M3gan 2.0 Is Everything You Want — And More

Bigger, louder, dumber, ridiculouser (sic).

M3GAN 2.0 (Gerard Johnstone, 2025) delivers everything you love — or love to hate — about a sequel. The first film was sci-fi/horror grounded in a human story: a young girl loses her parents in a car accident and bonds with her aunt’s very human robot invention, which eventually turns into an overprotective killer. M3GAN 2.0 drops the emotional pretence and dives headfirst into deranged action-comedy mayhem, serving up a convoluted, plot-heavy tale about a new military-grade robot on the loose… and it’s a lot of fun.

A far cry from the slow burn of the original, the opening scene of M3GAN 2.0 drops you right in the middle of a Michael Bay-ass movie. We’re near the Turkey-Iran border, where the stolen M3GAN technology has been appropriated by a defence contractor. Their iteration is AMELIA — short for Autonomous Military Engagement Logistics and Infiltration Android — a larger, more heavily weaponised adult-sized model. Unsurprisingly, AMELIA overrides her programming, eliminates the wrong target and sets off a chain of events that’ll eventually force the old M3GAN to be reprogrammed to confront this next-gen threat — a rogue military machine with zero interest in protocol.

Meanwhile, things have evolved for Gemma (Allison Williams) and Cady (Violet McGraw) since narrowly surviving the events of the first film. Gemma remains immersed in robotics, now focussing on a wearable exoskeleton suit designed to enhance industrial labour — essentially a last-ditch effort to keep people relevant as automation accelerates. She’s also carved out a new public role on the AI ethics lecture circuit, leveraging her notoriety to plead for more governmental oversight of artificial intelligence.

She’s still living with Cady, who’s grown older but not necessarily wiser — she’s as screen-addicted as ever, much to Gemma’s dismay. Cady has also discovered aikido and apparently developed a sudden fascination with Steven Seagal, complete with an Above the Law (Andrew Davis, 1988) poster hanging proudly in her locker. (No comment).

Without spoiling too much: if the first film was a surprise, M3GAN 2.0 is a calculated response. It knows exactly what fans expect and obliges at every turn. Callbacks are plentiful. Yes, there’s singing (the track choice will leave the gays and dolls screaming). And yes, there’s dancing — culminating in a robot dance-off at an AI convention that escalates into a bloodbath. Naturally, there’s plenty of exposition holding the madness together. The script brings back Gemma’s old team and introduces several new characters, including a billionaire tech villain with his own sinister spin on AI development. The action moves fluidly… until it doesn’t. Major plot developments require a lot of speechifying and explanation, at times slowing the film’s general momentum.

Director Gerard Johnstone peppers the film with nods to genre ancestors. Eve of Destruction (Duncan Gibbins, 1991) and Species (Roger Donaldson, 1995) loom large in the DNA here, both exploring the uneasy terrain where femininity intersects with violence, technology and fear. AMELIA’s design and demeanour lean hard into the femme fatale archetype — strategic, seductive and lethally efficient. There’s a clear lineage, too, with the criminally underrated Child’s Play (Lars Klevberg, 2019), where AI horror supplants supernatural evil in a way that’s arguably more unnerving. Compared to the sheer lunacy of M3GAN 2.0, that Chucky reboot feels practically plausible.

And then there’s Ghost in the Machine (Rachel Talalay, 1993), the delightfully idiotic thriller where a serial killer digitises himself via MRI and goes on to murder people through their home appliances. M3GAN 2.0 channels that same ridiculous energy — only this time, it’s Bluetooth-enabled femmebots in a digital showdown.

Credit where it’s due: the film foregrounds the ethical implications and existential risks of artificial intelligence — not as window dressing, but as a central narrative concern. These questions are woven directly into the plot’s architecture. That said, it’s unlikely that most viewers are here for a meditation on AI ethics. M3GAN 2.0 rides a fine line between dumb-as-rocks popcorn entertainment and philosophical treatise; mostly it’s a spectacle-driven genre sequel, and when it comes to bonkers set pieces and killer robot chaos, it delivers.

Despite the maximalist plot and self-conscious eagerness to please,  there’s a missed opportunity in its restraint. While there are fights, stabbings, and plenty of stylised violence, the tone remains firmly within PG-13 territory — sanitised, almost gamified. For a story about autonomous machines potentially upending the human order, the film might have benefited from a darker, meaner, more visceral edge. There’s fun to be had, certainly, but one can’t help but wonder what M3GAN 2.0 might’ve looked like if it had gone fully rogue.