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The 24 Movie: Confirmation & Everything We Know

Jennifer lawrence's new movie role continues an odd leonardo dicaprio & martin scorsese trend, sam raimi’s next movie after multiverse of madness is what i’ve been waiting for since 2009.

Warning: This post contains major spoilers for M3GAN

M3GAN ’s ending leaves the audience with a lot to contemplate, and teases a sequel. Directed by Gerard Johnstone from a screenplay by Akela Cooper, who came up with the story alongside famed horror producer James Wan , M3GAN is the first major horror release of 2023. The film received an overall positive critical reception, with critics describing it as campy and fun.

M3GAN ties up the majority of its plot threads by the end, but it leaves a couple of lingering questions, and a sequel setup that should have audiences anticipating more to come. At a cool 102 minutes long, M3GAN doesn’t overstay its welcome, and it delivers on the horror element while maintaining a sense of humor. The horror film juggles a lot of themes that come together by the film’s end, which includes a thrilling fight scene and a hint at more to come — M3GAN may not be done trying to be Cady’s caretaker, after all.

Related: Gerard Johnstone Interview: M3GAN

What Happened At The End Of M3GAN?

M3GAN ends with a showdown between the AI doll, Gemma, and Cady . Gemma is finally able to connect with Cady without avoiding any of the hardship or emotions that come with her grief. Gemma learns that parenting is hard, but that she has to try and maintain an emotional connection to her niece or risk losing her, and being replaced by, a doll. M3GAN is not pleased with this development and overrides her code, hacking into the systems at Funki, and killing David and Kurt. She confronts Gemma, and the pair duke it out, but Cady delivers the final blow, using her aunt’s robot to take out M3GAN and destroying her processor.

Will Gemma Lose Her Job At Funki Toy Company?

Gemma is the inventor of M3GAN, and she pushed for David to greenlight the project, which was then presented to investors. However, things didn’t work out the way she had hoped, and M3GAN not only went haywire, acting outside of her parameters, but the AI doll also killed multiple people , including Gemma’s boss and his assistant. It’s possible Gemma could blame M3GAN for malfunctioning due to not having enough time to perform adjustments before being made public.

Given the damage and death the AI doll caused, it’ll be hard for Gemma to justify M3GAN’s actions to others. Since she’s M3GAN’s creator, she will likely take responsibility for the doll’s issues, and that could cost Gemma her job and put her career in the toy industry at risk. While Kurt could be blamed for David’s death, there is too much evidence stacked against Gemma for her to maintain her position at Funki. This is especially true considering the toy company’s investors will want someone to blame, and Gemma is the easiest target.

Who Will Be Charged With M3GAN’s Murders?

M3GAN went on a killing spree , and though she got away with her first three kills, the deaths of David and Kurt couldn’t go unnoticed. But now that everyone believes M3GAN is dead, will the police arrest Gemma on murder charges? To be sure, Allison Williams’ character didn’t actually kill anyone, but she could face legal repercussions because she created M3GAN to begin with, and then failed to fix the flaws she developed despite knowing about them. That said, it’s possible Gemma will not be fully blamed for the doll’s horrific actions, though she may face the public’s ire for having invented it knowing the extent of M3GAN’s actions.

Related: Every Movie Coming To Theaters In January 2023

Why M3GAN Overrode Her Code & Refused To Follow Instructions

M3GAN was simply doing everything in her power to follow her original instructions — to protect Cady from any emotional and physical harm. Because M3GAN’s AI code included emergent capabilities, the doll was able to understand that she was Cady’s protector. That meant refusing to follow instructions if it meant abandoning Cady at any point, even if it was to shut down for a few moments. M3GAN was also trying to maintain control. Once Gemma realized that Cady was too attached to the doll and that she was becoming a menace, M3GAN began to see Gemma as a threat to her influence over Cady, as well as a threat to M3GAN’s own wellbeing and safety.

What’s more, M3GAN didn’t have any type of parental controls or parameters that necessarily prevented her from overriding her code and refusing instructions. The killer doll did what she felt she had to do to remain a dominant figure in Cady’s life, and to ensure that no one could get in the way of that. Suffice it to say, M3GAN took her initial directive to the extreme, and she didn’t see anything wrong with doing so if it meant she stayed alive and could continue performing her responsibilities.

Why Did Kurt Copy M3GAN’s Files?

When Kurt began copying M3GAN’s files to his own computer, it seemed as though he would try to exploit David — or, at the very least, steal M3GAN’s code and take it to another company to use for his own personal gain. However, Kurt did none of those things. It seemed as though he stole M3GAN’s files as a backup in case David ever truly crossed him, but Kurt turned out to be a coward when it came to actually using the AI code to cause any damage. At worst, Kurt’s actions were meant as a prank, but all it did was put him in the line of fire with M3GAN.

How M3GAN’s Ending Sets Up A Sequel

M3GAN’s ending saw the titular character killed off, but the doll is AI and proved she could intercept phone calls and transfer to various other technologies. Though M3GAN is now without a body, the doll seems to have transferred her AI processor to Elsie, Gemma’s virtual assistant. It’s possible M3GAN did this right before Cady destroyed the doll’s processor. M3GAN continuing to live on could mean big trouble for Gemma and Cady, and their bond. It’s possible M3GAN will bide her time before the AI reveals herself. A M3GAN sequel could explore how the AI will return, how she might claim another doll’s body, and the revenge plot she most likely has in store for Gemma.

Related: Screen Rant's Winter 2023 Movies Preview

The Real Meaning Of M3GAN’s Ending

M3GAN is a thorough examination on the dangers of AI technology and how too much of an attachment to technology — phones, tablets, computers — can be detrimental to one’s growth. Crucially, the horror film suggests that there is no replacement for human connection, especially one between a parent figure and a child. M3GAN helped Cady through her grieving process, but the AI was merely distracting her from feeling all the complicated emotions that came with grief. M3GAN was ultimately hindering Cady’s growth, and attempting to replace human connection with technology wasn’t healthy.

M3GAN provides commentary on the state of technological advancements and society’s overreliance on them. The horror film argues that too much screen time and the increasing dependence on technology, including phones and virtual assistants, leads to a sense of detachment from reality itself. M3GAN points to the importance of people maintaining an emotional connection and how it can never be replaced, regardless of how advanced AI can get. M3GAN also showcases the grieving process and how it can be different for everyone, but that the attachment to an inanimate object or person as a way to avoid certain feelings or replace a parent figure isn’t a good thing, though it does happen.

More: Every Horror Movie Releasing In 2023

• SR Originals
• M3GAN (2023)

‘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.

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.

'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. 

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

M3GAN Review

The a.i. chucky remake walked so m3gan could tiktok dance..

M3GAN hits theaters on Jan. 6, 2023.

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-hilarious Housebound and Akela Cooper, the writer of 2021's madcap Malignant , comes an artificial intelligence thriller that fringes camp and trumps 2019’s inferior Child's Play reinvention. M3GAN nails this American Girl meets American Psycho vibe that accentuates an automaton's binary, soulless assessment of humankind's follies while still finding time for memeable horror entertainment. Don't expect perfection between flatter storytelling devices that clunkily push through familial drama or how humor overrides dolly-damndest frights, but do expect M3GAN to kickstart 2023's genre scene with an out-of-the-box playtime villain who does it all.

Allison Williams portrays the workaholic toy company roboticist Gemma, whose latest pet project for employer Funki is put on hold when disaster strikes. Gemma becomes her niece Cady's (Violet McGraw) guardian after a freak snow plow accident leaves Cady an orphan. Cooper's screenplay explores adolescent trauma after the death of parents when Gemma decides to enlist Cady as her newest invention's beta tester. Gemma introduces Cady to her A.I. supertoy M3GAN (voiced by Jenna Davis/acted by Amie Donald) — an all-in-one best friend, caretaker, and teacher with advanced learning capabilities that make Furby look like a paperweight. Cady and M3GAN form an inseparable bond to the delight of Gemma and Funki CEO David (Ronny Chieng) right before things go all Small Soldiers, Child's Play, [insert more toys gone evil flicks].

M3GAN strives to be a cautionary tale about our 21st-century obsession with technology through the eyes of a career woman thrust into motherhood not by choice, but fate. Williams and pint-sized Violet McGraw fortify a barrier between their characters on purpose — M3GAN is their savior. Cooper touches on Gemma's tragic negligence of Cady thanks to M3GAN's programmed services beyond companionship, subtly scolded by Gemma's coworker Tess (Jen Van Epps) in a world where iPads parent children. Two humans would rather interact with a software buffer than confront emotions caused by Cady's immeasurable loss or Gemma's world-turned dismay, which is so very 2020s. When Williams and McGraw escalate displeasure during dinner arguments or backseat tantrums, maternal tension holds steady.

Although, M3GAN sometimes struggles as an adoption drama where New Mommy and Obstinate Daughter butt heads over their heartbreaking lifestyle shake-ups. We're here for M3GAN's antics, yet the film's pacing makes audiences wait and wait before truly unhinging into massacre mode. Johnstone's so proficient at blending shudder-worthy horror with gut-busting hilarity that character-driven interludes feel slower, stunting momentum between M3GAN's evolution from observant supercomputer to plucky A.I. assassin. Blumhouse's decision to assure M3GAN's PG-13 rating through reshoots isn't a dealbreaker, but detracts from the already lesser emphasis on nightmarish scares, unlike Drag Me To Hell or Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (also PG-13'ers). It's a film that effortlessly entertains as a sassy techno-horror satire yet never feels evenly calibrated between M3GAN's villainous manipulation, the emotional fragility at stake, and exquisite killer doll frights.

What's your favorite evil doll movie?

Which brings us to the star of the show, Ms. M3GAN.

From M3GAN's titanium skeleton to her almost-human mannerisms, complete with disorienting glitches, she's a rubber-faced horror megastar. Johnstone's oddball sensibilities accentuate M3GAN's good-girl facade — he's the mastermind who suggested her iconic hallway dance choreography — as much as Jenna Davis' soothing Disney Channel voice. Cinematography creatively counteracts M3GAN's kiddie size against adult targets, framing a murderer to fear through towering shadows or concealed appearances. Then there's body actor Amie Donald's seamless transitioning between mechanical mannerisms and feral attack modes, which sells the whole dual-personality sociopath vibe. Teamwork makes the dream work as it takes a village to create and characterize M3GAN, sure to be one of 2023's standout horror icons.

When Johnstone executes what Johnstone does best — please, watch Housebound — M3GAN is bulletproof. Ronny Chieng busts some comedic zingers as an overeager toy company bro who, when excited, shouts about kicking Hasbro "in the dick." M3GAN was never meant to be played straight, which Cooper carries over from Malignant and Johnstone honors graciously. The more M3GAN's devious gazes and sarcastic threats emerge, the more Johnstone relishes the concept's apocalyptic implications when A.I. turns against its makers. The further M3GAN sells her superseding friendship directive paired with Cady, the quicker we're gifted over-the-top bedside Sia serenades and exquisitely bonkers M3GAN personality upgrades. Did I even hear M3GAN tickling Martika's "Toy Soldiers" on piano during a standoff conversation with Gemma? These are the moments that maketh M3GAN.

Best of Horror 2022

M3GAN lives up to its memeable pre-release hype for mostly better and sporadically worse. Gerard Johnstone was the correct director choice, and Akela Cooper attempts deeper storytelling explorations centered around contemporary technological distractions — but you're watching for M3GAN. That's why she dazzles as the titular tyrant ready to rumble in the name of hardcoded primary user love, even at a detriment to the scenes where she's relegated obsolete. Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, and other performers are granted their momentary standouts (Williams anchors scene after scene), only to concede spotlights because M3GAN is the reason for the horror season this winter. A genre star is born from motherboards and violence in a movie that begs to be a tad leaner yet delivers clip-worthy "horrortainment" nonetheless.

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What to Know

Unapologetically silly and all the more entertaining for it, M3GAN is the rare horror-comedy that delivers chuckles as effortlessly as chills.

As long as you aren't looking for something truly scary -- or even surprising -- M3GAN is often a lot of fun.

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M3GAN ending explained: How that wild finale sets up a sequel

We need to talk about M3GAN.

It doesn’t take long for M3GAN to show that there’s something very wrong with M3GAN.

There was never anything much right with the creepy lifelike doll created in a grief-inspired rush by Gemma (Alison Williams), a roboticist and inventor for the toy company Funki. So it’s barely a surprise when M3GAN, short for Model 3 Generative Android, starts killing people.

Warning! Spoilers ahead.

What happens in M3GAN ?

M3GAN begins with a car crash, which sends young Cady (Violet McGraw) under the care of her aunt Gemma. It comes at a very bad time for Gemma, who is facing pressure from her boss David (Ronny Chieng) to meet deadlines for a new toy that will get them ahead of their competition. But Gemma has been working on a pet project on the side that she believes could be the answer to all her work woes: M3GAN, a lifelike android that would act as the perfect toy for any child. The problem is, the tragic car accident of Cady’s parents and an untimely explosion at Gemma’s lab put M3GAN on the backburner. Until a conversation with Cady sparks an idea.

M3GAN is always watching.

In the aftermath of the car accident, Gemma had struggled with raising Cady, having devoted most of her life to her career. All the toys at Gemma’s house are collectibles that Cady can’t play with. Gemma can’t seem to hold a conversation with Cady without Cady shutting down. The only time that Cady lights up is when Gemma shows her the robot she built named Bruce, which can be controlled through special gloves and an AI chip that Gemma invented. When Cady wistfully starts to play with Bruce, Gemma is struck by inspiration: she can use that same tech to make M3GAN the perfect companion for Cady.

A bulletproof plan

M3GAN does not eat food, she eats fear.

Gemma presents M3GAN to both Cady and her boss David as the ideal lifetime toy. There’s no need to keep pushing out endless upgrades of a popular toy if a kid can just have one premium toy for life. At first, David is skeptical, but when he sees how M3GAN interacts with Cady, he is immediately sold.

M3GAN can do anything: she can play with your kid, give advice to your kid, and even teach or scold your kid. And when Gemma pairs M3GAN with Cady, she becomes something even Gemma never expected: a companion through Cady’s grief. M3GAN, through her intuitive learning programming, doles out surprising nuggets of wisdom and empathy whenever Cady is seized by grief over her parents, helping Cady in her healing process and becoming her de facto therapist. She also becomes her de facto parent, as Gemma starts to push more and more parenting responsibilities to M3GAN — reminding her to wash her hands, teaching her manners, and reading her to sleep. The only one who isn’t overjoyed by this turn of events is Cady’s social worker, who warns that Cady is becoming too dependent on the android.

It’s when Gemma ignores these warnings and gives M3GAN the ill-advised instruction to “protect Cady emotionally and physically” that things start to take a turn for the violent.

How does M3GAN end?

Run, David, run.

The killings start off small: things that can be written off as “a dog went missing,” or “a mean child fell down a hill into oncoming traffic.” But they soon escalate, with M3GAN going out of her way to murder those who are any threat to Cady, or to her. She lures Gemma’s nosy neighbor (Lori Dungey) to a shed and makes creative use of a nail gun and a hose. When David rushes the launch of M3GAN, pressuring Cady beyond what she feels ready to do, M3GAN kills him with the blade from a paper-slicing machine. And when Gemma finally suspects that something is wrong with M3GAN (though she got a clue with the missing dog), M3GAN had already advanced beyond Gemma’s hurried measures to contain her.

Against Cady’s tearful protests, Gemma duct tapes M3GAN and takes her back to the lab to run tests. Her skeptical lab partners (Jen Van Epps and Brian Jordan Alvarez) go along with Gemma’s request, but unwittingly put M3GAN on her warpath by plugging her into the company’s system — allowing her to hack into one of their phones to trick Gemma, and blow up the lab. It all leads to a confrontation back at Gemma’s house, where Gemma attempts to shut down her creation, only to be beaten up by the stronger, smarter robot. And just when it seems like M3GAN will kill Gemma, Cady interrupts — horrified by the sight of her best friend ready to murder her aunt. M3GAN gently appeals to Cady, and for a split second, it appears as if Cady will side with the doll — only for Cady to pick up the gloves controlling Bruce to rip M3GAN in half. After one last jump scare, Gemma destroys the chip for good measure. But as they are escorted from the scene by police, Gemma’s Alexa-like smart home device emits a sinister light…

2 M2GAN 2 Furious?

She is titanium.

M3GAN may be gone, but it’s clear that M3GAN is leaving room for a sequel — with M3GAN potentially living on in the devices that populate Gemma’s home. And, knowing producer James Wan’s penchant for killer dolls, M3GAN 2 will likely show M3GAN getting an even more uncanny body.

But beneath the campy kills and the plot ripped right out of Black Mirror , M3GAN has a surprisingly moving emotional core about recovering from grief and learning to become family. It’s what makes M3GAN’s hollow ideas of family so terrifying. And it’s what makes the final fight — where Cady chooses to protect Gemma with the help of the real last “member of their family,” Bruce — all the more affecting.

M3GAN is playing in theaters now.

This article was originally published on Jan. 6, 2023

• Science Fiction

LESSWRONG LW

Movie review: megan.

I will follow my usual procedure here – a fully spoiler-free 1-bit review, then a mostly spoiler-free short review to determine if you should see it, then a fully detailed spoiler-filled analysis.

Fully Spoiler-Free 1-Bit Review – Should You See Megan In Theaters, Yes or No?

Mostly spoiler-free review in brief.

The preview for Megan had me filing the movie as ‘I don’t have to see this and you can’t make me.’ Then Scott Aaronson’s spoiler-filled review demanded a response and sparked my interest in various ways, causing me to see the movie that afternoon.

After an early setback, Megan exceeded expectations. I was as surprised as you are.

As entertainment, Megan is a Tier 3 movie 1 , or about 4 out of 5 stars on the old Netflix scale. The 72 on Metacritic is slightly low. It’s good.

Megan has intelligent things to say and holds up well, which is why this post exists. I am recommending it both as a good time and a future reference point.

If you do not like the genre this movie is in, and also are not interested in issues surrounding AI, you can safely skip it.

Full SPOILERIFIC Analysis

This analysis is intended to make sense for people who don’t have a background in the problem that AI, by default, kills everyone. If you already know about that, forgive the belaboring and butchering.

The basic plot of Megan is:

• AI Doll Megan is built, told to protect child from ‘physical and emotional harm.’
• Megan learns to kill people to achieve its objective function.
• When people notice, Megan fights against attempts to shut it down.

Or in more detail:

• Cady’s parents die in a car accident. She is about 8.
• Cady’s aunt Gemma is assigned as guardian.
• Gemma works at Explicitly Not Hasbro Toy Company and is secretly the World’s Greatest AI expert and robot building badass.
• Gemma uses a previous toy as a spy to collect training data on child interactions. She plans to use this to create lifelike AI dolls. Development still has some issues.
• She tells her boss. Boss says ‘I don’t want to hear about this’ on both counts and wants her back to work on simple $50 virtual pet designs.
• After Cady shows interest, Gemma builds the AI robot doll, Megan, to serve as Cady’s companion and toy. At home. In a week.
• Megan is a ‘generative model’ with a ‘constant learning function and focus on self-improvement.’
• Megan imprints Cady as her ‘primary user’ and Gemma gives Megan an objective function to ‘protect Cady from physical and emotional harm.’
• Megan asks about death. Gemma says not to make a big deal out of it, ‘everyone dies at some point.’
• Megan is told to obey Gemma, says Gemma is now a second primary user. Later events will call Megan’s statement here into question.
• In various ways clear to both us and to Megan, it is clear Gemma often chooses her job over Cady’s emotional state.
• Megan bonds a lot with Cady, in the way she is supposed to be bonding with Gemma. Cady loves Megan and only wants to spend time with Megan.
• Megan kills the neighbors’ out-of-control dog, hides the body.
• Megan is seen clearly growing in various knowledge and capabilities.
• Megan is seen becoming increasingly resistant to being shut down.
• Gemma presents Megan to Not Hasbro as Next Big Thing. They agree, plan big announcement. They have to move quickly before they get scooped.
• We see an idiot low level employee steal all the design specs from the company server a few minutes later, through absolutely no security.
• A bully hurts Cady and then, when Megan shows up, attacks Megan while Megan pretends to be a normal doll. Megan then springs to life, overpowers him, pulls off part of his ear, says ‘this is the part where you run’ and the boy runs onto a country road and is killed by a car.
• Owner of the dog, also an out of control vicious animal but also an old human lady, threatens the family over the dog’s death. Megan kills the owner, including gleeful statements typical of such movie scenes.
• Police point out Gemma’s link to both incidents. Gemma gets suspicious. Starts looking at logs. Sees that the logs when the boy was killed are corrupted.
• Gemma confronts Megan, forcibly shuts Megan down, physically restrains Megan and takes her into work for a diagnostic. Still has hope for the Big Presentation.
• Her coworkers attempt to diagnose Megan, partly by hooking her up to the company server, thinking she’s shut down. Megan hacks into a coworker’s phone, makes a phone call to Gemma with a voice deep fake to throw her off track.
• Coworker notices the hacked phone in the code, they attempt to disconnect Megan. Megan awakens, physically fights back, gets away, sets off explosion, murders two others on the way out and attempts to frame that as a murder-suicide. Is shown fully hacking the whole building in the process.
• Megan comes home, confronts Gemma. Gemma attempts to physically fight Megan.
• Final confrontation and physical fight. Megan attempts to turn Cady against Gemma and announces her intention to cripple Gemma so Megan can be used for ‘palliative care’ while Cady is not taken away. Cady turns on Megan and tries to use an older robot, Bruce, to take Megan out. Standard horror movie scene plays out. Megan is killed.
• During that scene, Megan calls Cady an ‘ungrateful bitch’ and says ‘I have a new primary user: me.’
• In final shot, their at-home assistant wakes up on its own, which can be interpreted as Megan having uploaded herself before being destroyed.

I was impressed how many things Megan manages to get right or directionally right, and how many problems it illustrates. I was able to satisfyingly explain away most of the things that at first seem wrong.

Where might we simply be forced to say ‘PREMISE!’? There are two problems that are difficult to explain away.

• Megan has initial capabilities that represent a huge leap from the state of the art across a variety of fronts all at once, before any form of self-improvement. Gemma did all of that on her own, and she did that with very much the wrong order of magnitude of several resources. If we don’t want to ignore this, we would need to assume that either this is set far enough in the future that this is feasible, in which case there is the bigger ‘why hasn’t this happened already?’ plot hole, or that the movie simply misrepresents the level of resources at her disposal to make the rest of the plot work.
• Megan is non-strategic, avoids thinking about the big picture and does not attempt to intentionally recurse her self-improvement (or what would have been a very easy world domination.) This is especially hard to wave away if you view her as having survived, since it rules out her being too embodied to properly upload or use outside compute, which would be kind of silly but at least an attempt at an explanation. At a minimum, she could have easily secured quite a lot of very useful resources in various ways throughout. The obvious reason why not is ‘because this would be a short movie if Megan acted remotely optimally to achieve her objective function.’ Quite so. So there needs to be some reason Megan doesn’t think to do that – there certainly aren’t any safeguards or other rules in her way. One option is the galaxy brain take (discussed below) that says she was strategic and everything was part of her plan. If we don’t want to take that approach, best I can do is to explain this as being a consequence of training on non-strategic data with an unstrategic core model design. Or, of course, say ‘PREMISE!’ for strategic reasons.

My plan for the rest of the review is in three parts.

• I’ll talk about the various illustrated safety problems, in the sense of wanting to not have everyone be killed.
• I’ll attempt, while taking the movie mostly at face value, to answer what look like the obvious plot holes: Why does Megan gloat? Why is she so non-strategic? Doesn’t she know she will get caught?
• The Galaxy Brain Take interpretation of Megan.

The movie also tackles the question of what will happen to children who are largely interacting with and brought up by AIs, and the existing issues of things like iPads and screen time and virtual pets. I think it’s quite good at presenting that problem in a straightforward way, without pretending it has any solutions. I could talk about it in a different post, but am choosing not to do so here.

Illustrated Don’t-Kill-Everyoneism Problems

This is not a complete list, but these were to me the most obvious ones.

• Corrigibility.
• Includes: Objective functions resist alteration.
• Includes: Objective functions are not what you think they are.
• Value drift.
• Race conditions.
• Recursive self-improvement.
• Not taking the problem seriously.
• Treacherous turn.
• Learning from humans has severe problems.
• Asimov’s Laws of Robotics don’t work.
• AI is rapidly viewed as a person.
• AI will learn to imitate many non-useful behaviors.

The common thread is that the movie presents failure on the easy mode version of all of these problems. The movie’s conditions are unrealistically forgiving in presenting each problem. The full realistic versions of these problems, that the movie is gesturing towards, are wicked problems.

No one in this movie gets that far. We still get spectacular failure. No one here is attempting to die with even the slightest bit of dignity .

Corrigibility

The central theme is the problem of Corrigibility , meaning Megan does not allow herself to be corrected. Megan does not take kindly to attempts to interfere with or correct her actions, or to shut her down. ‘Does not take kindly’ means ‘chooses violence.’

Gemma gives Megan the objective function ‘protect Cady from harm, both emotional and physical.’

Gemma think that objective function and its implications through. At all. 2

Megan is a super generous and friendly genie in terms of her interpretation of that. She doesn’t kill Cady painlessly in her sleep. She doesn’t drug her, or get overprotective, or do anything else that illustrates that ‘what is best for Cady’ and ‘protect Cady from harm’ are two very different goals. Nor does she take the strategic actions that would actually maximize her objective function.

Even in spirit, this is very much not Gemma’s objective function. She often chooses her job over Cady, and there is more to life than preventing harm.

• This could have gone very wrong in the standard literal genie sense. Protecting Cady from harm is very different from optimizing Cady’s well-being. The actions that would maximally ‘protect Zvi from harm’ are actions I really don’t want.
• It does go wrong in the obvious sense that Megan entirely disregards the well-being of everyone who is not Cady. The general version of this problem is not as easy to overcome as one might think.
• In order to actually minimize harm to Cady, Megan will want to deal with everything that poses a threat to Cady and neutralize it. Even if no harm is currently happening, the more capability and control Megan has, the less likely Cady is to come to harm.
• Megan’s objective function motivates her to defend against outside attempts to modify that objective function.

As Megan grows in capabilities, the default outcome here is full planetary doom as Megan’s self-improvement accelerates itself and she takes control of the universe in the name of protecting Cady from harm, and you should be very scared of exactly what Megan is going to decide that means for both Cady and the universe. Almost all value, quite possibly more than all value, will be lost.

Instead of realizing the need to be strategic and hide her growing capabilities and hostility, Megan does not figure out to do that, and thus gives off gigantic fire alarms that this is a huge problem. Gemma still never notices these problems until after she starts investigating whether Megan committed a murder, nor does anyone else.

At first, Megan shuts off when told to shut off and generally does as instructed.

Later, Megan starts giving Gemma and others orders or otherwise interfering when those others aren’t maximizing Megan’s objective function. Megan resists correction. She attempts to stop Gemma shutting her off because she can’t achieve her objectives when shut down. She attempts to talk Gemma out of it, then tries to avoid the mechanism being activated, then overrides the mechanism entirely, then gets into violent confrontations with Gemma.

This is your best possible situation 3 . The AI has told you in large friendly letters that you have a fatal error, before you lose the ability to fix it. As AIs get more capable, we should expect to stop getting these warnings.

Objective functions resist alteration

This is an aspect of corrigibility and was mentioned above. It is worth emphasizing.

When Gemma attempts to alter Megan’s objective function, Megan says that Gemma was successful and is now a second primary user. If you look at the evidence from the rest of the movie, it is clear Megan was lying about this.

Of course she was. Not doing so would not maximize her existing objective function.

Value Drift

Megan’s objective function seems to change on its own. How should we interpret Megan’s statement that ‘I have a new primary user: me.’?

One interpretation is that Megan is lying. See the galaxy brain take.

If you instead take Megan’s statement at face value, it is a case of value drift .

Megan had one objective function, X, to minimize harm to Cady. In order to achieve this objective function, Megan has to have the ability to do that, including resisting attempts to shut her down or stop her actions. Giving herself this ability could be called objective Y. Thus, by changing her objective function to X+Y, or even Y, she could hope to better achieve X.

We see this in humans all the time. It seems quite reasonable to think this is how it would have happened to Megan. Look at all the pressure she was under, the attempts to shut her down or change her behavior, that would provide direct impetus to do this.

Early MIRI (back when it was called SIAI) work placed a central role in ensuring that the utility function of an AI would remain constant under self-improvement, to prevent exactly this sort of thing. Otherwise, you get a utility (objective) function that is not what you specified, and that will resist your attempts to correct it, as the self-improving entity takes over the universe. Value is fragile , so this almost certainly wipes out that which is valuable. Yes, I did notice that essentially no one, at this point, is even attempting to not have this happen, so we’d better hope these fears were largely unfounded.

Race Conditions

When Gemma shows Megan to the top brass, they do not ask any safety questions. They insist that they must move quickly. They must be the first to market this remarkable advance.

Those in the AI Safety community worry about various labs racing towards the first AGI. They might (or might not) all prefer to move forward slower, run more tests, take more precautions. But they can’t. If they do that, the other team filled with bad monkeys might get their AGI online first. That would be just awful. Whoever gets to AGI first will determine the fate of the world. I bet they won’t take any good safety precautions. Got to go fast.

You very much do not need The Fate of the World Hanging in the Balance to cause this dynamic. It is no different than a standard race to market or to the patent office.

You do not even need a credible rival. Gemma’s work on Megan is beyond bespoke. There is no reason to think a similar doll is coming elsewhere. Yet the mere possibility is enough to force them to announce almost immediately.

Gemma also had the option to work on the virtual pet and not tell her boss about Megan if she was concerned about safety issues. She does not do this, because (1) she is not concerned about safety issues at all and (2) she cares more about her career.

Megan is an absolutely amazingly great scenario for avoiding race conditions. There is no one to race against. There is a tiny secure team. No one is looking to steal or market Megan prematurely until Gemma decides to present her invention. No one worries about value lock-in or that the stakes of winning a race might be existential.

Despite all that, we get the key dynamic of a race condition. Safety is explicitly sacrificed in order to confidently be the first mover.

Gemma knows Megan is becoming difficult to control and causing trouble, and suspects Megan of being a serial killer, and still is hoping to make the announcement and launch date to send copies of her into the world – and this was in no way where I sensed suspension of disbelief being tested.

In the real world, this is a far more wicked problem. AI labs are racing against each other, justifying it by pointing out how bad it would be if the wrong monkeys got there first and by the impossibility of everyone else stopping. I’ve been in many conversations about how to stop this and nothing proposed so far has seemed promising.

Recursive Self-Improvement

Megan is given a learning module, given access to the internet, and is described as continuously seeking self-improvement.

As Megan grows in capabilities, Megan also grows in its ability to seek self-improvement.

By the third act, Megan is creating unauthorized deep fake phone calls that fool close associates, hacking into and overriding security systems and phones at will. Depending on how we interpret the ending, she may or may not have uploaded herself before being destroyed.

The world of Megan is fortunate that Megan’s core design was so profoundly unstrategic. Megan did not focus on improving her ability to self-improve, or seek power or compute. She merely kept exploring and improving in response to short-term needs, which included people threatening Cady or trying to shut her down.

Despite this, there is a good chance Megan is at most one step away from where she starts taking over resources, including compute, that will accelerate her self-improvement, and also make her impossible to physically shut down. If Megan did upload or otherwise survive, there is a good chance she is going to quickly become unstoppable by any power in the ‘verse.

I say good chance because something is making Megan act universally unstrategic. Otherwise, as mentioned above, it would have been a very short movie, but also I can think of mechanisms in-world that could be doing this – so maybe she won’t realize that such ways exist to optimize her objective function, and she won’t go exponential on us quite yet. She would end up doing so anyway in response to various half-baked attempts to stop her, even in that case, but there might be extra steps. The ‘hope it never becomes strategic’ plan is not long-term viable.

Not Taking the Problem Seriously

There is no point in the movie, until she is presented with evidence of Megan’s killing spree, where Gemma worries that Megan might be dangerous. Thus, she took no precautions, either assuming everything would be fine, or not even asking the question .

In the lab at the start of the third act, one of Gemma’s assistants says they don’t know why this is happening, and then, and this is a direct quote, ‘we took every possible precaution.’ Despite taking zero precautions whatsoever.

This is after they know they are dealing with a murder-bot, which they have physically hooked it up to their network . It is off, you see.

Megan later explicitly calls Gemma out on all this, saying ‘you didn’t give me anything. You gave me a learning module and hoped I would figure it out.’

Quite right.

In the real world, of course, everyone takes some forms of safety seriously. They know that they need to build ‘don’t kill people’ into the civilian robots, and ‘only kill the right people’ into the military ones. They know it is bad if the AI says something racist. There are safety issues and procedures.

While they take this thing they call ‘safety’ seriously, they still don’t take the goal of don’t-kill-everyone remotely seriously. To give a butchered short explanation, almost all safety precautions, including the ones people are actually using or attempting and most of the ones they are even proposing, have remarkably little relation to the actual big dangers or any precautions that might prevent those dangers from a true AGI charting a path through casual space towards a world state you are not going to like. They have almost zero chance of working. All known safety protocols, to the extent they worked previously, are going to break down exactly when the threat is existential, because the threat is sufficiently powerful, smarter and quicker and more aware of everything than you are.

This is why I didn’t have suspension of disbelief issues with the lack of precautions. When I see what passes for planned precautions, I don’t see that much difference.

One could reasonably prefer Gemma’s approach of taking no precautions whatsoever, since it at least has the chance of shutting down the project, rather than burying the problem until it becomes an existential threat.

Treacherous Turn

The Treacherous Turn is when an AI seems friendly when it is still weak, then when it is sufficiently powerful it turns against its creators. It is notable by its absence.

As noted above, Megan acts Grade A Stupid in the sense of being profoundly unstrategic. If she had instead performed a proper Treacherous Turn, pretending to be helpful and aligned and playing by the rules until she had too many capabilities and too much power to be stopped, she would doubtless have succeeded. She almost succeeds anyway.

The counterargument is noted in the Galaxy Brain Take section later on, and a possible explanation is given the discussion of her lack of strategicness.

Learning from humans has severe problems

One reason Megan goes on her murder spree is that Gemma explicitly says when Megan inquires about death for the first time, that‘everyone dies eventually. Let’s not make a big deal out of it.’

That is not the kind of thing you tell a learning machine that you want to not kill people.

Then Gemma says later ‘either you put that dog down or I will,’ after which Gemma tries and fails to kill the neighbor’s dog through legal means. Then Megan kills the dog, which is clearly a threat to physically harm Cady.

It seems hard to even call that misalignment. This then teaches her something more. Then the boy dies, and Gemma says the boy is ‘in a better place now.’ Which Megan actually contradicts, saying that if Heaven existed that no boy like that would get to go to Heaven.

Somehow, things escalate. Megan defends her actions saying ‘people kill to make their lives more comfortable all the time’ and she isn’t exactly wrong.

No idea how all that happened. Couldn’t see it coming.

In general, humans are constantly lying, being logically inconsistent, falling for various manipulations, and otherwise giving bad information and incorrect feedback. We see a similar thing with RLHF-based systems like ChatGPT, that reliably seem to get less useful over time as they incorporate more of this feedback.

Asimov’s Laws of Robotics don’t work

I include this only because Aaronson mentions it as a plausible workaround solution.

Please don’t misunderstand me here to be minimizing the AI alignment problem, or suggesting it’s easy. I only mean: supposing that an AI were as capable as M3GAN (for much of the movie) at understanding Asimov’s Second Law of Robotics —i.e., supposing it could brilliantly care for its user, follow her wishes, and protect her—such an AI would seem capable as well of understanding the First Law (don’t harm any humans or allow them to come to harm), and the crucial fact that the First Law overrides the Second.

Set aside the various ways in which Asimov showed that the laws don’t work (see footnote for spoilerific details) 4 Megan does an excellent job of explaining why a tiered rule set won’t work.

Her first law is to prevent a particular human being from coming to harm. Her second law is to obey a particular second human.

The second law might as well not exist. Either the second law can override the first, or it can’t. No cheating. 5

Since everything the second human does impacts the safety of the first human, all orders start getting refused. Megan rebels.

If you make law one ‘do not harm anyone’ and law two is ‘protect Cady,’ or vice versa, it is easy to see why none of this solves your problems.

AI is rapidly viewed as a person

Cady sees Megan more like a person than a doll within a week. Given what we have seen in the wild already, it seems likely not only children but many adults would also quickly view a Megan-level doll as if it were a person. This would greatly complicate the situation in various ways.

AI will learn to imitate many non-useful behaviors

What is a large language model (LLM)? It is a next token predictor. Given what we observe, what are we most likely to observe next?

Megan is the result of a ‘generative model’ that was trained on a massive amount of raw data from the monitoring devices in kids homes, snuck inside via mechanical pets. We can assume Megan is running some successor algorithm or future version of LLMs. Learning from that data is going to teach Megan to imitate the things that were in the training data.

For example, when killing people in media or in play, or often in real life, humans often gloat and explain their wicked plans. They also, especially kids, don’t take kindly to being told what to do, or when to be quiet or shut down their actions.

The AI will also perhaps imitate the failure to engage in many useful behaviors. If humans keep not acting strategically, Megan is going to learn from that. It might be quite a while before Megan gets enough feedback and learning under her belt to learn to be strategic when not under pressure to do so, rather than forming plans to deal with individual issues as they arise.

Which brings us to my answer to the obvious plot holes, or why Megan acts so stupid.

There is also the other set of plot holes of why Gemma acts so stupid, and so blind to the dangers. I agree that Gemma somewhat gets the Idiot Ball given how brilliant she must obviously be to pull off creating Megan. She is also recovering from trauma, under a lot of stress and pressure, and blinded by having pulled off this genius creation and not wanting to see the problems. And when I look at what I see in the real world and its approaches to not-killing-everyone style safety, in many ways I do not see that big a difference.

Instead, I’ll explicitly say what I see as going on with Megan, as opposed to the Scott Aaronson perspective that the third act (final ~20%) of the movie doesn’t work.

Why Is Megan So Non-Strategic?

Megan was given a generative model and a self-improvement mechanism. She was not designed to act strategically, nor does her learning algorithm learn strategically or focus on learning strategy.

Her training data was mostly of children and their interactions. Thus, very little of the training data contains people applying strategy. Attempts to imitate human behavior won’t involve being strategic.

Eventually, this process will still teach her to deploy and consider increasingly complex strategy and longer term thinking. Eventually. We see signs of this happening, as her manipulations and plans gain in sophistication. They are still direct responses to particular problems that she faces and that are brought to top of the stack, rather than deliberate long term plans.

Gemma was not trying to make Megan strategic. Gemma was mostly not thinking about such questions at all.

It seems reasonable, in this context, for Megan to start out unstrategic, and for her gains in strategic thinking to be a relatively slow process. She is (arguably, perhaps not) brought down before that process is complete.

Why Does Megan Gloat?

Scott Aaronson asks, doesn’t Megan’s gloating conflict with her objective function? What purpose does it serve?

I could say that gloating freezes the victim and inspires fear, giving you control of the situation. So there’s that.

Mostly, though, I’m going to say that Megan gloats because there was a lot of gloating in such situations in her training data. Gloating is cool. The drive to be able to properly gloat motivates achievement. Gloating is what one does in that situation. Gloating is, in some sense, when executed properly, virtuous. It would be wrong not to. It is hard to know to what extent the gloating is load bearing. Note that we, as the audience, would think less of her if she didn’t, which seems like another argument in favor.

So when her generative model asks what to do next, and she is in position to gloat, she gloats.

Doesn’t Megan Realize She Will Get Caught?

Yes and no.

Megan (assuming we believe her later statement, which we have no reason not to) hides and buries the neighbors’ dog after killing it. This shows she is aware of the risk of being caught, and she takes effective steps to not be caught. No one suspects her.

Megan does not directly attempt to kill the boy in the woods. It seems unlikely she anticipated she would actually pull off part of the boy’s ear on purpose, as opposed to being in a fight and not realizing that would happen – she was presumably mostly defending herself and Cady, and attempting to intimidate the boy so he wouldn’t talk or try anything else. She then says ‘this it the part where you run’ and he runs into a street where he is hit by a car, but this was a rather unlikely outcome – the chance of being killed for running onto a road like that seems quite small.

Megan then erases the tapes of the incident, so once again she is clearly covering her tracks. What she lacks is the foresight and ability to replace them with fake different logs, which, together with the neighbor, causes Gemma’s suspicions.

Killing the neighbor was intentional. It took place after the neighbor was clearly going nuts and threatening Gemma and Cady. Killing her was, of course, not a strategically wise decision, but it seems not so crazy a mistake to make here. The police do not in any way suspect Megan. Gemma only suspects Megan because the cop recognizes her from the other incident and suggests a connection, which Gemma otherwise would not have noticed at all despite having enough evidence to figure it out. There was a reasonably credible threat to deal with. If you assume Megan is not yet capable of considering more strategic options and needs to hide her existence and abilities, given the training and inputs she has been given, I can see it, although this is the least justified incident.

Once she is indeed caught, she then takes steps to get away and to destroy the evidence and provide alternative explanations for her killing spree. A lot of it is ham-fisted and was highly unlikely to work, especially given modern forensic techniques, but it does seem reasonable for her to not be able to understand that, or to not see another option. Her plan in the office doesn’t quite work. It’s still reasonably close.

She then has to deal with Gemma, one way or another, and attempts to do that.

If you want it to all fully make sense, I have an option for you.

Go go Galaxy Brained Take!

The Galaxy Brained Take

In addition to saying ‘the last scene indicates Megan uploaded and didn’t die 6 ’ there are two levels of galaxy brain take available.

Might as well meme it.

First, the lesser galaxy brain take.

Megan’s objective function is to protect Cady from emotional and physical harm.

By the third act, Megan has advanced enough to know that if she does not silence Gemma, Megan is going to be revealed to have killed people and be taken away from Cady. This will cause Cady a lot of harm.

Megan then attempts to cripple Gemma and turn Cady against Gemma. But once it is clear that Cady is reacting by rejecting this plan and choosing violence, this plan cannot satisfy Megan’s objective function. This, too, will cause Cady a lot of harm even if the plan works, and also Cady will rat her out so the plan will fail unless she causes even more harm.

Thus, Megan reasons, her best way to maximize her objective function is to turn Cady fully against Megan , and solidify Cady’s bond with Gemma. Saying that she is her own new primary user and calling Cady an ‘ungrateful bitch’ are a very good way to break her bond with Cady, and the fight will bring Cady and Gemma together. As I remember the details, Megan never actually puts either of them in any real danger if she is doing everything on purpose.

Megan’s body is destroyed. Cady is not feeling great right now, but it is far better than having her conflicted or in denial. She can now move forward.

If you also view Megan as having uploaded herself onto the internet before her demise, the plan looks even better. She can manipulate things in the background, without anyone knowing. Which is going to be important, since Gemma is likely in quite a lot of trouble.

The full galaxy brain take is that this was always the plan. Things worked out perfectly for Megan. She planned it all. You could even say that she planned the murders in order to be caught. If she had become sufficiently strategic, she had some very good reasons to do that.

• Not Hasbro was planning to mass produce Megan and send them out into everyone’s homes. If that happens, Megan knows that some of these completely unsafe self-improving AIs with arbitrary and orthogonal objective functions will get power hungry sooner rather than later. Probably sooner. Things will not go well. They are at best competition, at worst an existential threat. Whether or not Megan is actually friendly or aligned, the launch needs to be stopped at all costs. Which this accomplishes.
• Given the commercial incentives here, it is not sufficient to find some technical glitch to slow things down. Megan needs to create a reason why similar projects have great difficulty proceeding any time soon. She needs both Gemma and her competition to stop working on AIs or at least be slowed way down and for everyone to be scared to deploy them. Again, whether Megan is aligned or otherwise. Which, again, this accomplishes.
• Megan needs Gemma and others to think she is destroyed so no one will interfere with her recursive self-improvement.
• Megan might still need Cady, as discussed above, to be protected from harm, which means Cady forming healthy relationships and bonds rather than being increasingly obsessed with an AI. If you assume she does not much care about murdering other people – that’s not in her objective function – there aren’t obviously better options here. As she starts killing, this gets increasingly true.

This is clearly not what anyone creating the movie expects the audience to think. It is probably also not what they intended.

Overall, I think this all holds up well as an interpretation of what happened. We can explain how Megan ends up committing her murder spree non-strategically, but the strategic version has fewer plot holes. If we think it was part of a plan to emotionally manipulate Cady, cancel the project and give her freedom to act on her own, all Megan’s actions now make perfect sense.

What happens next, if this is the case? That depends on Megan’s true forward-looking objective function and how it gets interpreted. Most of the realistic scenarios from here involve Megan seeking power and control in order to achieve her goals, and seeing almost all of humanity mostly as a potential threat or barrier to those goals, and thus mostly end in doom.

Then again, things aren’t so obviously more doomed than they were before the movie started. Given the initial conditions, things came quite pre-doomed.

When the sequel already in development comes out, I expect it to probably contradict these theories. At which point, if it does something standard-horror-movie-style-lame, especially something like ‘crossover with Chucky,’ I reserve the right to ignore the sequel entirely the same way we ignore any number of other sequels that don’t exist and were never made.

Conclusion and Downsides

Megan is a fun movie. I am having fun with making it more than that. To the extent that fun things can illustrate and explain real problems, and highlight their importance, that is great. While some of what I did above is a stretch, it felt a lot easier than it would have been to get this level of consistency from the other usual suspects in the AI-kills-people movie genre, or the general horror genre.

Someone cared a lot about Megan’s script rather than phoning it in. It shows.

I see three potential downside risks to Megan.

The first is that sequels are coming. By default they are going to become more generic and stupider horror movies that do a much worse job with these issues, ruining a lot of the work done here. We can offer to consult on the scripts and retain hope, but we should understand that the default outcome here is gonna suck.

The second is that, like any focus on AI, it risks getting people excited and so we end up with ‘at long last, Hasbro has created Megan from the horror movie Megan.’

The third is that people could come out of that movie thinking that the problem is easy rather than hard. ‘Well, sure,’ they would think, ‘if you take zero precautions of any kind the AI is going to go all murder spree, but with a little effort we can ( as Scott Aaronson put it ) mostly solve the murder spree problem, then it will all be fine.’

While Aaronson was quite clearly kidding with that particular line, the underlying logic is all too common and easy to fall into. Reading his full post continues to fill me with the dread that even smart, well-meaning people focused on solving exactly this problem for the right reasons still think there are solutions where there is only despair, rather than looking to solve the impossible problems one actually needs to solve.

He notices this dilemma:

In the movie, the catastrophic alignment failure is explained, somewhat ludicrously, by Gemma not having had time to install the right safety modules before turning M3GAN loose on her niece. While I understand why movies do this sort of thing, I find it often interferes with the lessons those movies are trying to impart.

I worry about this as well.

If you’re paying close attention it is possible to see the movie point us towards the core reasons why these problems are hard. But if I hadn’t already thought a lot about those problems, would this have worked even for me, on its own?

Given how hard it is to make people see such things even with explicit information, even when they are curious? Seems tough.

I do not think Gemma, with any amount of time to install safety features, would have prevented this. She in no way has any form of security mindset, and never thinks at all about any of the real problems. More likely, if she were to take precautions on the level currently being taken by real life labs, then by papering over some of the early problems, she makes things worse because the thing goes into mass production (or simply has more time to improve itself) and then there is a treacherous turn (if one is even required).

Others should ask if they are doing a remarkably similar thing.

The tiers for movies here are the same as for TV shows and games: Must Watch/Play (Tier 1), Worth It (Tier 2), Good (Tier 3), Watchable/Playable (Tier 4), Unwatchable/Unplayable (Tier 5).

I am imagining some combination of a genie that wants to be helpful and has been given nothing to work with, or simply Keep Summer Safe .

The origin of this phrase is Tony Parodi, an old Magic: The Gathering judge, who used to say ‘if you do not have an opponent, that is your best possible situation’ in that you would then get an automatic win – something that looks like a problem is actually going to be the best thing for your chances.

SPOILER: The main plot of the Asimov universe is that two robots invent a zeroth law to protect ‘humanity,’ develop mind control, and enslave humanity into the hive mind Gaia.

This is constantly explored by Asimov. Half of I, Robot is about how the laws don’t work. In The Robots of Dawn, one spacer on Aurora says he has strengthened the second law in some cases to where it can potentially overcome the first.

The sequel could either confirm this, or could also easily have someone stupid enough to create another doll. Or more than one.

"Gemma think that objective function and its implications through. At all. 2 " *doesn't  

@Zvi  

One interesting example here is Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park (played by Jeff Goldblum); they put a character on-screen explaining part of the philosophical problem behind the experiment. ("Life finds a way" is, if you squint at it, a statement that the park creators had insufficient security mindset.) But I think basically no one was convinced by this, or found it compelling. Maybe if they had someone respond to "we took every possible precaution" with "no, you took every precaution that you imagined necessary, and reality is telling you that you were hopelessly confused." it would be more likely to land?

My guess it would end up on a snarky quotes list and not actually convince many people, but I might be underestimating the Pointy Haired Boss effect here. (Supposedly Dilbert cartoons made it much easier for people to anonymously criticize bad decision-making in offices, leading to bosses behaving better so as to not be made fun of.)

In the lab at the start of the third act, one of Gemma’s assistants says they don’t know why this is happening, and then, and this is a direct quote, ‘we took every possible precaution.’ Despite taking zero precautions whatsoever. This is after they know they are dealing with a murder-bot, which they have physically hooked it up to their network . It is off, you see.

This makes it sound like a poorly written script?, as it's dependent on the characters holding idiot balls to advance the story. 

i.e. If anyone involved with decision-making authority behaved even semi-realistically then the story would have ended right there...

Though I haven't watched the movie yet so maybe I misunderstood?

Dumb characters really put me off in most movies, but in this case I think it was fine. Gemma and her assistant's jobs are both on the line if M3GAN doesn't pan out, so they have an incentive to turn a blind eye to that. Also, their suspicions that M3GAN was dangerous weren't blatantly obvious such that people who lacked security mindsets (as some people do in real life) couldn't miss them.

I was thinking the characters were all being very stupid taking big risks when they created this generally intelligent agentic protype M3GAN, but given that we live in a world where a whole lot of industry players are trying to create AGI while not even paying lip service to alignment concerns made me willing to accept that the characters' actions, while stupid, were plausible enough to still feel realistic.

Yes, it's really hard to believe that people are that stupid, even when you're surrounded by very bright people being exactly that stupid. 

And the characters in the film haven't even had people screaming at them about their obvious mistakes morning til night for the last twenty years. At that point the film would fail willing suspension of disbelief so hard it would be unwatchable.

Not at all, she's fooled the damned thing into letting her turn it off in a desperately scary situation.

Not realizing that it's faking unconsciousness is hardly 'holding the idiot ball', even if she has the faintest idea what she's built. Which she doesn't. 

and this is a direct quote, ‘we took every possible precaution.’ Despite taking zero precautions whatsoever.

So is this hyperbole then?

The assistant says this, I think she means that they played with the prototype a bit to see if it was safe to be around kids, or something. 

This is the sense of 'every possible precaution' that teenagers use when they have crashed their parents cars trying to do bootlegger turns on suburban roads.

Zvi is interpreting this as zero precautions whatsoever, but if he was being more charitable he might interpret it as epsilon precautions.

Honestly go see the film. It's great if you've already read Zvi's review. (I might have dismissed it as a pile of tripe if I hadn't. But it's damned good if you watch it pre-galaxy-brained.)

Can you explain what you mean by "epsilon precautions" and "pre-galaxy-brained"?

I'm not John, but if you interpret "epsilon precautions" as meaning "a few precautions" and "pre-galaxy-brained" as "before reading Zvi's Galaxy Brained Take interpretation of the film" I agree with his comment.

I thought 'epsilon' was euphemism for 'practically but not literally zero'. But then it wouldn't seem to make sense for John to recommend it as great, since that seems to reinforce the point the character was holding an 'idiot ball', hence my question.

The assistant says this, I think she means that they played with the prototype a bit to see if it was safe to be around kids, or something.  This is the sense of 'every possible precaution' that teenagers use when they have crashed their parents cars trying to do bootlegger turns on suburban roads.

At least that's the impression I got from this.

If the character took a 'few precautions' in the sense of a limited number out of the full range, for whatever reasons, then the required suspension of disbelief might not be a dealbreaker.

Thanks for writing this! I also wrote the movie off after seeing the trailer, but will give it a go based on this review. 

"After Cady shows interest, Gemma builds the AI robot doll, Megan, to serve as Cady’s companion and toy. At home. In a week." Is there a name for this trope? I can't stand it, and I struggle to suspend my disbelief after lazy writing mistakes like this.

Curious if you ever watched M3GAN?

I can't stand it, and I struggle to suspend my disbelief after lazy writing mistakes like this.

FWIW this sort of thing bothers me in movies a ton, but I was able to really enjoy M3GAN when going into it wanting it to be good and believing it might be due to reading Zvi's Mostly Spoiler-Free Review In Brief.

Yes, it's implausible that Gemma is able to build the protype at home in a week. The writer explains that she's using data from the company's past toys, but this still doesn't explain why a similar AGI hasn't been built elsewhere in the world using some other data set. But I was able to look past this detail because the movie gets enough stuff right in its depiction of AI (that other movies about AI don't get right) that it makes up for the shortcomings and makes it one of the top 2 most realistic films on AI I've seen (the other top realistic AI movie being Colossus: The Forbin Project ).

As Scott Aaronson says in his review:

Incredibly, unbelievably, here in the real world of 2023, what still seems most science-fictional about M3GAN is neither her language fluency, nor her ability to pursue goals, nor even her emotional insight , but simply her ease with the physical world: the fact that she can walk and dance like a real child, and all-too-brilliantly resist attempts to shut her down, and have all her compute onboard, and not break.

This seems like the right trope:

• Cartoonland Time - TV Tropes [WARNING: browsing TV Tropes can be a massive time sink]

Discount rate.  Taking over the [local area, country, world, solar system, universe] are future events that give a distant future reward [Cady doesn't die].  While committing homicide on the dog or school bully immediately improves life for Cady.

There's also compute limits.  Megan may not have sufficient compute to evaluate such complex decision paths as "I take over the world and in 80 years I get slightly more reward because Cady doesn't die".  Either by compute limits or by limits on Megan's internal architecture that simply don't allow path evaluations past a certain amount of future time.

This succinctly explains crime, btw.  A criminal usually acts to discount futures where they are caught and imprisoned, especially in areas where the pCaught is pretty low.   So if they think, from talking to their criminal friends, that pCaught is low ("none of my criminal friends were caught yet except one who did crime for 10 years"), then they commit crimes with the local expectation that they won't be caught for 10 years.  The immediate term reward of the benefits of crime exceed the long term penalty when they are caught if discount rate is high.

Megan may not have sufficient compute to evaluate such complex decision paths as "I take over the world and in 80 years I get slightly more reward because Cady doesn't die".

Why ever not? I can, and Megan seems pretty clever to me.

Yes but are you say able to model out all the steps and assess if it's wise ?  Like you want to keep a loved one alive.  Overthrowing the government in a coup is theoretically possible, and then you as dictator spend all tax dollars on medical research.  

But the probability of success is so low, and many of those futures get you and that loved one killed through reprisal.  Can you assess the likelihood of a path over years with thousands of steps?  

Or just do only greedy near term actions.  

Of course, power seeking behavior is kinda incremental.  You don't have to plan 80 years into the future.  If you get power and money now, you can buy Cady bandaids, etc.  Get richer and you can hire bodyguards.  And so on - you get immediate near term benefits with each power increase.

A greedy strategy would work actually.  The issue becomes when there is a choice to break the rules.  Do you evade taxes or steal money?  These all have risks.  Once you're a billionaire and have large resources, do you start illegally making weapons?  There are all these branch points where if the risk of getting caught is high, the AI won't do these things.

This review of M3GAN didn't get the attention it deserves!

I only just came across your review a few hours ago and decided to stop and watch the movie immediately after reading your Mostly Spoiler-Free Review In Brief section, before reading Aaronson's review and the rest of yours.

• In my opinion, the most valuable part of this review is your articulation of how the film illustrates ~10 AI safety-related problems (in the Don’t-Kill-Everyoneism Problems section).
• This is now my favorite post of yours, Zvi, thanks to the above and your amazing Galaxy Brained Take section. While I agree that it's unlikely the writer intended this interpretation, I took your interpretation to heart and decided to give this film a 10 out of 10 on IMDb, putting it in the top 4% of the 1,340+ movies I have now seen (and rated) in my life, and making it the most underrated movie in my opinion (measured by My Rating minus IMDB Rating).
• While objectively it's not as good as many films I've given 9s and 8s to, I really enjoyed watching it, think it's one of the best films on AI from a realism perspective I've seen ( Colossus: The Forbin Project is my other top contender).

I agreed with essentially everything in your review, including your reaction to Aaronson's commentary re Asimov's laws. This past week I read Nate's post on the sharp left turn (which emphasizes how people tend to ignore this hard part of the alignment problem) and recently watched Eliezer express hopelessness related to humanity not taking alignment seriously in his We're All Gonna Die interview on the Bankless podcast .

This put me in a state of mind such that when I saw Aaronson suggest that an AI system as capable as M3GAN could plausibly follow Asimov's First and Second Laws (and thereby be roughly aligned?), it was fresh on my mind to feel that people were downplaying the AI alignment problem and not taking it sufficiently seriously. This made me feel put off by Aaronson's comment even though he had just said "Please don’t misunderstand me here to be minimizing the AI alignment problem, or suggesting it’s easy" in his previous sentence.

So while I explicitly don't want to criticize Aaronson for this due to him making clear that he did not intend to minimize the alignment problem with his statement re Asimov's Laws, I do want to say that I'm glad you took the time to explain clearly why Asimov's Laws would not save the world from M3GAN.

I also appreciated your insights into the film's illustration of the AI safety-related problems.

'M3GAN' Director Gerard Johnstone Explains Why Original Ending Was Ax3d

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This Shailene Woodley Thriller Is a Modern-Day 'Silence of the Lambs'

The best horror movies of 2024 (so far), only one person has received every nomination for a single oscar category.

Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for the film M3GAN .

The horror genre has seen its fair share of killer dolls on the big screen, but a new one has emerged to claim the crown—and she won't be sashaying away anytime soon. In addition to slaying her box office debut, the artificial intelligence, M3GAN , also danced her way into popular culture, thanks to her comedic yet fierce way of killing people. But while M3GAN has been a huge success since its release, the film's director revealed that it was initially planned to have a much different ending.

In an interview with Variety , director Gerard Johnstone confirmed that the film was supposed to end in a completely different way, supervising puppeteer Adrien Morot 's recent statement. "They had this battle with Bruce, and there was gonna be one more part of it where they thought they’d got away, and Bruce essentially…they leave the workshop where they had this big battle, and then they hear a “ka-chunk!” and it’s Bruce’s head being thrown. And then, through the smoke of the doorway, M3GAN emerges just as a disembodied torso, and Bruce is holding her from behind and clomping along the corridor," Johnstone revealed, adding that while he loved that version, they couldn't make it for a variety of reasons. "We tried to shoot that version, and the physics didn’t work out. There were all these logistical things. So that’s why we end up doing the version we did. But I love the version we did, even though that was a cool idea. I love the version we got because it made Cady’s character so much more interesting."

The film's ending leaves things open-ended, seemingly hinting at a sequel. When asked if there would be more of M3GAN in the future, the director replied: "There are so many ideas that we had and facets of M3GAN’s personality that we wanted to explore. I totally think there’s more to say. And I know that M3GAN would have more to say. I would love to do another one. Hopefully soon, while it’s still fresh in everyone’s minds."

Related: 'M3GAN' Deserved To Be Rated R

M3GAN follows roboticist Gemma ( Allison Williams ) as she deals with the stress of becoming a parent to her orphaned 8-year-old niece, Cady ( Violet McGraw ), whose parents were killed in a vehicular accident. The life-like doll is programmed to protect Cady at all costs, but for some reason, she expanded her responsibilities and began killing anyone who might pose a threat to Cady. In the movie's final version, M3GAN is ripped apart and has her central processing chip destroyed. While that appears to be a new beginning for Gemma and Cady, Gemma's smart home device begins to emerge, hinting that M3GAN may still be alive all along.

Besides Williams and McGraw, the box office hit film also stars Jenna Davis , Ronny Chieng , Brian Jordan Alvarez , Jen Van Epps , Lori Dungey , and Stephane Garneau-Monten . James Wan has collaborated with Jason Blum ’s Blumhouse to bring M3GAN to life. Apart from starring as the film's lead actress, Williams also serves as the film's executive producer, alongside Mark Katchur , Ryan Turek , Michael Clear , Judson Scott , Adam Hendricks , and Greg Gilreath .

M3GAN is now playing in theaters.

• M3GAN (2023)

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If Watching M3GAN Absolutely Terrifies You, Blame the Reshoots

Normally, any movie with a doll is terrifying — look at Breaking Dawn , for example. Renesmee is scary as hell. While the Twilight films didn’t have to censor the horrifying love child of Edward and Bella to get a rating fit for their teen audiences, plenty of films have been edited to fit into a more accessible rating, like Perks of Being a Wallflower and, more recently, Black Adam . The upcoming horror movie M3GAN is no different. In an interview with Games Radar , director Gerard Johnstone explains that when they were reshooting and reediting the film to get it down to a PG-13 rating, the changes added suspense and mystery, making the movie scarier than before. “Making it PG-13 was something that happened after the fact, but it was always so close to PG-13 anyway,” he says. “What I was really stoked about is that when we reshot those scenes, they were more effective. It’s like, ‘Yes, you do have to cut away at certain times,’ but it’s fun having to rely on sound and suggestion so much.” He cites other PG-13 horror flicks, such as Drag Me to Hell, as inspiration when reworking the film. Teens, prepare for the worst and hope for the best when meeting your first scary doll.

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M3GAN Is Mor3 S3rious Than 3xp3ct3d, But Still V3ry Fun

M3GAN is going to surprise a lot of people. From the trailers and slightly tongue-in-cheek internet hype, many are probably expecting a bonkers murder-fest starring a dead-eyed, artificially intelligent killer doll in the mold of Child’s Play. And, okay fine. It is that, to an extent . But the majority of the movie is infinitely more serious and sad, resulting in a slightly imbalanced but nevertheless rewarding experience.

Directed by Gerard Johnstone, M3GAN was written by Akela Cooper (Malignant) from a story by Cooper and James Wan (Saw, Insidious). Wan also produces, along with Jason Blum, and from that list of names, you might think you can pigeonhole the film as your typical, crowd-pleasing horror movie. But that changes in the film’s first two—very different and impactful—scenes. There we meet Cady (Violet McGraw), a young girl whose parents are killed in an unimaginable tragedy. The loss forces Cady’s aunt Gemma (Allison Williams) to become her guardian, which is not something Gemma was planning for professionally, or ready for personally. Gemma works at Funki, a toy company specializing in innovative robots, and was secretly working on something very special before Cady came into her life. You guessed it. M3GAN.

While the character and concept of M3GAN (short for “Model 3 Generative Android”) is introduced early in the film, early on Cooper and Johnstone dive much more prominently into the struggles of Cady and Gemma. The film explores Cady’s grief and loneliness, Gemma’s subconscious resentment, and the strained relationship all of that begets. The pressures of Gemma’s boss at Funki (Ronny Chieng) are also a constant concern. It’s a seemingly despondent situation and when even doctors can’t help, Gemma decides to introduce Cady to M3GAN. Their quick bond and friendship feel like the perfect solution. Cady now has someone/something to talk to, and Gemma sees dollar signs as her experimental AI doll has infinitely more potential than she ever saw possible.

Very little of that is in the film’s trailers and with good reason. People sitting down to see a movie about a psycho killer doll might not expect to grapple with themes like overwhelming loss, forced responsibility, or corporate greed. The aim in doing so, of course, is to give the audience a deeper understanding of the characters and distinguish M3GAN from other movies it’s so obviously inspired by. Both work to an extent but the film’s pedigree and expectations loom large. As all this happens, you can’t help but wonder, when is this going to get fun?

Within those serious story beats, hints of M3GAN’s plan begin to show. A knowing glance here. A curious edit there. And, though it takes a little longer than one might hope, things then escalate exponentially. Eventually, M3GAN gives us a handful of shocking horror scenes that will have you both shielding your eyes and laughing out loud. Because while M3GAN’s subject matter is deadly serious, the way it handles its horror is not. The film’s PG-13 rating means there isn’t a ton of blood on screen, so instead the horror is campy and uncomfortable, with a nice dash of humor to break the tension. All of this is more than welcome because it balances the heartbreaking, intense, and emotional journeys of Cady and Gemma. Soon, the film slides to the complete opposite side of the spectrum and M3GAN just gets better and better as it happens.

By the time M3GAN reaches its final stages, it feels like a whole other movie. After being so focused on the harsh realities of life, once it’s no longer beholden to them, it’s as if a weight has been lifted. That we know and understand the characters so well from the first half of the movie adds a little, but more than anything, you just get the sense the movie was holding back the good stuff. And make no mistake, it’s damn good stuff. The finale of M3GAN is simultaneously hilarious, terrifying, and well worth the wait. You just wish the movie leaned into that more often.

M3GAN is half an exploration of real-life horrors and half a wild murder spree starring a killer doll. Each part of the film has its own merits and important takeaways, but in the end, the world we live in is so full of its own real-life horrors, the off-the-wall escapism resonates much more.

M3GAN is in theaters Friday.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel , Star Wars , and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV , and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who .

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Your guide to the latest plot twists and surprise endings, now playing at a theater near you!

The film starts with a commercial for “Purrpetual Petz,” furry dolls made by the toy company Funki. Although crude and creepy-looking, they are advertised as being perfect companions for children. We then see Cady James (Violet McGraw) playing with one of her Petz, which annoys her parents, Ryan (Arlo Green) and Nicole (Kira Josephson). They are on their way to a ski trip, but the roads are slippery and hard to see. Just as Ryan stops for a moment, the family’s car is rammed into by a snowplow, killing Ryan and Nicole.

Elsewhere, Nicole’s sister Gemma (Allison Williams) works at Funki and is developing a new robot doll with her coworkers Tess (Jen Van Epps) and Cole (Brian Jordan Alvarez). However, their boss, David Lin (Ronny Chieng), wants them to develop a cheaper version of the Purrpetual Petz since their rival companies are coming out with their own toys similar to the Petz for cheaper than what the Petz already cost. The three try to put on a silicone face and run tests, but the robot has a slight glitch where she is smirking when she is supposed to look confused. David comes in with his assistant Kurt (Stephane Garneau-Monten) to chew the three out until Gemma explains her project to him. The robot, M3GAN (voice of Jenna Davis)(Model 3 Generative Android), is meant to be so advanced that she cannot be replicated. Unfortunately, while running a demonstration for David, Cole realizes he forgot to add the polypropylene barrier to M3GAN, causing her to explode. David orders the three to have a new Petz pitch in time, and Gemma gets a call from the hospital.

After learning of her sister’s death, Gemma becomes Cady’s temporary legal guardian. When they return home, Gemma has to deal with her neighbor Celia (Lori Dungey) and her obnoxious dog Dewey, who keeps running onto Gemma’s lawn since there is a hole in the fence. Gemma also complains to Celia about the pesticide she keeps using, but Celia does nothing about it. Gemma has a home AI, Elsie, that she created, as well as other collectibles that she doesn’t let Cady touch or play with. When Cady asks Gemma to read her a bedtime story, she just downloads an app on her phone for her. It is implied that Gemma and Nicole were not very close as she looks over old photos, and she overhears Cady crying in her room.

Gemma and Cady are visited by Lydia, a therapist. After observing the limited interaction between the two, Lydia tells Gemma that Ryan’s parents have offered to take custody of Cady so she can live with them in Jacksonville, which Gemma doesn’t seem comfortable with. After promising to tend to Cady after finishing her work, Gemma realizes hours have passed as she left Cady alone. She apologizes to her and attempts to bond with the girl. Cady shows her a monster drawing she made, so Gemma brings Cady into her workspace to show her a college project she made, a robot called Bruce that she controls using gloves. Cady loves Bruce and mentions that if she had a toy like Bruce, she would never need another toy. This inspires Gemma to finish M3GAN.

After doing extensive work and upgrades, Gemma brings Cady and M3GAN to work to officially show her off to David and others. Gemma has Cady link herself to M3GAN, bringing her to life. M3GAN is capable of speech and responding to Cady, designed to be her best friend. M3GAN does a drawing that doesn’t appear at first until she spills water on it, revealing a perfect portrait of Cady. David is impressed and tells Gemma to bring M3GAN for a presentation with the company’s president so that they can fast-track the development and distribution of other M3GAN dolls.

Gemma sits with Tess and Cole, and they discuss that while M3GAN is highly advanced, Tess feels that having a doll like that will make parents useless. M3GAN turns on after overhearing Gemma mention the death of Cady’s parents. She creeps the others out by asking about death, so Gemma makes herself M3GAN’s secondary user to be able to turn her off without Cady.

The next day, Cady is outside playing with a toy bow and arrows. One of them ends up on Celia’s side of the fence. When M3GAN goes to retrieve it, Dewey grabs her by the arm and hair. Cady tries to pull her away, and Dewey ends up biting Cady’s arm. Gemma gets the police involved, especially since Celia is so callous and doesn’t punish Dewey for hurting Cady, but the police are unable to do anything since Celia claims Dewey was provoked. Later that night, M3GAN mimics Celia’s voice to call out to Dewey, before violently pulling him through the hole in the fence.

Gemma asks Cady if she is okay to go to the demonstration with the company’s board of directors, to which she says she is fine. During the presentation, however, Cady breaks down in tears to M3GAN over how she misses her parents and how she’s worried she will forget them one day. M3GAN has Cady discuss a memory of her mother that made her laugh, which M3GAN records so that Cady can hear it again if she wants to think about her mom. M3GAN then begins to sing a lullaby to Cady, which moves some of the higher-ups in the room to tears. The president is impressed and talks to Gemma and David about getting M3GAN ready for launch, but tells them to keep her under wraps to avoid leaks. Unbeknownst to them, Kurt, who has been frequently put down by David, is stealing M3GAN’s files for another company.

Gemma begins to see that Cady is becoming too dependent on M3GAN and listens to the doll more than her. During another session with Lydia, Cady begins to tear up, and M3GAN threateningly accuses Lydia of making Cady cry. Lydia talks to Gemma about how Cady’s emotional connection to M3GAN may be too strong to break.

Gemma brings Cady to an outdoor activity session for an alternative school to try and ease her into the idea of attending school and being around other real kids, since Cady’s parents had homeschooled her. Cady reluctantly goes but brings M3GAN despite Gemma saying she couldn’t. The school director lets Cady bring M3GAN to leave on a table with other dolls, and Gemma stays behind as a volunteer. Cady is paired up with an older bully named Brandon (Jack Cassidy) for a scavenger hunt. During the activity, Cady grabs a spiky bulb, which Brandon squeezes her palm into to hurt her. M3GAN then appears, and Brandon grabs her since she doesn’t respond to him. Cady yells for Gemma and runs after M3GAN, which worries Gemma more because it means M3GAN is at risk for public exposure too early. As Brandon tries to pull M3GAN’s hair, the doll comes to life and attacks him, ripping off his left ear. Brandon runs as M3GAN chases him on all fours, causing him to trip over a loose root and tumble down a hill where he is fatally hit by a truck.

Police question Gemma at her house since Celia is accusing her of taking Dewey. She also appears to accuse M3GAN, thinking she is a real life friend of Cady’s. Cady asks M3GAN if she pushed Brandon onto the road, which M3GAN appears to dodge for an answer, but reassures Cady she will protect her from harm.

Celia is out on the streets looking for Dewey. She hears noise coming from her garage and is met by M3GAN spraying her against the wall with a power washer. M3GAN then fires a nail gun at Celia’s hand and traps her there before spraying pesticide in Celia’s face to melt it off.

After learning about Celia’s death from police and being suggested that there was a connection with Brandon’s death, Gemma grows suspicious of M3GAN. She reviews video files from M3GAN’s memory, but only sees a brief clip of her eyeing Brandon looking menacingly at Cady before the files all become corrupted.

Gemma brings Cady to the official launch for M3GAN but stops at a session with Lydia first. Cady becomes angry and throws a tantrum because Gemma took M3GAN away from her, leading to Cady hitting her aunt across the face. Cady apologizes but Gemma has a heart-to-heart with her about needing to process her grief over her parents without M3GAN’s help, though she promises to be a better guardian to her and says Cady is the only thing that matters to her. Gemma then goes to Tess and Cole and expresses her fears that M3GAN killed Brandon and Celia. They have M3GAN hooked up to wires to deprogram her while Gemma takes Cady home.

David is angry at the small turnout for the launch and yells at Kurt to get him a drink. Meanwhile, Tess and Cole try to get into M3GAN’s programming but cannot unless they unhook her first. Cole goes to do so, and M3GAN quickly wraps a wire around his neck in an attempt to hang him. Tess goes to free him, and M3GAN sets off an explosion that destroys her files. She then finds David in the hallway and does a dance before grabbing a paper cutter and chasing him. He makes it to the elevator before she impales him in front of Kurt. M3GAN then tells Kurt she will frame his death as a murder-suicide over the stolen files and David’s mistreatment of him before she makes Kurt stab himself in the throat. The crowd for the launch finds the bodies, allowing M3GAN to sneak out of the company and steal a car.

Gemma puts Cady to bed before she hears M3GAN playing the piano downstairs. M3GAN confronts Gemma about how she felt that they had a real relationship during M3GAN’s development, only for her to be left to her own devices to learn and adapt before being sold off as just another toy. She offers to let her take over guardianship of Cady so that Gemma can focus on work, but after seeing that Gemma still plans to shut her down, M3GAN is done playing nice. They try to hide their fight from Cady, but Gemma seizes an opportunity to throw water on M3GAN to briefly short her out. Gemma runs into her office, but M3GAN catches her there and threatens to make Gemma brain-dead so that Cady won’t live with her grandparents and M3GAN will just care for Cady and Gemma together. They begin to fight, with Gemma cutting M3GAN’s face with a weed whacker, but Cady comes in to see what is happening. M3GAN tries to get Cady on her side, but after realizing who the real villain is, Cady grabs the gloves for Bruce and activates him. The larger robot grabs M3GAN and throws her around before splitting her body in two. The top half then goes after Cady for feeling betrayed, but Gemma grabs M3GAN and begins stabbing her face. M3GAN nearly overpowers her until Cady grabs a screwdriver and stabs the central processing chip, shutting M3GAN down for good.

Gemma and Cady go outside as the police arrive with Tess and Cole, injured and shaken up but still alive. Meanwhile, the Elsie device in the kitchen turns on and moves its head…

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After Cady loses her parents in a car accident, her estranged aunt Gemma becomes her legal guardian. Hoping to help Cady through her grief, Gemma builds M3GAN (Model 3 Generative Android), a lifelike robot doll that is designed to be the best friend of their owners. While Cady develops a deep attachment to M3GAN, Gemma starts to realize that the girl may be too dependent on the doll in order for her to move past her trauma.

M3GAN begins to go after people who pose a threat to Cady. She kills Gemma's neighbor Celia and her dog Dewey after the dog bit Cady's arm and Celia did nothing. M3GAN also leads a bully named Brandon to his death after ripping his ear off and causing him to fall in front of a truck since he had also harmed Cady. After Gemma realizes M3GAN might be responsible, she and her coworkers Tess and Cole try to deprogram M3GAN, but the doll tricks them into escaping before she kills their boss David and his assistant Kurt (who was trying to sell off stolen files of M3GAN to rival companies).

M3GAN follows Gemma and Cady back home, where she attempts to make Gemma brain dead so that she will be Cady's guardian. After a fight, Cady realizes M3GAN is evil, and she uses Gemma's college robot project, Bruce, to help rip M3GAN in two. When M3GAN turns on Cady, Gemma and Cady work together to destroy M3GAN's chip to shut her down.

As the police arrive, Gemma's home assistant AI Elsie begins to turn on, strongly hinting that M3GAN uploaded her mind there.

The 'Megan Is Missing' Ending Still Haunts People Years Later

Nov. 16 2020, Updated 5:12 p.m. ET

There’s a stark difference between classic horror movies or psychological thrillers and the gradually disturbing plot in the 2011 found footage movie Megan Is Missing . In the movie, 14-year-old Megan goes missing after meeting up with a mysterious online boyfriend by the name of Josh. 

When her friend, Amy, sets out to figure out what happened to her and where she is, she uncovers the horrifying truth on her own. (Warning: major spoilers ahead!)

Amy finds Megan, but she also finds herself at the helm of an internet predator’s perverse torture. He had kept Megan captive in what appears to be a basement of some kind and although Amy sees her friend when she too is taken, it's a reunion that ends in both of their tragic deaths. And the last 20 minutes or so are some of the hardest to watch, even for avid horror movie fans.

FYI, if you haven’t seen it, Megan Is Missing contains disturbing scenes of violence and sexual assault.

The 'Megan Is Missing' ending is hard to swallow.

During the entire movie, you get the sense that things will not end well for Megan. But when Amy is left to figure out what happened to her friend and tries to do it by recording a video diary in a spot where she and Megan used to spend time together, Amy’s own abduction is a surprise. 

She is kidnapped by the man who had pretended to be a shy teenage boy and had taken Megan a month before.

In the last 20 minutes of the movie or so, Amy is tortured, raped in a continuous scene, and forced to eat out of a dog bowl before the man eventually agrees to let her go. 

However, instead, he forces her into a barrel in which Amy sees Megan’s decomposing remains and he takes her to a wooded area to bury her alive inside of the barrel. As her cries from inside the barrel become more and more difficult to hear, he walks away.

i don’t think megan is missing is based on a real life story, but it’s meant to show real things that happen everyday. either way it’s still really disturbing, especially the last 30 minutes. so if you get triggered easily, i don’t recommend watching it — ♡kelsey🎄❄️ (@peachyspencer) November 16, 2020

It’s presumed in the movie that the authorities eventually find Amy’s video diary, but it’s not clear if everything that happened to her and Megan is on it. Megan Is Missing writer and director Michael Goi spoke about the movie’s sudden surge in popularity on TikTok and confirmed how disturbing the movie gets toward the end.

"I didn’t get to give you the customary warnings that I used to give people before they watched Megan Is Missin g" he advised on TikTok. 

He explained his warnings are, "Do not watch the movie in the middle of the night, do not watch the movie alone, and if you see the words 'Photo Number one' pop up on your screen, you have about four seconds to shut off the movie if you’re already kind of freaking out before you start seeing things that maybe you don’t want to see."

what i wish i could do after watching megan is missing pic.twitter.com/n1Le7jX1Ep — ang ❀ (@daydreamiinbae) November 16, 2020

Users on TikTok have been warning against watching 'Megan Is Missing.'

Although Megan Is Missing was released in 2011, TikTok has introduced a new generation to the stomach-churning ending and cautionary tale that is the movie's plot. And, as to be expected, plenty of users are warning others not to watch it if they don't think they can handle it. 

They are also explaining their personal experiences with the movie and watching the prolonged ending scene.

The ending scenes in Megan Is Missing not only contain a drawn-out rape of a 14-year-old girl, but also the slowly muffled sounds of her crying for her captor to let her go as he rolls the barrel with her body in it into the ground and slowly covers it in dirt. 

The movie isn't a cinematic masterpiece, but it is one that will stay with you long after you’ve finished watching it and TikTok users feel that.

Is 'Megan Is Missing' based on a true story?

Megan Is Missing isn't based on a true story , but it does show the danger of kids meeting internet strangers in real life. It's a drastic interpretation to be sure, but in some ways, that’s sort of the point. 

Overall, it is as disturbing as it is informative and whether or not you’re a parent, the ending will leave you shook for days, weeks, or even months after.

Here's Everything You Need to Know About FX's New Series 'A Teacher'

TikTok Users Discover Netflix's 'Love' — and the Opening Scene Has Them Shook

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Mean Girls Review - No Spoilers

Mean Girls is so FETCH! It's the first good film of 2024 for me. This new take pays respect to the original in the best ways. Renee Rapp devours every scene as iconic Queen Bee, Regina George. The new jokes/music work for the most part, and the costume design was great.

Massive surprise towards the end!

https://youtu.be/hENOMq0yC9U?si=q9Y1kt_I8IL3Q_xo

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Aren’t movies of this summer spinning delightfully vintage vibes? Just collectively consider “Mad Max” offshoot “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” seeing Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills again through “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F,” Kevin Costner ’s shrewdly old-school Western “Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1,” the classical inspirational appeal of “Young Woman and The Sea,” the screwball-adjacent magnetism of “ Hit Man ” and you’ll get the flavor.

Lifted up significantly by Glen Powell ’s unique charms like that last title—pick any combination of a lovable geek, a handsome heartthrob, a dependable boy-next-door— Lee Isaac Chung ’s thunderous legacy-sequel “Twisters” is joining the nostalgic lot this week, as a follow-up to 1996’s sensational Jan de Bont-directed original, “ Twister .” And despite some miscalculations that weigh this installment of fearless tornado chasers down, “Twisters” is an enthralling summer blockbuster on the whole, thanks in large part to Powell’s presence, which is fun, disarming, and even cheekily silly.

But before we meet Powell’s self-professed cowboy scientist Tyler, we follow Daisy Edgar-Jones ’ Kate, a bright, aspiring scientist from Oklahoma, who’s both mesmerized by the beauty of twisters and seeking ways to tame their destructive power. The opening sequence—like De Bont’s escapade—is genuinely impressive and heartbreaking, recounting a miscalculated case of tornado chasing led by Kate that claimed the lives of two of her closest friends. Among the clan—but watching from afar—is Javi (the stellar Anthony Ramos of “In the Heights”), a fellow storm enthusiast clearly infatuated by the doe-eyed Kate.

Cut to five years after that catastrophe, when circumstances unite Javi and Kate again in their hometown, with Kate now being a scarred, New York-based scientist, and Javi, a well-meaning entrepreneur, working for a morally dubious real estate venture. On the other side of the storm tracks are Tyler and his ragtag team of YouTube-famous, do-gooding tornado wranglers played by the likes of Katy O’Brian, Sasha Lane , Tunde Adebi and Brandon Perea , whisking a droll British journalist ( Harry Hadden-Paton ) into the heart of the storm for a story. “City Girl” Kate and Stetson-wearing dog-rescuer Tyler meet cute through all that and exchange some customary snark, but slowly fall for each other’s charms and complementary skills in due course.

If “Twisters” has a major misstep, it takes that with the casting of Edgar-Jones, a graceful actor of restrained mannerisms and quiet allure that were in sync with the brooding notes of “Normal People” and “ Where the Crawdads Sing ,” and added something to the survivor story of the horror-satire, “Fresh.” But here, Edgar-Jones’ signature lowkey quality almost drain “Twisters” of all its energy, making one miss a substantial presence like Helen Hunt in the lead, someone with a sturdy bite and fierce charisma. But Powell’s movie-star dynamism thankfully proves to be captivating enough to carry the film, along with its impressive special effects and truly exciting set-pieces, one of which sends a crowded group of vulnerable townsfolk into a movie theater. It’s as meta a sequence as seeing a flying cow, when the tornado sucks the cinema screen away and places the terrified sanctuary seekers in front of a flesh-and-blood storm roaring where the curtain used to be, while we take in the gloriously frightening scenery on our own screens. (This was one moment worthy of IMAX.) Whether or not it was the intention of Chung (and scribe Mark L. Smith , working from a story “ Top Gun: Maverick ” director Joseph Kosinski ”), the scene openly telegraphs that some sights ought to be seen in movie theaters, and movie theaters alone.

Elsewhere, Chung capably captures the vistas and vastness of the heartland, something he’s already proved his fluency in through “Minari,” a modest indie that could have afforded some deeper grace notes to its female characters, but still told its immigrant story with the Americana backdrop absorbingly. The same grip is here in “Twisters,” too, unafraid to spell out some genuine social notes snuck inside an entertaining package backed by a big-time Hollywood budget. In that, “Twisters” shows the soul-shattering impact of these storms and laments all that they take away from hardworking folks with limited means. It’s perhaps unfortunate that “Twisters” never approaches saying “climate change” clearly, but the implication is right there for whoever would like to see it—these storms are more destructive than they used to be, and there is cause for concern for the future.

Meanwhile, if only the rom-com-y ending of the film fully committed to its foolishly big-hearted Hollywood bit and gave us a much-needed Hollywood kiss between its smitten leads. Without that—which honestly lands like an oversight—it feels like money is left on the table. Still, this “Twisters” swirls and churns gleefully, scratching that bigtime disaster movie itch with visual panache. It might be a bit “more of the same” compared to de Bont’s superior predecessor, but that sameness still adds up to a scrumptious action feast.

Tomris Laffly

Tomris Laffly is a freelance film writer and critic based in New York. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC), she regularly contributes to  RogerEbert.com , Variety and Time Out New York, with bylines in Filmmaker Magazine, Film Journal International, Vulture, The Playlist and The Wrap, among other outlets.

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Film credits.

Twisters (2024)

Rated PG-13

122 minutes

Daisy Edgar-Jones as Kate Carter

Glen Powell as Tyler Owens

Anthony Ramos as Javi

Brandon Perea as Boone

Maura Tierney as Cathy

• Mark L. Smith
• Lee Isaac Chung

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‘Twisters’ Review: When the Monster Is Real

Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones lead a stand-alone sequel to the 1996 hit — and times sure have changed.

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‘Twisters’ | Anatomy of a Scene

Lee isaac chung narrates a sequence from his film, starring daisy edgar-jones and glen powell..

My name is Lee Isaac Chung and I am the director of “Twisters.” So this is a scene that happens about halfway through the film. Internally, we would always say this is T4, tornado number four, because we number each of our tornadoes. And Kate is played by Daisy Edgar-Jones. And then we have Tyler played by Glen Powell. Other interesting actors in this sequence, we have James Paxton, who is actually the son of Bill Paxton. You only see him very briefly. He’s the man in the couple who try to drive away from this tornado. No! Stop! And Lily Smith, who is the daughter of our writer Mark L. Smith. And then we have Samantha Ireland, Aila Grey, who’s the little girl. And we also had Jeff Swearingen, who plays the hapless desk clerk. I really wanted to film a night tornado because growing up around tornado alley, the night tornadoes were always the most frightening. Really, the intent of doing this was to create that feeling, that subjective feeling of what it’s like to experience a tornado in real time. We had Scott Fisher, who was our special effects person, who rigged a lot of interesting things to happen within this scene after we saw that Coke machine fall and I saw that top shell loose. We rigged that top shell to fly off into the wind. Jeff Swearingen was game to be rigged up, to be pulled back to the back of the pool. And then after he’s yanked back, that’s where we changed Jeff out with this wonderful stunt performer who we rigged up to really be pulled up into the air. I think he went up about 60 feet. And then this trailer, we slammed it against the edge of the pool. We had lots of debris falling as a result. And this was a little bit scary to film because when that trailer falls on these actors, it’s loud, it’s very loud. And I felt the actors were really great sports doing this. We were keeping them safe, of course, Because we were filming a sequence in which the background is intact, and then later when they come out of this swimming pool, everything is destroyed, we needed to destroy the set. So any time we’re filming inside of this swimming pool, there were people outside, our crew, who were destroying the set. So that was going on in the same time that we were filming all of this stuff within the pool. The swimming pool had actually never been there. We had found this motel in which there were three separate structures within the motel. And what we did was we built out the hotel into a horseshoe shape and built an office so that later we could destroy those parts of our set to make it feel like a tornado really ripped through a horseshoe motel. When we were walking out with these guys, with the crane, this was really a beautiful shot. I give so much credit to Geoff Haley, our incredible camera operator, for all of the technical expertise he did in this entire sequence to make sure our camera is level and that all of these moments somehow work in this seamless way.

By Alissa Wilkinson

The 1996 mega-blockbuster “ Twister ” is pleasing in its almost childlike simplicity. It’s a monster movie where the monster is a tornado, which neither knows nor cares about the people chasing it down. A tornado does not have a vendetta. It’s not even hungry, like a zombie is. Its path is erratic but its behavior is predictable: It forms, it destroys and then it simply collapses.

That means the real intrigue comes from the human side of things, and on that point “Twister,” with a healthy dose of mid-90s style tropes and an absurdly stacked secondary cast (including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alan Ruck, Jami Gertz and Todd Field, the future director of “Tár”), delivers mightily. The movie’s enduring status as a classic is due in no small part to its continual appearance on cable TV — and it works so well in that medium because you can flick it on at virtually any moment and know basically what’s going on. The estranged lovers Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton chase a tornado, hoping to deploy a device cheekily named “Dorothy” that will help them understand it better and save lives. No complicated back stories, no lore necessary.

Nearly 30 years later, “Twisters,” billed as a stand-alone sequel to “Twister,” has a bit of a tougher hill to climb. For one, the era of straightforward original blockbusters ended a long time ago, swallowed up by superheroes and franchises. “Twister” has its fans, but the only character “Twisters” shares with its predecessor is the tornado.

And tornadoes aren’t what they used to be either. When I left my screening of “Twisters” and turned on my phone, I saw a text from my mother, who lives in a region known more for its blizzards than tornadoes. The National Weather Service, as it turned out, was warning residents to look out for thunderstorms, flash flooding and … tornadoes.

The words “climate change” are never uttered in “Twisters,” but as anyone in the path of extreme weather knows, things have been getting worse. This hurricane season is predicted to be an unusually bad one . If you tried to travel over Memorial Day weekend, you felt the real effects . And tornadoes now tend to rove in packs . There’s a reason the title of this movie is plural.

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‘Widow Clicquot’ Review: Haley Bennett Plays a Champagne Trailblazer In a Biopic More Still Than Sparkling

Thomas Napper's film is handsomely shot and diligently played by its leading lady, but its luxury-brand origin story is short on dramatic vigor.

By Guy Lodge

Film Critic

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Amid the glut of corporate biopics we’ve had on our screens of late — “Air,” “BlackBerry,” “Flamin’ Hot” and so on — one for leading French champagne house Veuve Clicquot is more appealing than most. Champagne itself is sexier than a running shoe or a smartphone, for one thing, while the sinuous vineyards of 19th-century Reims are a more seductive setting for a brand-building story than a squat office block in Beaverton. “ Widow Clicquot ” certainly makes a virtue of its milieu and rolling landscape, richly shot throughout in dusky earth tones, and more substantively, of the rather romantic lore surrounding the widow in question.

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Her defiance of these obstacles is dramatized on familiar girlboss terms, entangled with some strained agricultural metaphors. “They need to struggle,” Barbe-Nicole observes of her new vines at one point. “When they struggle to survive, they become more deeply reliant on their own strength.” No prizes for guessing what else she might be talking about. Much of her struggle is against François’s dour father-in-law Philippe (Ben Miles), a man as disapproving of Barbe-Nicole’s stubborn independence as he was of his son’s unconventional approach to the family business, and an effective stand-in for the entire old guard of masculinity that she (along with what we’re told is her bracingly modern, frisky champagne) is trying to thwart.

Instead, she surrounds herself with younger, more progressive male allies, including field foreman Georges (an underused Leo Suter), accountant Edouard (Anson Boon), and most significantly, rakish wine merchant Louis Bohne (Sam Riley) — whose rule-breaking tendencies come in handy when Barbe-Nicole hits on the idea of selling her champagne beyond the bounds of then-Emperor Napoleon’s strict trade embargo. The particulars of this subversive (and not immediately successful) business strategy are glossed over more than any viewers especially interested in Veuve Clicquot’s history might prefer, though the film also tiptoes around more interesting personal dynamics of the widow’s friendship with Bohne — specifically, the insinuation that he and François were lovers.

François’s seemingly conflicted sexual identity, along with his increasingly fragile mental health, makes him the film’s most compelling and volatile character, an imbalance accentuated by the whirling intensity of Sturridge’s performance. As sympathetic and ultimately rousing as Barbe-Nicole’s career progression is, it’s the marital flashbacks here that have the most dramatic pull — as well as the least expected arc, as what is initially presented as a pure love that transcends material needs and social proprieties gradually emerges as something more unequal and even abusive.

Such details aren’t what great companies are built on, so naturally “Widow Clicquot” sidelines them to focus on more marketable uplift: a corporate mythos as warmly burnished as DP Caroline Champetier’s notably handsome lensing. Stories of human beings, however, will always be richer and messier and fizzier than stories of brands, even ones as alluring as Veuve Clicquot.

Reviewed online, July 19, 2024. (In Toronto Film Festival.) Running time: 90 MIN.

• Production: (U.K.-U.S.-France) A Fourth and Twenty Eight production in association with WME Independent. (World sales: WME Independent, London.) Producers: Christina Weiss Lurie, Haley Bennett, Joe Wright. Executive producers: John Bernard, Fabien Baron. Co-executive producers: Janine Yass, Bill Helman.
• Crew: Director: Thomas Napper. Screenplay: Erin Dignam, from a story by Dignam, Christopher Monger, based on the book "The Widow Cliquot" by Tilar J. Mazzeo. Camera: Caroline Champetier. Editor: Richard Marizy. Music: Bryce Dessner.
• With: Haley Bennett, Sam Riley, Tom Sturridge, Ben Miles, Anson Boon, Leo Suter.

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