Review – M3GAN 2.0 (Spoiler free)

In 2022 M3GAN dominated screens and for the most part, created a cult fanbase who seemingly could not get enough of the film’s titular android-robot-sentient-psychopath. The film situated around M3GAN (brilliantly voiced by Jenna Davis) and her chaotically violent, albeit humous advancements, which were in itself enjoyable to watch and fostered an irreverent feature that was enjoyable, camp and silly all at once. However, the positive reception to the deliberate ludicrousness of M3GAN does not necessarily allow its sequel M3GAN 2.0 to have the creative license to be as preposterous and overdone as it can be for the sake of it.

M3GAN 2.0 follows robotics specialist Gemma (Allison Williams) and her niece Cady (Violet McGraw) two years after Gemma’s AI creation M3GAN wreaked havoc upon society. Although Gemma is now an author keen on dismantling the regulatory gap on AI, she still has a hold of M3GAN’s coding, keeping her dangerous creation confined to a small android doll. However, M3GAN is unleashed once again when it becomes clear that the universe needs her sassy murderous ways to combat the evil military robot AMELIA (Ivanna Sakhno), who weaponises self-awareness and intelligence to instigate an AI takeover.

To continually compare M3GAN and 2.0 would be a disservice, but when a sequel rides the wave of its predecessor then dutiful correlations must be made. A common misconception is that satire is as simple as throwing absurdity and off-kilter unreal concepts around in a bid to stifle laughs. Good, effective and complex satire that truly gets under the skin and makes one feel uncomfortable, yet barely able to hold back the chuckles is those that know how to craft a farcical narrative. Personal preference most definitely comes into play here, but think of poor satire attempts such as ‘Epic Movie’ (2007) compared to a well-crafted satirical concept akin to ‘Triangle of Sadness’ (2022), or whilst it is certainly not everyone’s favourite ‘Borat’ (2006). M3GAN knew how to balance the plot points and comedy in a way that exploited irony, sarcasm and clever dialogue, whereas M3GAN 2.0 throws any funny quip, gag, pun, wisecrack and stunt at the viewer until any nuance is overridden by a pure surcharge of stimulation.

It is here where the film’s other downfalls lie. It was quite unfortunate to see M3GAN 2.0 blasted with many gimmicks, diluting any aspects that worked to outweigh the growing negatives of the film. Essentially, it appears as if the running motif was ‘quantity over quality’, in turn altering any funny moment to resemble an overwrought sitcom line.

Joining M3GAN and her antics onscreen is fellow android AMELIA, whose name is an abbreviation for ‘Autonomous, Military, Engagement, Logistics, Infiltration, Android’. With theming that stresses the larger threat of AI and futuristic technology, it can be assured that M3GAN 2.0 adds more than enough emphasis on robotic battles and the threat of the technology behind them. This soon forms an evident

lack of story development. To borrow from the major consensus that has formed, despite the film hitting screens extremely recently, M3GAN 2.0 heavily relies on the action subgenre (think ‘Terminator 2 [1991]). Action films as a topic are not the problem, instead, the overarching complaint is that M3GAN 2.0 would have thrived under a horror lens, akin to what M3GAN did. With the latest entry, it can be safely assumed that the world of M3GAN and the soon-to-be associated franchise has abandoned its roots and has detoured into full blockbuster, action comedy territory; forming a disservice to the potential that the future films had.

This is the major caveat that has seemingly irked many viewers, M3GAN 2.0 has stumbled into a pit of lazy narrative development. ‘Epic’ fight scenes between two menacing androids and quick one-liners that work with no context all seem to be fuel for viral marketing as the majority of the film demonstrates. It is seemingly tailored with social media and virality in mind. What could have been a dark and twisted, yet comedic take on M3GAN being resurrected to live another day attempting to kill anyone in her way has become a 2-hour scroll on a ‘for you page’, a mindless highlight reel.

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