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