M3GAN (2023)

Directed by Gerard Johnstone. Starring Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, Amie Donald, Ronny Cheng, Brian Jordan Alvarez, Jen Van Epps, Lori Dungey, Stephan Garneau-Monten, Jack Cassidy, Amy Usherwood. [PG-13]

After losing her parents in a car accident, young Cady (McGraw) goes to live with her less-than-maternal aunt (Williams), a robotics expert working on a sophisticated, child-sized humanoid doll with artificial intelligence. Struggling to connect with the girl, Williams brings home the doll (called M3GAN—Model 3 Generative Android), and Cady quickly bonds with it, but there’s always a catch…wanna guess what it is? Campy horror movie isn’t exactly scary, and it certainly isn’t innovative in spite of all the high-tech contraptions slinking about, but it’s a solid B-movie with a good number of laughs (most of them presumably intentional). Would have benefited from more mayhem and madness, fewer underdeveloped detours (e.g., a company employee stealing and sharing secrets) and halfhearted swipes at social commentary, but at least the extra doses of polish and pseudo-ambition guarantee it’s a cut above the average killer-robot/Chucky-knockoff flick in town. Produced by Jason Blum and James Wan; the latter received co-story credit.

69/100