My Review of M3GAN 2.0 (2025)

 

Written by Gerard Johnstone And Akela Cooper

Directed by Gerald Johnstone 

Cady (re M3GAN): "Everyone deserves a second chance."

Two and a half years ago, homicidal android M3GAN (Amie Donald/Jenna Davis) became an overnight sensation. Surely, the sequel was going to propel her to even greater heights. As it would turn out, the opposite would be true.

Going down a route not dissimilar to Terminator, this sequel also had a lot to say about the rise in AI but none of it particularly original so to speak. Oh and there's another killer android, this one named AMELIA (Ivanna Sakhno). She's also one of the drawbacks of this sequel.

Let's just say the government had access to M3GAN's schematics and thought they could replicate the idea and keep it under control. That illusion quickly got shattered when AMELIA went off script pretty fast and soon, a lot of people had a target on their backs.

One of them was assumed to be Gemma (Allison Williams), the creator of M3GAN. Since the first movie, she's faced consequences for her creation's killing spree, become something of an advocate/celebrity while also still struggling to connect with her niece, Cady (Violet McGraw). Cady's also taken up self defence and has become increasingly intolerant of Gemma's evasiveness concerning important issues.

AMELIA's arrival however did force Gemma into reluctantly teaming up with M3GAN in order to stop AMELIA and it's a diverting enough journey. Between Gemma and Cady learning to lean on each to Gemma's co-workers, Cole (Brian Jordan Alvarez) and Tess (Jen Van Eps) getting suckered into the thick of things, who would've thought the villain would be more on the anti AI side of things? You heard correctly.

With M3GAN being a chaotic source for good this time with a fairly decent character arc and AMELIA being more of a useful idiot, it's really anti AI cyber security guy, Christian Bradley (Aristotle Athari) to assume the big bad role. Sadly he's a very flat and unengaging to watch as a character that even his comeuppance wasn't that satisfying to watch.

- There's a decent supporting role from Jemaine Clement as tech billionaire, Alton Appleton. M3GAN got temporarily placed in the body of small robot, Moxie (Fryda Wolff).

- The end credits did say "This work may not be trained to use AI".

- Standout music: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard's Mars for The Rich.

- Chronology: Two years have passed since the events of the first movie.

M3GAN 2.0 on paper seemed like it had the right idea to land a successful sequel and the ideas are good on paper. The execution's largely flat as are the villains of the piece. M3GAN kind of worked as an anti hero and this movie did set up another sequel that's not likely to materialise anytime soon.

Rating: 6 out of 10 

My Review of M3gan (2023)

 

Written by Akela Cooper And James Wan

Directed by Gerard Johnstone

M3gan (to Cady): "I know, it's insane, right?"

Well, it's January and already the horror for 2023 got off to a rather campy start with this impossible to ignore film. Seriously, you'd almost have an easier time ignoring a certain James Cameron sequel than this overnight sensation. One movie in and it looks like our titular character might be here to stay. So what is this one all about?

This movie started off with a young girl named Cady (Violet McGraw) losing her parents in a tragic road accident and being sent to live with her aunt Gemma (Allison Williams). Gemma's not really a maternal type and was more fixated on creating a new toy instead of adding improvements to the one that her boss, David (Ronny Chieng) insisted on. Think knock off Furbies as the thing that David would've preferred Gemma had put her energy into.

The toy instead that Gemma was more interested in getting off the ground was Model 3 Generative Android or M3gan (Amie Donald/Jenna Davis) for short. Also while the initial tests with her co-workers Tess (Jen Van Eps) and Cole (Brian Jordan Alvarez) weren't exactly promising, it was Cady's influence that ultimately brought M3gan to life and along with that, a lot of problems to boot.

Of course things with M3gan start off well for both Gemma and Cady. For the latter, to meant avoiding emotional responsibility for her niece to begin with as well as a potential career boost but for Cady, her connection to M3gan was a means of avoiding her own grief for her parents loss and having a true friend. However because this wasn't a particular long film, it also didn't take both Gemma and Cady too long to realise that there were certain drawbacks with depending on M3gan.

The notable one being that like any other inanimate object that comes to life and especially in this genre, M3gan had something of a homicidal streak to her. Not soon after bonding with Cady, M3gan took her programming that one step further and began to kill for Cady too. This meant a class bully, nosy neighbour and the latter's dog all became victims of M3gan. I really do hate when horror movies kill animals by the way.

As for Cady and Gemma, their complicated living relationship got really examined through the machinations of M3gan and both of them realised just how much of a danger that the latter well and truly posed to them. Of course it did a lot of crazy stuff to happen around them before they both got on the same page about M3gan.

Fortunately between the two of them finally connecting with one another and the use of another family member, Bruce, M3gan's reign of terror came to something of a temporary pause. This movie belonging to the genre that it belonged to though. Well, let's just say this wont be the last we see of M3gan. It's gonna take a lot more than Gemma and Cady to keep her down.

- There are only five kills by M3gan in this movie. The remaining two included David and his put down assistant Kurt (Stephane Garneu-Monte).

- Originally this film was meant to be R-Rated but they realise it could work as a PG-13 horror and it does.

- Standout music: M3gan singing the David Guetta/Sia hit Titanium of course. Toy Soldiers also got used rather well here too.

- Chronology: It's set in the first half of 2022 in Washington. A sequel titled M3gan 2.0 will be released from January 17th 2025.

M3gan has somewhat set a very strong bar for this year's horror entries. It took a well known trope, added a technological flavour to it as well as exploring a fractured family dynamic and the obvious dangers of allowing technology to parent children. Oh and some rather inventive and the type of dancing that's been meme'd to death. Overall, a very enjoyable movie

Rating: 8 out of 10