Genuinely, Pixar’s Elio had scarier scenes in it.

When a military-grade robot goes on a rampage, Gemma and her niece are roped into further turmoil. Not only does this robot have uncanny similarities to M3GAN, a robot Gemma designed, but M3GAN herself has something to say about it all.

Director Gerard Johnstone and his writing team return for this follow-up to the 2022 sci-fi horror M3GAN. Stars reprising their roles include Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, Jenna Davis, Brian Jordan Alvarez, and Jen Van Epps. The 2022 film was a surprising hit for the newcomer director. A spin on the “haunted doll” trope with a sci-fi twist and a dollop of self-awareness to keep the ridiculous premise grounded. It also had a tiny twist of science fiction fable in there as a treat.

M3GAN 2.0 is… like a lot of sequels, bloated and quite messy. It isn’t even that scary?

Now, there’s always subjectivity with horror. Very rarely do horror films please everyone, even in a general sense. To point at this sequel and say “Boo, it isn’t scary!” is perhaps missing the point to some. This is because for a short period of time, M3GAN the character became something of an Internet meme. Which is great. It means the first film had something special, something unique that people latched onto (and hopefully it wasn’t just the dancing scene) But even with the “franchise’s” (shudder) affluence for self-awareness, this sequel becomes too big for its own boots.

So what’s going on here? The first film began with a Furby allegory. The second film starts with a covert military operation in the middle east. If you were to tell me, in 2022, that the sequel would have M3GAN flying around in a wingsuit, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. This is an action-comedy movie, with a leering propensity to spout meaningless techno-babble. The first film is a haunting, cerebral sci-fi horror by comparison.
M3GAN, still around after the first film, feels it is her duty to protect Cady, Gemma’s niece, against the roaming threat of Amelia. A new model of killer robot. Already, comparisons to the Terminator films is very obvious. The murder robot is a goodie now. But unfortunately it is more like the ropey Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines than the masterpiece Terminator 2: Judgement Day.

M3GAN is the star of the show, and the creators certainly know it. The film practically stalls whenever she isn’t directly involved. Our supporting cast really had nothing going on to begin with. They were horror movie fodder! But sure, they were in the first one so they need to be involved again. But even our leads, Williams and McGraw, have limited material here. The first film was about coping with grief and loss. About opening up as a human being and having emotional strength (unlike the killer robot’s programming). Here, all that’s left is petty family squabbles.
Using the term “horror” almost feels misplaced here. M3GAN 2.0 is surprisingly coy with the gore. This film will only disappoint gore fans.

It isn’t all bad though. I am a sucker for sci-fi in all its guises. Ivanna Sakhno is certainly easy on the eye as murder robot Amelia. Again, comparisons to Terminator 3 with Kristina Loken’s T-X, and Sakhno does it better. The narrative does have cool set pieces and action ideas dispersed throughout. A particularly vicious looking sci-fi knight costume, for example. Of course, M3GAN herself steals the show with the same superiority complex as before. Having her integrated into a smart house was very funny. I did find myself chuckling at some of the humour.

But ooft, there’s a lot of repetitive stuff otherwise. Very, very obvious set ups for very obvious payoffs. One twist too many. For what should have been another dive into the cyberpunk hellscape of the singularity, it was just a messy action comedy. What might have been a darkly comic horror exploring AI’s future alongside humans… just buried itself in too many familiar tropes.
M3GAN delightfully surprised me in 2022. It threatened the top ten on my list for a while! But 2.0 was not an upgrade; it made me appreciate the original but not in a good way.

I guess there’s going to be more of these!