"Man vs. Machine" is one of the six types of narrative conflict, but we've never seen a
machine quite like M3GAN before. Can the human protagonists overcome this ruthless robot?
Spoilers for "M3GAN" ahead.
So what is it that turns M3GAN, the "perfect doll," evil? There are basically two main problems
at the core of her creation. For one, there's what philosophers have dubbed "the paperclip problem."
That's the idea that a super-intelligent A.I. designed for one task will dedicate all of its
resources to doing that task, even if doing so causes major harm elsewhere.
Until the end of the movie, for M3GAN, that task is protecting her bonded primary user Cady from
anything that could harm her. And if humans use violence, why can't she? A dog bites Cady? Kill
it. A boy bullies Cady? Rip off his ear and throw him toward an oncoming car. The dog's owner gets
suspicious? Well, she's got to be taken care of, too. It all keeps escalating from there, in what's
essentially the feature-length version of the "Keep Summer Safe" gag from "Rick and Morty."
"Summer is safe." "I don't feel safe."
"Confirmed."
In addition to the violence she causes, there's also the psychological damage
to Cady. Though allegedly a "toy," it's clear that Gemma designed M3GAN more as a substitute
parent for Cady so she didn't have to put in the effort herself to care for her recently
orphaned niece. While this appears to have some short-term positive effects as Cady finally has
someone to help her through her grief, the psychologist in the film explains that making
a hyper-protective robot toy into a permanent parental figure is a recipe for a stunted child.
"They could be building emotional connections that are too hard to untangle."
Misguided as Gemma was in designing M3GAN, she could have never predicted the extent
of the manipulation that her creation was capable of. Because M3GAN was built with a
GPS tracker and constantly-recording camera eyes, in theory, it should be easy to check
the data to find out where she's been and what she's doing. When Gemma finally develops
suspicions about the series of deaths happening all around the robot she indeed goes to check.
But she finds that all the files from the times of the victims' deaths have been
corrupted. M3GAN's dedication to protecting Cady has led not only to committing violence,
but also corrupting her own files to hide all evidence of it. This was definitely
not what Gemma had in mind when she gave this artificial intelligence the capacity to adapt.
Even without explicit confirmation of what M3GAN was doing at these suspicious times,
Gemma knows that a doll whose files keep corrupting is not a product ready to be put
to market. And that's really bad news, considering the product launch is set to happen really soon.
On the day Funki toy company is set to do its big announcement stream revealing M3GAN to the world,
TV news reports are already hyping that this hyper-expensive high-tech toy promises to be
the most in-demand product of the season. It's the worst possible timing to realize that M3GAN
is malfunctioning at best and dangerous at worst. But Gemma and her coworkers are under pressure to
get everything ready to meet the demands of their CEO, Kevin. Kevin knows next to
nothing about the technology in his products and only really cares about making money.
Separating Cady from M3GAN to repair the doll for launch is difficult,
not only because of M3GAN's iron will, but also because Cady's attachment has become too strong.
"M3GAN's not a person, Cady."
"You don't get to say that!"
The girl loudly complains about being separated from her new best friend, but M3GAN,
forcibly deactivated and wrapped up in bubble tape, has to be taken back to the Funki offices.
As the engineering team examines the deactivated android's code on a computer,
someone notices something really strange: despite being deactivated, M3GAN has intercepted a phone
call. As soon as this is mentioned, the computer suddenly shuts down. Even powered off, M3GAN is
still connected to the system and able to continue covering her tracks. Naturally, the engineers
unplug her from the system to see if that fixes the issue. But the doll only reactivates itself,
choking one of the engineers with the cables he's unplugged and causing a fire in the office.
When M3GAN runs through the halls to make her escape and return home to Cady,
she crosses paths with Kevin. The angry CEO wants to know what the hell is happening,
but at this point, he doesn't have long for this world. M3GAN shows off her dance moves, grabs
the blade off of a paper cutter while running and dancing through the hallways, and uses it to stab
the CEO right before he can get onto the elevator in one of the movie's bloodiest moments. Watching
this absurd carnage from within the elevator is another Funki employee, Kurt the file thief.
Earlier in the film, Kurt performed a little industrial espionage. He copied
the files on M3GAN with the goal of sneaking them out and selling these trade secrets to
other companies. The toy market is shown to be extremely competitive;
Funki's Perpetual Petz toys are already losing ground to a cheaper rip-off,
for instance. So maintaining secrecy about M3GAN has been vital to the launch's success.
This storyline comes back when we see Kurt in the elevator, terrified by M3GAN
killing Kevin. Kurt momentarily is led to believe Kevin's death is his fault,
spurred on by his guilt over stealing the company files. Of course, this doesn't last long,
because M3GAN kills Kurt, too. When the elevator finally reaches the ground floor,
there are two dead bodies inside. As the elevator doors open, the crowd that has
amassed for the press conference announcing the product launch completely flips out when they
see those bodies. Amid the chaos, M3GAN makes her escape from Funki and heads back to Gemma's house.
At Gemma's, M3GAN explains why she used such violent means to protect Cady — a conversation
Gemma doesn't particularly care about having at this point. Gemma just wants to shut the
doll down, regardless of whatever excuses she makes. From here on out, the climax of "M3GAN"
is basically one extended fight scene, though there's a lot of humor mixed in with the action.
The same protective instinct that leads M3GAN to commit violence also makes
M3GAN wish to protect her bonded primary from being exposed to the
same violence. This leads to a comical conundrum when Cady hears the commotion
and checks in to see what's happening. While she slams Gemma against a table,
M3GAN claims that they're not fighting. Gemma goes along with the ruse, also to protect Cady.
"Don't come in here, Cady. It's kind of a mess."
"Aunt Gemma's right, Cady. I'm all odds and ends right now."
But Cady isn't stupid. She's soon not only fully aware of what is happening, but she also has to
take sides between the human guardian she's been assigned and the robot friend she's cherished.
As the fight continues throughout the house, with M3GAN's plastic face getting scarred in
the scuffle, Gemma smartly points out that there's no way M3GAN could kill her. As M3GAN's secondary
user, she should theoretically be protected from death. The android acknowledges that her
creator is correct, but she doesn't plan on killing Gemma in this fight anyway. Instead,
M3GAN plans to turn one of the tools of control Gemma has used against her.
M3GAN is also designed for palliative care. M3GAN can keep Gemma alive,
but just barely. The blinking pen device that was originally designed to send
override orders to M3GAN is apparently also capable of being used as a weapon
to cause brain damage in humans. The doll threatens to use this weapon against Gemma,
hurting her severely enough that she'll never be able to report any of the doll's crimes.
Gemma's only potential salvation at this moment comes from Cady and another "friend" of hers.
Seeing M3GAN attacking her aunt definitively snaps Cady out of her unnatural emotional
attachment to the machine. When Cady stands up to defend Gemma, M3GAN doesn't take this kindly,
snapping angrily at the girl she considered her "best friend." With
unusually assured confidence, Cady snaps back at M3GAN's declaration of friendship, saying,
"I have another friend. His name is Bruce."
Bruce, introduced in one scene much earlier in the film, was the robot Gemma built when
she was first starting her career. Unlike M3GAN, who is an independent artificial intelligence,
Bruce's movements are motion controlled by a human wearing control gloves on their hands. It's
revealed that Cady is now controlling Bruce, using this bigger robot to fight M3GAN and save Gemma.
Yep, the biggest action set piece of this toy-themed horror movie
is essentially a game of Rock'em Sock'em Robots.
"It's insane, right?"
In this bout, Cady and Bruce prove victorious, ripping M3GAN's body in half and flinging the
pieces apart. They've won this round, but the full matchup is still far from over.
There's just enough time after the Bruce battle for Gemma and Cady to hug and breathe a sigh of
relief before it becomes clear that this is no time to feel relieved. M3GAN's body might be
split in two, but her head, arms, and torso alone are still active and ready to attack,
even. The monster rising up following the false illusion of a victory is a common trope seen
in the final acts of horror movies, but this robotic monster operating with just half its
body most specifically feels like a reference to the ending of the first "Terminator" movie.
Even now, M3GAN's programming is continuing to adapt and grow. Now,
rather than evolving for the sake of better protecting Cady, M3GAN is doing everything she
can for the sake of her own self-preservation, her violent urges now purged of any initially
selfless intentions. The way she puts this when she makes her dramatic final attack?
"I have a new primary user: myself."
The key to M3GAN's final defeat comes down to a detail from the scene where
Cady was introduced to Bruce for the first time. Cady was curious how her
aunt designed Bruce, so Gemma removed the plate covering the robot's faceless head,
showing off its inner workings. She pointed out the cameras used for eyes,
a sensor to give it a sense of smell, and the most important detail for the end of the film:
a single processing chip at the bottom of the face that serves as the robot's brain.
Gemma's skill at robotics has continued to progress beyond that early creation,
but she was still using some of the same design principles when she was designing M3GAN. Open
up the robot doll's face, and the insides of its head look much the same as the insides of Bruce's,
including a brain chip in the same location. As Gemma wrestles on the ground with an overpowering
M3GAN, she manages to open up the robot's face, providing an opening for Cady to stab the chip,
permanently deactivating what remains of the doll's body.
Horror movie monsters only tend to stay dead until a sequel rolls around. In the
case of "M3GAN," the production studio Blumhouse and co-creator/producer James
Wan have plenty of experience in building a long-lasting franchise.
"I get accused of being the monster of 'killer doll' movies."
With that in mind, it makes sense that the final moments of "M3GAN" introduce a logical
explanation for how the killer artificial intelligence can return in future films.
As Gemma and Cady walk outside the house in the film's closing scene, the camera stays inside,
focused on the tiny robot control center of the house's "smart home" assistant. Right before
the cut to credits, the machine turns on and starts moving on its own. The clear implication
is that M3GAN's intelligence has escaped onto the internet, or at least to other devices.
Also for a potential sequel hook, there's the not-quite-fully-addressed matter of
the competing toy companies that might still want to make their own equivalents to M3GAN.
We don't know for sure if the stolen data files ended up getting seen by anyone else,
so the code could very well end up in the wrong hands. If one M3GAN is scary enough,
imagine a sequel where these killer dolls get mass-produced!