M3GAN

'Cady" (Violet McGraw) finds herself living with her aunt "Gemma" (Alison Williams) after an altercation with a snow truck leaves her orphaned. They don't exactly hit it off. The older woman is a career-driven lady who works at a toy manufacturer, specialising in gadgets and gismos that use AI. Thing is, their market dominance is waning - much to the chagrin of boss "David" (Ronny Chiang). Competitors are catching up and the children are getting even more sophisticated/lazy/dependent! She has a plan though - with her colleagues "Cole" (Brian Jordan Alvarez) and "Tess" (Jen Van Epps), she is working on the ultimate "companion". A doll that pairs with it's owner and becomes almost sibling-like. Snag with this film is that the plot is really all rather predictable, the acting isn't up to much and I didn't find the eponymous - hideously over-dressed - creation remotely menacing. Indeed, actually, at times I found it particularly useful (the neighbour's wayward dog, for example). It's a competently strung together drama, but it's all just a little too sterile and by-the-numbers for me. It does fire a warning shot to parents who could become over-reliant on their children's own reliance on surrogate friendships and dependencies, but once that point is made - and reiterated - the rest of this is, frankly, all rather unremarkable.