Universal and Blumhouse’s first M3gan feature came out of nowhere with a premise so ridiculous and campy that it was hard not to be at least a little intrigued. Equal parts Child’s Play and Small Wonder, M3gan was undeniably silly with its story about an AI-powered doll who sang Sia’s “Titanium” and danced around as she chopped people’s heads off. But the movie struck a near-perfect balance between straight horror and comedy that made it a delight to see in a crowded theater.
M3gan also killed at the box office, to the tune of $180 million against a modest $12 million budget. That made it all too easy for Universal to greenlight and fast-track a bigger, more expensive sequel, but it was unclear where, exactly, the new franchise might go next. There’s a pointed cleverness to the way returning director Gerard Johnstone and writer Akela Cooper evolve their murderous doll’s story with M3gan 2.0. And you can see in the film’s action-forward sci-fi turn how much more money was put into its production.
Like many horror sequels, though, M3gan 2.0 has a tough time living up to its predecessor as it brings back the original cast to take on a few new AI threats. It’s by no means a terrible movie, but it does get a bit too caught up trying to wax philosophic about the dangers of a robot uprising when it should be more focused on being a scary good time.
Though most of the world has moved on two years after M3gan’s (voiced by Jenna Davis, and physically portrayed by Amie Donald) first killing spree, memories of what happened still haunt teenager Cady (Violet McGraw) and her roboticist-turned-author aunt Gemma (Allison Williams). While Gemma’s involvement in M3gan’s creation tarnished her reputation as an inventor, she’s become a well-known advocate for stronger controls on artificial intelligence.
At Gemma’s new foundation, her longtime friends Tess (Jen Van Epps) and Cole (Brian Jordan Alvarez) now work to develop different kinds of technologies, like powered exoskeletons that are meant to help humans stay competitive as simple, efficient robots become a larger part of the labor market. The last thing Gemma — who insists on minimal screen time in their new house — wants is for Cady to follow in her STEM footsteps. But Cady has a knack for programming things in her own right, and she’s very good about keeping it all hidden.
Like Gemma, Cady’s still very traumatized by her last experience with M3gan. She knows how quickly M3gan’s hard-coded imperative to love her can turn violent. Cady wouldn’t dream of trying to bring M3gan, who was destroyed, back “better.” But the same can’t be said for certain people within the US military. Though most everyone remembers how much of a disaster M3gan was, technically speaking, the remote-controlled Autonomous Military Engagement Logistics and Infiltration Android known as “Amelia” (Ivanna Sakhno) is a different kind of machine. Amelia’s got all of her older sister’s same bells, whistles, and killing skills, but none of M3gan’s buggy, emotional code. Amelia seems like she’s the next generation of unmanned warfare right up until the point when she goes rogue and starts murdering people her handlers don’t mean for her to.
Whereas the first M3gan was a fairly straightforward horror flick, 2.0 switches things up by leading with a strong sci-fi energy that feels like a cross between Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Alita: Battle Angel. Amelia isn’t from the future, but she is very much a terminator who snaps necks and kicks people’s jaws off with a cold brutality that feels more vicious than the first M3gan’s kills. Despite their gore, Amelia’s action sequences are delightfully electric and fun to watch as she sets off on a hunt to find innovators in the AI field. But they often lack a suspenseful quality because of how most of her victims don’t have any reliable way of defending themselves.
Image: Universal
M3gan 2.0 seems to know that there’s only so much killer-robot-on-human violence one can watch before the schtick gets a bit boring, and so it telegraphs Amelia and M3gan’s showdown basically from the jump. Because the film has to bring M3gan back and can’t rush headlong into the machines’ confrontation, though, it spends a fair amount of its runtime trying to pad Gemma and Cady’s arc out with milquetoast ideas about parenthood in the age of AI. Once M3gan’s back and in an uneasy alliance with the humans, the story becomes heavy-handed in its messaging about the emotional rifts that technology can cause within family units. Those beats — many of which play like direct comments on the proliferation of generative AI in the real world — might work a bit better if the movie’s human characters didn’t feel so stiff. But the most compelling performance here comes from Davis, who played M3gan as a slightly more sophisticated, complicated version of herself.
While M3gan 2.0 has its moments, the original’s novelty feels lacking here because of how preoccupied it is with aping elements of bigger, blockbuster-type sci-fi features. And despite the increased scale and ambition — and the 2.0 in the title — the sequel doesn’t end up feeling like much of an upgrade.
M3gan 2.0 also stars Aristotle Athari, Timm Sharp, and Jemaine Clement. The movie is in theaters now.
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