M3GAN 2.0 review: The AI camp queen pulls a Terminator 2

M3GAN was an unexpected hit, and for good reason: It was the best killer toy horror film since Child's Play, combining comedy and camp with a meme-worthy android lead. For the sequel, writer/director Gerard Johnstone (working off a story from him and the first film's writer Akela Cooper), have taken a few notes from Terminator 2. This time around, there's an even more evil android on the scene (Amelia, played by Ivanna Sakhno) who wants AI to rule the world. And there's only one somewhat less evil android that can stop her: M3GAN.

If that setup sounds silly and campy to you, well... it is. That's the point. More so than the first film, M3GAN 2.0 leans into the sheer silliness of its premise and is all the more fun for it. It's also not really a horror movie this time, it's a full-on action film with tons of gunplay, hand-to-hand combat and one wingsuit infiltration sequence that would be right at home in a Mission: Impossible film.

Universal Pictures

Speaking of Mission: Impossible, it's hard not to notice that M3GAN 2.0 features practically the same AI takeover plotline that bogged down The Final Reckoning. The difference here is that it's actually somewhat well-informed — M3GAN 2.0 isn't just about "evil AI," it also explores (however briefly) the notion of AI autonomy, technology regulation and ethics. (For God sakes, there's a killer Section 230 joke that only tech-savvy readers would understand.)

M3GAN 2.0 once again centers on Gemma (Allison Williams), the engineer who originally created M3GAN, and her niece Cady (Violet McGraw). Following the events of the first film, Gemma was briefly sent to jail but reemerges as a technology critic. (Isn't it funny how many "tech critics" pop up after making bank from Big Tech?) She then teams up with a tech ethicist (Aristotle Athari) to push governments for stronger technology regulation, especially when it comes to AI.

The existence of Amelia seems to prove her point. In the opening of M3GAN 2.0, we watch as she goes on a covert mission to rescue a military scientist, only to disobey her programming and kill him instead. It turns out Amelia was built on the bones of M3GAN's design, and for some reason she's aiming to kill everyone involved with her creation. That mission inevitably leads back to Gemma and Cady, of course.

Universal Pictures

It's not a spoiler to say that M3GAN didn't really die at the end of the first movie. Turns out, she backed herself up to the cloud and has been watching Gemma and Cady via their smart home devices. After a set piece involving inept FBI agents, M3GAN convinces Gemma that she needs some sort of physical body to stop Amelia. Funnily enough, her first new outfit is the not at all fictional Moxie child companion robot I tested a few years ago. (Embodied, the startup behind Moxie, folded last year, leaving its handful of customers with a dead robot. That may be why Moxie M3GAN is allowed to swear.)

M3GAN gets her wish and, like the Six Million Dollar Man, receives a fully upgraded body, one that's ">better, faster and stronger. (And also one that's more befitting of Amie Donald, the talented young actress who plays her.) And at that point, the movie turns into a full-on action fest as M3GAN infiltrates a tech lab to save Cady. Thankfully, MEGAN 2.0 understands the assignment: Fight scenes are energetic and well-choreographed, and Johnstone makes sure that everything is easily legible. The multitude of Steven Seagal references also makes it clear he's a fan of schlocky action cinema.

Universal Pictures

Johnstone is also clearly a tech nerd: the film is filled with references to places like Xerox PARC, one of the early R&D labs that developed concepts like the GUI (graphical user interface) and mouse. There’s an Elon Musk analog, played by the great Jemaine Clement, who has an over-inflated ego and an obsession with brain interface devices. And the film pokes fun at anti-tech crusaders, who sometimes push back against any sort of technological advancement as inherently evil.

M3GAN 2.0 balances a smart view of tech alongside sheer summer movie fun. And while it runs close to two hours, it never feels like a slog like the nearly three-hour long The Final Reckoning. Both movies are about the impending doom of an AI apocalypse, but M3GAN 2.0 manages to do it without being too self-serious and far more well-informed. Now that it seems like we’re just a few clicks away from some sort of tech apocalypse, poking fun at it just seems like a better way to cope.

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