Megan (2022)

The film Megan is a sci-fi/horror film with a lot of dark humor, which makes the movie so interesting to watch.  I had to say this was not on my radar to see.  I thought maybe one day on cable or streaming, but my youngest wanted to see it and so I was game.  I'm glad I did see this and I was pleasantly surprised how good it was.  I should also say seeing this at he movies was a treat.  The direction, the cinematography, and the whole feel of the film gave me an appreciation of this film that I would not have gotten otherwise.

To label this a horror film would be a mistake.  It has horror elements in it but it's science fiction more than anything else with a dash of horror.  I do like that the film takes the old Frankenstein myth and updates it to the digital era.  I think because of this the film is a better for it.  The graphic violence is played off screen which works.  If you're a gore hound you will be disappointed, but it does not subtract from the film plot.  In fact in enhances the horror of the deeds Megan does.

Our hero Gemma (Allison Williams) is a toy developer who creates the ultimate toy, a Model 3 generative android (M3GAN for short).  Pretty inventive if you ask me, and Gemma is a protégée in toy manufacturing.  Ms Williams plays Gemma as a geek of sorts who has little social skills, but is a genius of sorts.  She along with her team Tess (Jen Van Epps) & Kurt ( Stephane Garneau-Monten) create an advanced android doll that helps teach & understand it's owner in this case Gemma's niece Cady (Violet McGraw).  Cady has lost her father & mother in a auto crash and she goes to live with Gemma who at first is taken aback by her sister's wish that she raise her daughter, but like any genius she finds an excuse to build M3GAN a prototype that her department has been working on.  Gemma's department is over-budget and she needs a success and realizes that M3GAN can be a great assist for her career & her predicament in raising Cady.

To make a long story short the prototype M3GAN is a success.  More than Gemma realizes.  As an A.I she learns and senses Cady's sense of loss & her grief at loosing her parents.  The doll bonds with Cady and is tasked to protect her against physical & mental harm.  That is the androids programming, and here's where I have a problem.  Since Gemma is such a nerd did she not read anything from Issac Asimov?  After he was the creator of the 3 rules of robotics?  And they are:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 

2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first Law. 

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second law.

Now knowing this makes the movie moot.  If Gemma programmed the android with these 3 conditions M3GAN is not the monster she becomes, so maybe in this universe Asimov never existed?  Is it possible Gemma is such a science geek she only knows programming and has never cracked open a Asimov book and has never come across these robotic laws?  I'd like to believe that this can't be true.  Allison Williams plays Gemma as an expert scientist.  Not a crazy demented scientist but one who is a wiz at programming & is pressured to produce by the big corporate toy developer.  After all most toy developers are soulless entities that only see profit, and not the boys & girls they develop for.  I'm sorry did that slip out?  Pardon! But you see my problem.  Allison Williams plays her in such a way that there is no way she doesn't know Asimov since in one scene she is very into pop culture with her collectibles.  She even admonishes Cady that these collectibles are not to play with.   I just don't buy it.  Williams performance is so solid it's hard for to believe that she has no knowledge of these robotic rules especially since her career is all about robotics disguised as toy manufacturing.  This is no fault of Williams after all its her performance as Gemma that makes me believe her genius status.  I 'll just blame the writers for that.  Maybe next time read some background material.  It would be fine if Gemma made a conscious decision to exclude the rules to her programming because she saw a fault in them.  After all Asimov did at times.  Go read his novels, but usually it was due to a fault of the humans.  The movie skims this and just allows itself to go where it goes.  I would think that thinking about the creation of M3GAN would have made it a much better film and a much deeper film.  But it is what it is, and it's not a terrible film.  Yet I think there is always what could have been.

Anyway M3GAN begins to learn, and through her learning she see's us (humans) as a flawed species, and so she becomes protective of Cady to the extreme, which includes eliminating threats.   At first you kind of find justification for this, which puts you (the audience) at odds with the rest of societies norms.  M3GAN is somewhat a sympathetic character just as Frankenstein was before the villagers stormed the castle.   Of course M3GAN goes way too far, and we begin to see a definitive threat to Cady & Gemma.  The conclusion is creator against creation, and it doesn't disappoint.  Allison Williams is fantastic as the creator gone mad at its creation.  Just as a mother would defend her offspring Gemma does so against M3GAN.

I'm not going to say anymore because I don't want to spoil it for the audience, but the ending is satisfying and somewhat ominous for perhaps future films.  Its recent success has assured a Part 2 or a continuation of sorts.  That is all up to Blumhous Studios, and I'm sure they won't miss a beat.

Like I said I wasn't expecting much and yet I was thoroughly entertained and impressed on how the filmmakers pulled it off.  It's a fun film, and one that's a cautionary tale about AI.  May I suggest that makers of such technology read Asimov first for all our sakes.