M3GAN 2.0 -- M3diocre Sequel Promises Ludicrous Camp, Fails to Deliver

Review by Daniel Lima

The 2022 film M3GAN was at its best at its most absurd. When the titular little girl killer robot was breaking out in spontaneous song, or doing TikTok dances before executing people with a paper cutter, it managed to capture a deliriously silly energy that could power a story rife with cliches and dead air. M3GAN 2.0 promises to be a sequel that doubles down on these fleeting moments of unabashed camp fun, becoming something much grander than the original. That it then makes all the same mistakes is even more disappointing than the first time around.

This sequel sees Allison Williams attempting to juggle raising her niece, running her tech start-up, and her new anti-AI activism, all to varying degrees of success. When a new murderous AI based on the M3GAN source code breaks free of its controls, Williams finds herself wrapped up in the quest to stop it, and is forced to accept help from an unlikely source: M3GAN herself.

Gone are the horror trappings of the original, slight as they were. With this entry, the series has evolved into a sci-fi action thriller, jumping from set piece to set piece with not even the paltry attempts at tension that define modern Blumhouse slop. The comedy is emphasized even more, the emotional beats carry through from the first, this is through and through the same transition into crowd-pleasing tentpole that Alien and Terminator made. On paper, it should work.

It is constantly impressed upon the audience that the heroes are racing against the clock to stop the villain, and the film leans into its own ridiculousness, finding ways to engineer manga-inspired martial arts brawls and outright superheroics. It doesn’t take long, however, for the lack of visual flair to bog the movie down. The original also had a drab visual palette and perfunctory direction, robbing the narrative of momentum, but as a low budget horror film that was more forgivable. A film like this, so proud of its most zany elements, should try to sustain that energy throughout with expressive, dynamic camerawork and propulsive editing. Instead, it wastes ample time with dull exposition, in lifeless rooms, shot in plain shot/reverse shot.  

Much of this time is meant to set up the dramatic and emotional stakes of the film. Allison Williams still struggles in her parental role, her now teenage niece chafes against her, and M3GAN must prove that she is capable of real, genuine humanity. Credit where it’s due, the film does treat the interpersonal drama with a degree of seriousness, rather than choking it out with smug ironic detachment. Unfortunately, this dialogue is handled with the same brusqueness as the exposition. Given that explaining the plot machinations make up the bulk of the film, and that these characters never cross the threshold into the third dimension, the attempt at real pathos falls flat.

Given the lack of presentation through the rest of the film, it should be no surprise that the promise of truly outrageous set pieces falls short of expectations, amounting to derivative pastiches of familiar concepts and works. There’s a temptation to give partial credit for the hodgepodge of ideas here — artificial consciousness, tokusatsu fights, body hacking — and how each manages to be incorporated into the plot in an organic way. In execution, however, they lack the stylistic flourish and the thematic depth to be impressive or fun; the action is largely cut up and unambitious, the themes are undercooked. Given that there are plenty of films from around the world that actually have managed to deliver the gonzo genre thrills that Hollywood can never quite match, it’s hard to get excited over pale, tame imitations.

Is it funny? I can only say I laughed twice in a two-hour movie. Once again, the highlights of the film are Amie Donald’s physical performance and Jenna Davis’ voice performance as the titular AI: the former gives the robot body an uncanny, eerie movement that’s always just a bit off, and the latter manages to make bluntly impersonal dialogue absolutely drip in sarcasm. The latter does the heavy lifting here due to some plot contrivances, and it was a wise decision to spend as much time with the character as possible, but most of the material is just the juxtaposition of a dispassionate robot voice being mean. The best joke amounts to a callback to the first film.

The most interesting thing about M3GAN 2.0 is how it grapples with AI, and what it has to say about legal restrictions on the technology. Admittedly, it feels a bit silly to burrow into the political messaging of a movie where a little girl robot infiltrates a secure building by flying through the air in a wingsuit, but it spends so much precious capital on delivering this message — and tying in to the emotional core of the entire story — that it’s worth examining.

The first film is a none-too-subtle critique of our reliance on technology, particularly how it has come to supplant our ability to form meaning social bonds with other people. This fear is externalized into a killer doll, but in truth M3GAN was plenty creepy even before she got violent; seeing how utterly dependent on her the niece had become, and how it limited her ability to process her emotions, is enough to disturb. At the time, this messaging struck me as old hat “kids and their phones” moralizing. If the same movie came out today, I’d commend it for grappling with present fears so directly.

That is not, however, the message of M3GAN 2.0. The fact is, once you start building a film franchise around an AI you can’t be too critical of the technology. Here, it is made glaring obvious from the start that Williams’ anti-AI advocacy is a detriment to her own life, bordering on zealotry that blinds her to making levelheaded decisions. Her partner in the advocacy endeavor is portrayed as an unlikable fool. M3GAN herself follows in the footsteps of the T-800, on a quest of self-actualization that in the world of this film is plainly possible. Clearly, there has been a softening of the original position.

Of course, this is the kind of movie where a character attempts to run the program “morality” in a killer AI’s source code. Which is to say, it’s a bit of dumb fun that is deliberately avoiding being too sober on the topic of how exactly should we treat AI, beyond “carefully”. It does, however, still attempt to have that dialogue, and the fact that it is more toothless than the first film in spite of the current threat that AI poses to society is both surprising, and not at all surprising. Pretending to take a stand while ultimately saying nothing at all is the kind of bloodless, unmotivated, creatively bankrupt decision that is well in keeping with the rest of the movie.

All that said, M3GAN 2.0 is not horrible. There’s plenty of charm in the two performances that bring the titular character to life, it avoids the pitfalls of many unserious franchise films, it at least gestures towards interesting conceits. It’s just impossible to shake the feeling while watching that you could be watching something more substantive, more adventurous, more daring. It’s telling that the end credits feature more clips from the previous film than the one you just watched; there’s more to pull from.  

M3GAN 2.0 arrives in theaters June 27.

Rating: 2.5/5