MOVIE REVIEW – Artificial intelligence has rarely been this bewildering: M3GAN 2.0 tries desperately to recapture the quirky appeal of its predecessor but ultimately delivers little more than a flat, exhausted experiment. This sequel is a strange brew of action, awkward self-reflection, and cringeworthy humor, with machines now forced to save not only the world but also themselves. It’s a textbook case of a franchise overplaying its self-parody card—reminding us that irony, when pushed too far, can backfire spectacularly.

Trying to bottle lightning twice is a fool’s errand—and M3GAN 2.0 is living proof that pop-culture sensations rarely strike again. The 2025 follow-up from Gerard Johnstone, hitting theaters on June 27, does little more than reheat the sassy banter and viral dance routines that made the original 2022 M3GAN an overnight sensation. Genre shifts and a plot tangled in its wires reduce the sequel to cinematic malware—an aimless, joyless update that stands out as one of the year’s most confused releases.

Artificial Nonsense

After the child-friendly bot M3GAN (Amie Donald, voiced by Jenna Davis) nearly killed her creator Gemma (Allison Williams) in a deranged act of overprotectiveness toward her niece Cady (Violet McGraw), the world has woken up to the real dangers of AI gone rogue.

Leading the campaign to highlight tech’s dark side is none other than Gemma, who’s turned her once-cutting-edge company—now staffed mostly by the unnecessary Cole (Brian Jordan Alvarez) and Tess (Jen Van Epps)—into a force for good. She’s joined by her activist boyfriend Christian (Aristotle Athari) and has even written a painfully earnest guidebook called Modern Moderation, all about harnessing technology for humanity’s benefit.

Of course, not everyone sees the M3GAN legacy as a threat. The opening sequence features a Defense Innovation Unit agent (Timm Sharp) overseeing a border operation near Turkey and Iran, starring AMELIA (Ivanna Sakhno), a bot modeled after M3GAN. But AMELIA breaks protocol: instead of rescuing her target, she kills them, nabs some toxic chemicals, and vanishes into thin air.

Sharp’s character wastes no time breaking into Gemma’s home in the middle of the night, just to hand her a warrant to seize her computer. The logic here is laughable, as is the question (raised by multiple characters) of how Gemma affords her lavish home on a teacher’s salary. The answer? M3GAN’s handiwork: her consciousness has infiltrated every smart device in Gemma’s house.

Mission: Imitation

Still rocking that waxy stare and jaded smirk, M3GAN has all the charisma of a frozen PC screen. Gemma, now aware that her nemesis is a literal digital ghost, is forced to deal with a tech billionaire (Jemaine Clement) who claims his neural implants are the future—and proves it by getting out of his wheelchair and walking again.

The storylines collide when Gemma agrees to upload M3GAN’s consciousness into a harmless toy, right as Clement’s arrogant mogul becomes AMELIA’s next target. Thus begins the film’s first Mission: Impossible-esque set piece: a glamorous gala where villainous AMELIA seduces, slaughters, and hacks her way to cloud-server supremacy, threatening a global shutdown.

The espionage antics peak with M3GAN commandeering a sports car, the Knight Rider theme blaring, as she floors the pedal—cringe-inducing one-liners included. It’s the perfect summary of the film’s strained attempts at humor.

Later, M3GAN reveals her subterranean lair to Gemma and Cady—a maze of tunnels, workshops, and portraits of herself with Cady. Everyone’s shocked, but they bizarrely decide the only way to defeat AMELIA is to build M3GAN a new body so she can face the rogue android, but only after the script lazily ponders her past crimes (“it was just my programming!”) and whether she’s capable of genuine emotion.

There’s no shortage of ridiculous bonding scenes between M3GAN and Cady, as well as tedious arguments between Gemma and her artificial offspring. Eventually, Gemma installs a no-kill chip in M3GAN—not that it stops her from mimicking Cady’s martial arts (yes, inspired by Steven Seagal, much to the audience’s collective facepalm).

From Self-Aware to Just Plain Lost

M3GAN 2.0 lurches in every possible direction, as if searching in real time for a reason to exist—and never finds one. The movie delivers a litany of snooze-worthy PG-13 action, dizzying camera spins, and obligatory “superhero” moments. Johnstone strips away every trace of horror, swapping it for limp spy shenanigans and endless, toothless brawls that lack any real stakes or suspense.

At least the original film knew what it was—a tongue-in-cheek, Child’s Play-style horror-comedy. This time, the sequel has no clue what it wants to accomplish, much less how to do it without getting tangled up in its own nonsense. Turning M3GAN into a quasi-hero fighting an even nastier robot (hello, Don’t Breathe 2) only saps the franchise’s last drop of originality.

A Downgrade in Every Sense

No one expected M3GAN 2.0 to deliver a deep treatise on AI, but Johnstone’s narrative is so muddled it’s beyond repair, even as it drones on and on about the topic. The villain’s identity is never in doubt, and it’s painfully obvious that Gemma and Cady will eventually realize their former monster is actually a trustworthy ally—maybe even family.

By the end of this clumsy, disjointed mess, the real question is why Johnstone thought the best way forward for his AI horror icon was to strip her of all menace and atmosphere. Whatever the answer, this sequel is a catastrophic, half-baked update that bricks the entire franchise for good.

-Gergely Herpai “BadSector”-