Two years after M3GAN’s rampage, her creator, Gemma, resorts to resurrecting her infamous creation to take down Amelia, the military-grade weapon who was built by a defense contractor who stole M3GAN’s underlying tech.
Alongside producers James Wan and Jason Blum, writer-director Gerard Johnstone returns to helm M3GAN 2.0, a film full of periodic heights and solid laughs that never rises above other forgettable robo-sequels.
Two years after her creation, M3GAN embarked on a murderous rampage, Gemma Forrester (played by Allison Williams) has gone on a nationwide apology tour and is now an outspoken advocate for AI regulation. She refuses a buyout from a billionaire specializing in cybernetics and continues working on M3GAN’s technology in secret while raising her 12-year-old niece, Cady (Violet McGraw), who has learned a few self-defense moves since the original.
When a copy of M3GAN’s source code is stolen by a nefarious defense contractor and used to create Amelia (Ivanna Sakhno), she, of course, develops a mind of her own and turns against humanity in Terminator-like fashion. Faced with the possibility of an AI takeover, Gemma turns to who else but M3GAN.
For the most part, the film leans into its strengths, such as self-aware campiness, a few laugh-out-loud gags, and fight sequences with slick camera work. There are body horror elements and choreography reminiscent of Blumhouse’s 2018 masterpiece Upgrade, but that’s not enough to justify the punishing two-hour runtime.
The plot is so inane and disjointed that it felt like AI wrote the script. M3GAN and Amelia can both upload themselves to the cloud, and at one point, it was hard to tell who was in whose android body or random gadget. There is even one point where M3GAN inhabits Gemma’s body via neural implant, leaving the actress to portray both Gemma and the robot at once, which tells you just how committed Allison Williams’ performance was.
Other gags include M3GAN spending much of the film hilariously reflecting on “her journey of personal growth” (referring to her homicidal break in the previous movie), assailing others with therapy-speak, and making insinuations about Gemma’s sexuality.
In the end, the film tries to say something about parenting and humanity co-evolving alongside AI, which is relevant since AI clearly isn’t going anywhere in the real world. But this killer app needed a better patch. M3GAN still sings and dances, but this sequel doesn’t slay.
In Theaters Friday, June 27th
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