Just came back from this. Can't decide yet but I'm waffling between 8/10 and 9/10 for this.
Hot dang this was a trip! It was wickedly compelling and entertaining in all the right ways. A solid, well-made, and very slick horror movie that finally delivered justice to the concept of a (self-learning AI-based) killer robot doll on the loose. Although I do have a few minor complaints, they don't detract from what's basically a "slasher" that's actually done really well with a twist on a concept.
My complaints: the PG-13 rating detracting from what could've provided more impact with an R rating, and that it was kinda two movies in one with a "psychological traumatic drama" combined with a horror-slasher. I definitely felt there was some room for the movie to have been much more of that psychological traumatic drama that it wanted to be at first, and to be honest I would've actually paid for a movie like that, with the movie's concept much more serious & mature in tone to make it even more horrific and traumatic - basically, something along the lines of a The Outer Limits kind of vibe.
That said, its execution with the horror-slasher that it veered into probably made it more friendly to the masses though, and I especially liked that it didn't pull many of its "horror" punches (even if the PG-13 rating kinda took some wind out of those sails), and the fact that it was
extremely modern with its incorporation of the cloud and IoT - anyone who owns an Alexa or Siri device will likely relate to the movie a ton.
I'll say that M3GAN is the standard by which I'm going to judge every other horror movie that comes out for the rest of 2023, at least until a better movie comes out.