M3gan 2.0 review – a sil­ly sequel shoot­ing for action grandeur

If a sequel to the 2022 sleep­er hit M3GAN were to start any­where, ​“Some­where on the Turkish/​Iranian bor­der” is prob­a­bly at the bot­tom of the list of most audi­ence expec­ta­tions. M3GAN 2.0​’s open­ing sting is wil­ful­ly sil­ly in how it intro­duces its very rea­son for being: there’s anoth­er killer robot on the loose called AMELIA, and it’s the US Military’s fault, in their pur­suit of a dead­lier kind of drone warfare. 

After this over­seas excur­sion, return­ing direc­tor (and scriptwriter) Ger­ard Johnstone’s sequel picks up some years after the first. Gem­ma (Ali­son Williams) has been to jail for her part in cre­at­ing a nan­ny robot which com­mit­ted quadru­ple homi­cide, and fol­low­ing her release has began cam­paign­ing against AI.

In keep­ing with the first film, she’s got a nice idea but over­steers – warn­ing against children’s over­ex­po­sure to pow­er­ful tech­nol­o­gy in dra­mat­ic lan­guage which doesn’t quite help her case (“You wouldn’t give your child cocaine. Why would you give them a smart­phone?”). John­ston is lean­ing hard into the silli­ness of the premise, expand­ing that to the behav­iour of its prin­ci­ple cast. 

Cady (Vio­let McGraw) has tak­en self-defence class­es to pro­tect her­self, but also idolis­es Steven Segal. Gem­ma faces antag­o­nism by a tech mogul played by Jemaine Clement and all the straight-faced buf­foon­ery that implies. This is before M3GAN is thrown into the mix again, brought back to pro­tect Gemma’s fam­i­ly and friends from AMELIA.

In the cat and mouse game between the two robots, M3GAN 2.0 embraces sci-fi action this time, build­ing up around a lot of fist­fights with elab­o­rate chore­og­ra­phy, some of which take advan­tage of the robots’ unnat­ur­al move­ment. In its best moments its more height­ened tone trans­lates to the film­mak­ing — like in a series of snap zooms to M3GAN’s fists as she oblit­er­ates the spokes on a wood­en kung fu train­ing dummy.

The bet­ter moments are in the fric­tion between M3GAN and her human com­pan­ions; the eccen­tric­i­ties of her being pro­grammed for chil­dren clash­ing with sim­mer­ing anger from the first film. It​’s bet­ter (and fun­nier) in build­ing on the adver­sar­i­al rela­tion­ships made in the first film; the best call­back sees her phys­i­cal­ly forc­ing Gem­ma to sit and lis­ten to her belt­ing out an insuf­fer­able radio song after a pep talk. 

It​’s bet­ter still when the com­e­dy cross­es with sin­cere ques­tions about M3GAN​’s per­son­hood, and that she phy­i­cal­ly feels this believ­able is a cred­it to the film​’s ani­ma­tron­ics team. It’s less charm­ing, how­ev­er, when M3GAN speaks like Ben­der from Futu­ra­ma (​“Alright, meat sacks”), or worse, a Dead­pool-esque fig­ure who yells things like, ​“Hold on to your vagi­nas!” before reck­less­ly dri­ving a supercar.

When John­stone​’s not aggres­sive­ly expand­ing M3GAN lore, there​’s some align­ment between M3GAN​’s (mis­guid­ed and amus­ing­ly mor­bid) attempts at win­ning over her human com­pan­ions, and M3GAN 2.0​’s own charm offen­sive. In all of its quips and sur­pris­ing­ly ener­getic action, it​’s riff­ing on Mis­sion Impos­si­ble and Ter­mi­na­tor 2 plot­ting and it​’s active­ly try­ing to be a crowd pleas­er. But the film­mak­er some­times overex­tends: some of the fights do become a lit­tle numb­ing after a while. 

Sim­i­lar­ly, for a sequel where the main char­ac­ter is hound­ed by the mis­takes of the their past, M3GAN 2.0 runs back a few of the same stick­ing points — name­ly some labo­ri­ous pac­ing which, here, is exac­er­bat­ed by the sheer amount of sto­ry there is. It​’s hard not to wish for a lit­tle more econ­o­my, espe­cial­ly when there are so many moments where the appeal of a sil­li­er fol­low-up feel clear­er. Despite occa­sion­al­ly indulging its worse instincts, there’s still a sur­pris­ing amount of fun to be had with M3GAN 2.0 – a big­ger and fun­nier sequel which could stand to pull back on both of those elements.