When I wrote my top 10 of 2022, I mentioned that one of the most important criteria was how much fun I had while watching the movie, and I started 2023 with a very fun movie.

Violet McGraw, who was fantastic in "The Haunting Of Hill House," plays Cady, a young girl whose parents are killed in a car accident. She goes to live with her aunt Gemma (Allison Williams). Gemma works for a toy company designing toys. She has developed a prototype robotic toy, M3GAN, and uses her to help Cady deal with her parent's death.

You could swap any of the human actors out, and this movie would be just as fun. The star of the movie was M3GAN. She was done practically; there was a human underneath the costume. Amie Donald does the physical performance, and that is the key. She moves as a doll would, and it is very creepy. A boy picks on Cady at one point, and M3GAN chances him while running on all fours. There are so many very cool moments of M3GAN moving, and you have to remind yourself that an actual person is doing all of this.

As with most slasher movies, people see this for the kills, and "M3GAN" had some entertaining ones. My biggest critique is that it did not have more. The movie is rated PG-13, so there is only so much it can do in terms of gore. An R rating would have bumped up the scares and the blood, but it would not have made as much at the box office this past weekend. If getting more of these means it needs to stay PG-13, that is a worthy sacrifice.

I did enjoy "M3GAN," but I had hoped the movie embraced the fun a little more. There were some entertaining kills, the bread, and butter of movies like these. I just wish there were more.

7 out of 10

Rated PG-13 for violent content and terror, some strong language and a suggestive reference.

1hr. 42min