M3GAN is the series’ titular Model 3 Generative Android.Geoffrey Short/The Associated Press
M3GAN 2.0
Directed by Gerard Johnstone
Written by Gerard Johnstone, Akela Cooper, James Wan
Starring Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, Jemaine Clement
Classification 14A; 119 minutes
Opens in theatres June 27
With a movie trailer that pairs the nostalgic undulations of Britney Spears’s smash hit Oops, I Did It Again with the contemporary femme cool of queer Gen Z idol Chappell Roan’s Femininomenon, the marketing roll out for killer robot sequel, M3GAN 2.0, serves up a self-referential bag of tricks on overdrive.
Insistent on inducing even greater online virality than its predecessor, writer-director Gerard Johnstone’s M3GAN 2.0 positions the series’ titular Model 3 Generative Android, M3GAN, at the level of established camp icon. Where 2022’s M3GAN saw our all-too-sentient queen ascend to heights of memability while killing, singing and dancing her way through her enhanced-automaton-gone-wrong desires, Johnstone’s sequel is all too aware of M3GAN’s much-beloved status as this era’s homicidal “girlypop” diva and doubles down for maximum impact.
Actors Allison Williams and Violet McGraw return as the emotionally distant roboticist Gemma and her orphaned niece Cady. Gemma is no longer an innovator testing the ethical limits of technological innovation, as she was during the disastrous events of M3GAN two years prior. She has, instead, pivoted to the role of tech ethicist, advocating for legislation aimed at regulating the industry and raising awareness of the dangers of unchecked AI development. Cady, on the other hand, now a rebellious teengager, has developed a newfound interest in all things tech, specifically, a curiosity in its capacity for human-like feeling.
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While these tensions play out, unbeknownst to Gemma, her M3GAN technology, thought to be destroyed, has instead been stolen by a powerful defence contractor and used to create a military-grade infiltration weapon known as AMELIA, which, much like her killer predecessor, has gone rogue. Faced with the collapse of the country’s crucial tech infrastructure at the hands of AMELIA, Gemma works to resurrect M3GAN – with significant upgrades – to neutralize the threat AMELIA poses to global security.
A significant, Terminator 2-style shift in tone sees M3GAN 2.0 morph from the discomforting psychological horror of the series’ first entry into an all-out action comedy. Armed with an array of new outfits and an even brasher potty mouth, the new and improved M3GAN is equal parts creepy and fabulous. In a turn from villain to anti-hero, M3GAN is now a stealth action hero in the vein of Mission: Impossible, wingsuiting off highrises in Silicon Valley and infiltrating exclusive industry events for tech giants (Flight of the Conchords mastermind Jemaine Clement makes a ridiculous yet entertaining turn as one of said titans of industry).
Underpinned by the film’s frequent reminders that people (and robots) might be able to change for the better, it is clear that, for better and for worse, M3GAN’s redemption era has arrived. While the switch from sci-fi horror to sci-fi action takes with it some of the uncanny, off-kilterness that made M3GAN a success, M3GAN 2.0 is nonetheless unrelenting in its callbacks to its titular character’s deeply meme-able lore. In contrast to the wink-wink, nudge-nudge kitsch of M3GAN, MEGAN 2.0 is a self-indulgent buffet of self-reference, ticking off, seemingly line-by-line, new iterations of the moments that cemented the original film as a part of the broader pop cultural zeitgeist.
In M3GAN 2.0, Allison Williams, right, returns as the roboticist Gemma, and Violet McGraw as her orphaned niece Cady.Photo Credit: Universal Pictures/The Associated Press
It’s the equivalent of giving audiences what they expect, but compacted down into a force so dense it has no other option but to explode everywhere. Here, decent plotting takes a backseat to the spectacle of M3GAN: her cute new outfits; her trademark, animalistic running on all fours; her previously unnerving, yet enchanting dancing (here falling a bit flat by virtue of the lackluster appeal of a robot doing the robot); and blessedly, her compulsion to belt out overly sincere pop hits.
Meanwhile, the film is engaged in a throw-everything-at-the-wall approach to narrative and character, randomly twisting and turning its story world in half-baked ways that serve as a reminder that this sequel demands only for audiences to bask in the cult-ish LED glow of M3GAN.
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The satire of the original film feels largely emptied out of M3GAN 2.0, with the techno anxieties of M3GAN replaced by a strange and ill-fitting critical ambivalence. Lacking in any meaning outside of the sheer delight, if not frenzy, of referring back to itself, the sequel trades instead in a non-stop slew of gags and razor sharp zingers, half-written characters who exist most effectively as a means for said humor, and a handful of, admittedly, delightful references to classic genre touchstones (notably, Cady is a now a big fan of Steven Seagal and has learned the art of aikido – because, why not?).
For a movie that is literally about an upgraded robot, it’s unfortunate, then, that M3GAN isn’t given a full chance to evolve as a character beyond (and alongside) being effortlessly quotable. M3GAN 2.0 sees its cult hero lose a part of her identity in favour of a now signature humour gone wild – a strength of the film that is just as much a weakness.
By leaning into the success of its first generation model, M3GAN 2.0 will deliver easy laughs, but it’s also a less sharp, less refined genre vision that loses the edge and freshness of its predecessor in the process.
