'Soulm8te' Review
- Connor Petrey
- 2 hours ago
- 2 min read
Release Date: 08/01/26 [VOD]
Genre: Horror. SciFi. Thriller.
MPAA: Rated R.
Distributor: Universal Pictures.
The Verdict: A Maybe
Remember M3GAN? Well, this is her spinoff, Soulm8te, and she was removed earlier this year from theatrical release to go into an indefinite purgatory until now, where she has officially come back to life straight to VOD platforms. So the question is… was it rapidly released with little marketing due to the financial failure of M3GAN 2.0, or did they just not have faith in the final product?
Well, after watching the film, there are some striking similarities to 2025’s Companion, 2024’s Subservience, and even to a lesser extent 2026’s Obsession. This could’ve led to the biggest issues when it came to marketing strategies and the overall view of its box-office profitability. There’s not quite a link to the M3GAN films here, not by direct name or hints, and that leads to the theory they wanted to ditch the M3GAN universe once and for all.
What’s interesting is that Soulm8te is actually a decent sci-fi thriller; it doesn’t reinvent a single aspect of its identity, and it’s ultimately a very predictable experience, but it’s perfectly fine. In fact, some of the bloody thrills were incredibly effective and left me personally wondering where this brutal violence was in the M3GAN films.
The film revolves around David, a grieving husband who takes the initiative to volunteer for a testing of a robotic companion known as a Soulm8te. As things begin harmlessly enough, with some tweaks to the code to make it feel more human, David becomes in a toxic relationship with the product he’s beta testing.
While not entirely practical with its blood and gore, the kills remain effective, and one is shockingly tight… if I dare say so myself. It’s a scary world we are practically on the brink of, and in a world that is very mixed on the use of AI, this brings yet another reason for caution. There's a recycled message here, circa T2, of not trusting the machines, and it never really delves further than the surface.
It’s a solid science fiction tale, although it suffers from an unremarkable plot that lacks surprise and an ending that entirely misses the mark. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the original goal was to have M3GAN appear in a post-credits sequence.
