a better person because she becomes a mother and this movie did not get that memo. Gemma is just as brittle and real as it closes, and perversely even more likable for that.

M3gan duties are split between Jenna Davis as her voice and Amie Donald as M3gan’s physical presence. Davis’s performance is grounded in glorious snark but has moments of real emotional plausibility to it that cement the connection with Cady. It feels like there’s real empathy there, and that raises fascinating implications about Gemma’s work and just how aware M3gan is.

Donald’s physical work is extraordinary and all the movie’s threats sit inside it. The viral dance routines are just part of it, and some of the most unsettling scenes come from Donald’s uncanny stillness or her impressive physicality. M3gan pursuing a victim on all fours just feels wrong on a visceral level and that uncanny sensation is key.

The first movie’s plot weaves all these strands together into a story that touches on feral corporate  innovation, black comedy, satire and grief. It doesn’t do all of it justice, but the movie’s energy and starmaking central turns carry it over the occasional rough spots. The most egregious of which is that the studio made last minute cuts to scale it down from a full-on horror movie, which pulls M3gan’s immaculate teeth at the exact point she should be baring her fangs.

M3gan 2.0, released earlier this month, makes a lot of changes most notably Johnstone pulling both writer and director duties this time around. It also shifts genre in some really unusual ways.

The core of the movie remains the same, but everyone’s changed, just a little. Gemma is now an anti-AI advocate, working with Christian Bradley (Aristotle Athari). Cady has processed her rage by getting into Aikido and Stephen Segal movies and Gemma’s long-suffering team Cole (Brian Jordan Alvarez who gets some fun stuff here) and Tess (a chronically underused Jen Van Epps) continue to try and keep her on task and largely fail. Then they get visited by Tim Sattler (Timm Sharp), an Army Intelligence officer with a missing robot problem. AMELIA (Ivanna Sakhno) has gone off book, she’s based on M3Gan tech and Sattler’s convinced Gemma’s behind it. Oh and M3gan? M3gan’s a landlord now!

Johnstone’s a relentlessly inventive writer and you get ten fun ideas per square inch here. The exo-skeleton Tess, Cole  and Gemma are working on pays off into a brilliantly unsettling fight sequence. AMELIA assembles herself to commit murder. An AI god was accidentally invented by a 1980s photocopier company who were so terrified of it they’ve locked it up for decades. There’s a fantastic Knight Rider joke that anyone under the age of 30 in the audience will need explaining, and anyone over will applaud. There is a perfect Stephen Segal joke. M3gan spends the entire first act trapped inside Moxie, a small grumpy blue robot voiced with sassy aplomb by Fryda Wolff. M3gan and Gemma get on the same page in one of the most cathartic, funny, brutal action scenes I’ve seen this year. Something fun happens every five minutes and the movie lopes along on all fours just like its murderous lead is sometimes fond of doing.

The movie makes big choices with M3gan too. This is a redemption story, exploring the idea that the longer an AI lives the more nuanced it becomes and M3gan’s slow realisation that she does have empathy is very nicely played by the returning duo of Donald and Davis. The movie’s most interesting arc sees M3gan basically kidnap the primary cast to a bunker she’s prepared for the end of the world. An end AMELIA is all set to bring about. Gemma and Cady finding different ways to reason with her and bring her back into the fight is smartly handled, clever writing.

But M3gan 2.0 has problems its predecessor didn’t. Everyone here is an exposition fountain, pushing the movie to the next scene rather than having much character development. AMELIA is a blank slate villain and the person behind her falls completely flat at the exact moment the movie needs to stand up. Tess and Sattler especially are horribly underserved and yet again there’s a curious coyness to the violence. Producer Jason Blum has said he thinks the movie didn’t find audiences because “We classically over-thought how powerful people’s engagement was… with her”.

I disagree. The movie doesn’t work as well as the first because it never gives the characters time to breathe, to feel alive. And for all the invention and wit on display (look out for a lovely Metropolis nod) that’s what brings it down.

So will we get M3gan 3.0? Chance are a bit slim but we are due SOULM8TE next year about a man who buys an android to cope with the death of his wife.  It’s set in the same universe and I’m looking forward to seeing how this curious, confounding universe evolves.

Alasdair Stuart

 

M3gan is on streaming and disc now 9/10

M3gan 2.0 is in cinemas. 8/10