M3GAN

While the idea of artificial intelligence gone wrong and anthropomorphic dolls coming to life and killing people has been done to death, M3GAN still manages to have both while keeping it fresh. It sees Allison Williams as Gemma, a roboticist trying to come up with a life-like robot toy for the toy company she works for. After Gemma's sister and her husband die in a car accident, she has trouble taking care of her niece, Cady, due to her demanding job and not being emotionally open with her. In her attempt to get close to Cady, Gemma comes up with M3GAN, a robot made to look like a little girl and with artificial intelligence that is capable of helping Cady deal with her trauma while protecting her from danger. While initially successful as Cady becomes attached to M3GAN and Gemma's boss orders more of them, the robot's closeness to Cady starts to go wrong and a rampage of death and chaos ensue. The story for this movie, came up by James Wan and Akela Cooper who wrote the script, manages to take overused ideas and tropes and spins it into a well executed horror that also has good use of drama and deals with the psychological effects of a young girl who just lost her parents. Williams and Violet McGraw, who plays Cady, not only give powerful performances but have such an incredibly strong chemistry that you believe that they're niece and aunt. The rest of the cast is good too, but especially the two people who portray M3GAN, Amie Donald portraying her physically and Jenna Davis doing the voice. 2023 is off to a good start thanks to M3GAN being such a hit right into the first week of the year, something that doesn't always happen. Over all: 100%

2023 top list so far:

1. M3GAN