Instead of amplifying everything that made its first instalment a fun, campy surprise, M3gan 2.0 plods along, trying to do something new and risking audience alienation at every turn. Less of a horror movie than the first film was and more like a plot heavy spy movie take on the Terminator franchise, M3gan 2.0 loses a lot of its entertainment value by refusing to give the audience what it wants from a movie about a killer childlike robot. Such a swing from returning writer-director Gerard Johnstone could’ve worked if M3gan 2.0 were a good movie in every other respect and still delivered something worthwhile, but outside of a couple of fleeting moments of humour that land, this follow-up is a lifeless, leaden paced bore.
Two years after the events of the first film, a government intelligence agency has created an unstoppable, un-killable android weapon dubbed AMELIA (Ivanna Sakhno), based on the technology used to create the now dismantled killer companion doll M3gan (played by Amie Donald and voiced by Jenna Davis). AMELIA goes rogue, stops following orders, and sets off on a mission to control all of the world’s technology. (Kinda? I guess? The film is so convoluted and vague at the same time that the motivation for AMELIA’s actions keep changing.) The government, who stole the designs for their creation in the first place, believes that M3gan’s creator, roboticist turned anti-AI crusader Gemma (Allison Williams), had something to do with this. With both the government and AMELIA putting herself and niece, Cady (Violet McGraw), in harms way, Gemma reluctantly realizes that the only way to stop this new killer is to revive an old one.
Going into M3gan 2.0, my greatest fear was that Johnstone would take the path of least resistance, offering up two hours worth of memes that rehashed high points from the first movie. While there are callbacks, another (much less memorable) dance number, and a bit where M3gan awkwardly sings a famous pop song, Johnstone proves to be averse to such cheap pops from the audience. That would be commendable if anything about M3gan 2.0 was fun in the slightest, because I figured out very quickly that one of the things worse than two straight hours of cheap memes is a two hour movie where nothing happens.
The first hour of M3gan 2.0 is shockingly awful, and if not for some brief flashes of wit in the second half, this would be rated much, much lower. An hour of the film is taken up with an explanation of Johnstone’s overstuffed plot, most of which is stupid and all of it taken way too seriously for its own good. When jokes are attempted in this first section of M3gan 2.0, they fall horrifically flat, not even generating so much as a titter. The plot point that states someone else has to be controlling AMELIA tries to inject a secret villain reveal later down the line, but the culprit might as well have giant neon arrows pointing to them and a sign that says “it’s obviously me” dangling around their neck, meaning nothing about this molasses slow start amounts to anything down the line.
To make matters trickier, the first half of M3gan 2.0 barely features its own title character. Johnstone’s latest has about as much of M3gan as Halloween Ends had of Michael Myers, which is to say, almost none, and what little there is doesn’t feature the character in its truest form. (Again, that’s a movie that’s better than this one in terms of sequels that try to break the mold.) Johnstone explains so much of his plot via tedious exposition and meaningless dialogue about the nature of family togetherness, the oeuvre of Steven Seagal, and the dangers of AI that he can’t figure out a credible way to bring M3gan back into the fold. So much requires explanation here that it’s annoying to learn Johnstone isn’t even trying to come up with something clever to trigger the robot’s eventual resurrection. While M3gan’s temporary bodies generate some chuckles from the purposefully awkward visuals, the void remains real and the character stays stuck on the sideline of their own film. It’s hard not to wonder if the character’s original co-creators, Akela Cooper and James Wan, would’ve come up with something better.
Most of the film revolves around Gemma acting annoying, shrill, and angry, with Williams’ dialogue coming across like shouting or stern speeches. Again, this would be fine if Williams had anything deeper to work with outside of appearing flustered all the time and the regurgitation of the same plot points and cautionary sentiments over and over again. In the first film, Gemma was a complex person. Here, until the film’s second half forces her to have a collegial relationship with her creation, Gemma is a life sucking drag to be around, and her more likeable niece and comedic relief co-workers (Brian Jordan Alvarez and Jen Van Epps) aren’t given as much to do. Sakhno and Aristotle Athari, as Gemma’s new love interest, are fine enough, and Timm Sharp’s over-the-top turn as a government stooge has some moments, but the whole cast is left adrift by material that insists upon unnecessary convolution. Johnstone even wastes the comedic talents of the usually reliable Jemaine Clement, who has a thankless role as a blowhard tech billionaire who’s unlocked the secrets to biohacking. It’s a character that seems like it’s going to be important, but really is there to only set up a single gimmick that carries through to the rest of the movie.
M3gan 2.0 is trying to be bigger than its predecessor, but it’s bloated in all the wrong places. Once Johnstone is finally willing to unleash M3gan on the film, the humour and camp value that was sorely missing early on starts to shine through, and some genuine laughs emerge. The minimal victories achieved by the film belong squarely to the timing shown by Donald, Davis, Alvarez, and Athari. Without their keen sense of how to deliver a joke or visual gag, there would be nothing worth watching here. Visually, the film is marred by sketchy, skittish editing (probably to achieve another PG-13 rating) and a dull, “we filmed this in a single warehouse” aesthetic (especially evident during the bunker set grand finale, which drags on for an absolute eternity). In terms of pacing, whenever M3gan 2.0 starts to find a rhythm, Johnstone takes his foot off the gas and stumbles back into everything that wasn’t working in the film’s first half, ludicrously thinking that turning M3gan 2.0 into a cut rate, charmless James Bond knock-off is a good idea.
This as unenjoyable of a sequel to a fun original as one can get. While watching M3gan 2.0, I thought about another Blumhouse produced sequel, Happy Death Day 2U. The original Happy Death Day was okay, but the second instalment cranked everything that was amusing about the first one up to eleven. I didn’t think much about the first one, but I vividly remember how much I enjoyed the second one for the chances it took with an already silly plot. I can’t say the same about M3gan 2.0, which has the exact opposite problem. It robs all of the first film’s enjoyable campiness in favour of something soulless and bland. The character still works, but Johnstone seems to resent her for stealing the spotlight.
M3gan 2.0 opens in theatres everywhere on Friday, June 27, 2025.
