M3GAN vs. RoboCop


I got around to watching M3GAN last weekend (the unrated cut--why bother with anything else?). I enjoyed it very much, although I can still understand the skepticism of some horror buffs over this movie. Yes, it was marketed hard as a "killer doll" movie because that's exactly what it is, so it inevitably invites comparisons to other killer doll movies (particularly Child's Play (1988) and its antagonist Chucky). Yet what surprised me about this film is how much it reminded me of RoboCop (1987) in terms of its satirical approach.

The titular doll in M3GAN is a creepy and intimidating killer, one that easily earns her place in the horror icon hall of fame. What sets this film apart from other killer doll movies is that director Gerard Johnstone and screenwriters Akela Cooper and James Wan use the killer doll plot structure as a means to skewer the toy industry, which is represented in the film as the fictional company Funki. One of the recurring themes in MEGAN is how family relationships suffer when we become glued to our electronic devices, but the film frequently reminds its audience that businesses such as the toy industry have a vested interest in keeping us glued to our digital toys for as long as possible. In particular, M3GAN occasionally cuts away to over-the-top commercials for digital products Funki and its competitors release to capture the attention of kids, commercials that emphasize how utterly stupid "smart" toys can be.

The ED-290, OCP's perfect playmate for M3GAN.

This approach to satire matches the approach the director Paul Verhoeven and his screenwriters Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner took for RoboCop. RoboCop is ostensibly a superhero movie (in fact, one of RoboCop's more obvious antecedents is Deathlok, a character that was created in 1974 by Marvel Comics), but the movie uses the superhero plot structure as a means of making fun of America's military-industrial complex and the excesses of its pop culture. Even though RoboCop was released back in the '80s, many of its satirical jabs are all too relevant today.

I don't think that the satirical style of M3GAN is quite as trenchant as RoboCop. Nevertheless, if you like RoboCop, you'll probably enjoy M3GAN.

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