A memorable horror villain for a new era, M3GAN took the world by storm just a couple of years ago. A meme-able, witty and spooky psychopathic robot in the body of a dancing, singing little girl, it felt like lightning in a bottle, raking in huge box office numbers on a trademark Blumhouse modest budget. Considering its success, a sequel felt inevitable, but M3GAN 2.0 isn’t the traditional horror sequel you might expect. Instead, it trades spooks for over-the-top action scenes and even positions the titular killer robot doll as a sort of anti-hero. It’s a big upgrade in scope and scale, but it loses a fair bit of what made the original so compelling in the first place.
After being destroyed at the end of the first movie, the government (of course) got wind of how robots like M3GAN could be weaponised and created a new one of their own, AMELIA (Ivanna Sakhno). When the new killer robot, giving off extreme Terminator vibes, turns against them, it seems like the only way to stop her is to fight fire with fire. Like any good horror villain, M3GAN is brought back to life by Aunt-still-trying-to-be-Mum Gemma (Allison Williams) and her niece Cady (Violet McGraw), who are still understandably a little messed up from when M3GAN turned on them in the first place.
It’s a grand sweeping story that immediately increases the stakes from the house-based horror of the original. The very first frame has the words “Somewhere on the Turkish/Iranian border”, and you know from that point on that this horror-turned-action franchise has completely jumped the shark. This isn’t necessarily new for Blumhouse; their campy time-loop thriller Happy Death Day also received a sequel that took things to another grandiose time-travelling level, but I feel like the face turn for M3GAN is somewhat unearned here. She wrestles with her objective and the idea of humanity, but it felt more interesting when she was an adorable toy with something evil bubbling under the surface. It is good that Gemma never fully trusts her, though, even if she eventually rebuilds the robot who tried to kill her and makes her even stronger, which does feel like a stretch.
The first movie was ultimately a success because it balanced M3GAN’s witty, snarky likability with the fact that she was secretly killing people, a fun riff on the ‘AI is dangerous’ narrative that we’ve seen time and time again. M3GAN 2.0 hammers the message into you with a lot less subtlety.
“M3GAN herself still delivers strong one-liners, with Jenna Davis doing a fantastic job of nailing deadpan delivery of quotable lines…”
The conversation around AI and whether it’s good or evil can be nuanced and interesting, but M3GAN 2.0 isn’t particularly interested in that. Jermain Clement makes an appearance as the ultimate douchey tech-bro trying to use cybernetics to expand his growing empire while also controlling all of the power in the city. There’s an AI conference filled with robot booth-babes, while protestors with signs shout about AI being evil out front. Christian (Aristotle Athari), Gemma’s new boyfriend, waxes lyrical about paperclips and how easy it can be for computers to turn evil. Laughably, by the end of the movie, Gemma comes around to the fact that maybe AI isn’t so bad after all, which feels insane given what she’s been through.
There’s still a lot of fun to be had, though. M3GAN herself still delivers strong one-liners, with Jenna Davis doing a fantastic job of nailing deadpan delivery of quotable lines like “Alright meat sacks, let’s get to work” as the robot poses and struts around like she owns the place. As M3GAN inhabits various house appliances, and even a cute toy with puppy-dog eyes, it’s a joy to see her struggle with her new position in the world, desperate to get back to her body. When she does regain her former self, with some upgrades, Amie Donald once again delivers a fabulous physical performance. However, the dance scene is understandably far less iconic this time around, going back to the well once too often.
On the flipside, Ivanna Sakhno is effective as AMELIA, but she isn’t given many character traits to work with. She’s a robot on a mission, by any means necessary, and while that makes her the violent, aggressive antagonist of the film, her scenes come off far more serious as a result. I found that it gave me tonal whiplash; I was giggling whenever M3GAN messed with Gemma, their relationship still clearly strained from them trying to kill each other. In one particularly hilarious “bonding” moment, the whole cinema cackled. But then AMELIA would kill a bunch of nameless goons in brutal, emotionless fashion, and I struggled to care.
High-functioning weaponised robots fighting each other (and everybody else) is always going to be enjoyable to watch, though. The choreography of these scenes is decent, with one clever fight involving Gemma late in the piece a stand-out for how ridiculous this all is, while still functioning well as an entertaining combat sequence. Gerard Johnstone flexes his directing chops here, proving that he’s just as capable of running a fast-paced sci-fi smackdown as he is at building thriller-style tension. While I miss the slow-burn creepy horror of the original, M3GAN jumping off a cliff and swooping into an army base with a wingsuit maintains a sort of self-aware, campy charm.
Really, M3GAN 2.0 is most enjoyable if you go into it knowing fully that this is an action sci-fi romp, and not a horror movie. With that shift, it’s also lost some heart and soul; perhaps not surprising for a film about killer robots. That’s a shame for slasher fans who hoped M3GAN would be the modern-era Chucky, but it’s so ambitiously bold and incredibly silly that it’s hard not to have a good time anyway.
M3GAN 2.0 is in cinemas now.
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Checkpoint Gaming attended a screening of M3GAN 2.0 as a guest of Universal Pictures Australia.
About the Author
Luke Mitchell
he/him
Luke spends his time making radio, playing video games, binge-watching TV, getting unreasonably invested in wrestling, hosting bear events and hanging out with his beautiful pets.
