{"id":48427,"date":"2025-06-27T19:39:24","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T23:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=48427"},"modified":"2025-06-27T19:39:24","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T23:39:24","slug":"m3gan-2-0-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/27\/m3gan-2-0-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"M3GAN 2.0 [2025]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Murderous toy robot M3gan is revived to help stop another rampant AI in the campy and entertaining, but glitchy, sci-fi sequel M3GAN 2.0.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

M3gan was a surprise hit for Blumhouse in January of 2022. The sci-fi horror comedy was a fun, self-aware update to Child\u2019s Play, using modern AI \u201cSmart\u201d tech to tell the story of a newly orphaned girl and the toy her programmer aunt (The maligned by many but I like it 2019 Child\u2019s Play also used Smart tech; but M3gan did it beter). Audiences ate it up. I liked it plenty, though perhaps not as much as others. It was obviously cut from R to PG-13, with a little too much \u201caint\u2019 we cute\u201d feeling. Two years after her debut, M3gan returns in the more overly comic sci-fi (horror is minimal), M3gan 2.0. Leaning into camp, M3gan 2.0 is very entertaining and fully committed to its bit; a crowd pleaser with some notable cracks.<\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s the best way to approach a sequel to something like M3gan? Do it again, with some shifts like the Child\u2019s Play films, resurrecting M3gan? Have the pair of Aunt Gemma and niece Cady fight a new AI? The government misusing the growing technology and missing all the points of how to works? Have a nice, quiet analog story of chess championships? How about all of the above? Yes! Well, minus the chess championships, M3gan 2.0 runs rampant with the ridiculous.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The main drive finds Gemma, with returning Cole and Tess as sidekicks, reluctantly reactivating M3gan to track down Amelia, a rogue military application using M3gan\u2019s programming. So, more Terminator 2 than Child\u2019s Play 2. Within this framework is Gemma\u2019s new boyfriend, helping her run a crusade against AI (Aristotle Athari gives a strangely entrancing Christoph Walken-esque performance); Jermaine Clement eating it up as amoral tech giant ELtON APPLEton (cough cough); Cady dealing with bullies, M3gan working through programming and growing, an inept FBI team stuck between them all, and countless more subplots.\u00a0 So many plot points. As it plays, you might think \u201cit might be going this way, or maybe that. I wonder if -this- will happen, or such a story turn I see will be true.\u201d\u00a0 The answer to any question is \u201cyes.\u201d\u00a0 Every single idea anyone in the writing room (returning director Gerald Johnstone is also the credited writer, sharing story by credits with the first film\u2019s Akela Cooper) might have is on the screen, along with every joke that could be attached, leading to a few too many plot shifts and\/or twists.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s essentially all just excuses for mechanical mayhem over various locations, filled with quips from the sassy and sardonic M3gan. Each segment is fun and clever, using the uniqueness of each location well to inspire \u201coohs\u201d \u201coomphs\u201d and laughs. A particular high point is a Home Alone-inspired Smarthouse take-down of raiders. M3gan 2.0 is fully committed to the bit, leaning into the largess of the situations and bringing a campy comedic self-awareness. This elbowing of the audience allows the film, and all the parts, to revel in ridiculous, running anywhere with the concept. However, it often is trying too hard in the winking, cynically forcing moments and jokes, nearly stopping the film with more \u201caint we clever, isn\u2019t it funny for a doll to do this????\u201d bits.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The big sense of fun is more than enough to keep the entertainment going. M3gan 2.0 is incredibly crowd-pleasing, with the big moments landing. There are some nice nods to all the films it steals\u2026er, lovingly homages: Hardware, Terminator, Short Circuit, Upgrade, Tron, and even Metropolis. Don\u2019t expect any depth.. M3gan 1.0 did try to speak to parenting, the dangers of AI, human and robotic connections, and working through trauma. M3gan 2.0 gives lip service to ideas, but it\u2019s buried in the code under those zillion plot points, not allowing anything to sit as it bounces from moment to moment (allowing the 2-hour run time to mostly fly by, though there are moments where the length is felt); especially with an onslaught of technobabble that would make Star Trek and Doctor Who blush.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Character-wise, everyone is about the same as last time, but more so static to hang the antics on. Allison William\u2019s Gemma continues to be a laughably bad parent and oblivious to her poor decision-making skills. Sidekicks Tess and Cole, played by Jen Van Epps and Brian Jordan Alvarez, respectively, are given more to do, especially Cole as comic relief; a character could be overly annoying but earns laughs. Poor Violet McGraw spends most of the film as a background player; ostensibly the lead of the first film, but merely a pawn with only a little more to do here than she did in brief moments in The Life of Chuck a few weeks ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

The real stars of the show are the various performers for M3gan and Amelia. Jenna Davis\u2019s voice gives amazing knowing sass, with uncanny movements by Amie Donald\u2019s build the new icon. Amelia is primarily Ivanna Sakhno, previously portraying Shin in Ashoka, and continuing to bring an odd soul to the robot adversary. The pair (and the other robotics) are remarkable with the mixtures of methods that bring them to life (to bring PG-13 death). Like Child\u2019s Play, the M3gan movies have used a collection of animatronics, human actors in costumes, dancers, and voice artists. It\u2019s impressive, deftly giving just enough life to the robots as characters, never feeling artificial in a meta-context. There\u2019s a focus on using practical over CG, and that always goes a long way for me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

M3gan 2.0 is a big mess of too many plot ideas and not enough idea or character to make it all work cohesively, functioning more of a series of fun scenes. Those fun scenes are a blast with blood and sass. Gather a group and laugh hard at a good time, just expect a step down from M3gan.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Murderous toy robot M3gan is revived to help stop another rampant AI in the campy and entertaining, but glitchy, sci-fi sequel M3GAN 2.0.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[219,477,1458],"class_list":["post-48427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-comedy","tag-horror","tag-sci-fi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48427"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48430,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48427\/revisions\/48430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}