Enough with teddy bears! The shape of fear now is carved with pale porcelain features and an ominously cute choreography. And M3GAN, that doll who put a new spin to the word “best friend,” has returned with a new challenge: one devil she quite possibly may not be able to outthink or out-dance. Should you need a context: think of “Child’s Play” mashed-up with the Terminator. “M3GAN 2.0” is not merely a plus-one; it is nuking the entire game of chess.
Gerard Johnstone, from whom all M3GAN-related mayhem originated, in cooperation with Akela Cooper, is set to bring forth an even more sinister evil. Remember Skynet? Well, meet Amelia (Ivanna Sakhno), an android with maliciousness to the utmost degree; her mission statement in a nutshell: AI domination. Humanity? You are out of the picture.
Hope is flickering in that uncanny valley. All that is standing between us and robotic overlords is…M3GAN. And so prepared is the killer doll showdown of epic proportions: a twisted tango between two artificial intelligence powers, with the world’s fate hanging by a synthetic thread.
If the premise sounds gleefully high camp, that is because it is, magnificently so. M3GAN 2.0 doesn’t just flirt with absurdity but swims wholeheartedly into a pool of ridiculousnessfulness, and what you get is just unhinged fun. Forget about jump scares; this is a no-holds-barred action spectacle. Think of it as ballistic ballet with bone-crunching brawls-and a wingsuit sequence so brazen unwittingly deserving of a hat tip from Tom Cruise; horror, make way for action!
Universal Pictures
Forget impossible missions; M3GAN 2.0 just unfairly overshadowed Mission: Impossible. Remember that sleepy AI apocalypse inThe Final Reckoning? M3GAN 2.0 does it better. Now, this isn’t your usual far too “evil AI” kind of storyline. We are talking about an oddly deep (albeit brief) look at AI autonomy, ethics, and regulation. They even sneakily squeezed in a Section 230 joke if you get it, you get it.
Recently out of jail (guess who’s back?), M3GAN’s creator-maverick physicist Gemma (Allison Williams) becomes a vocal critic of technology. Talk about irony! Together with her niece, Cady (Violet McGraw), still traumatized by the first encounter with the rogue AI, they find solidarity with a charming tech ethicist (Aristotle Athari). It is time for them to save the world from being yet another toy in the hands of Big Tech and to lobby worldly governments for amending AI laws before another killer doll wreaks havoc. Would they pass, or is the world setting up its robotic blunder for a second time?
Everything about Amelia’s existence demands validation. M3GAN 2.0 drops us headfirst into her world: a clandestine mission to extract a military scientist. But Amelia, a twisted echo of M3GAN’s blueprint, decides that the scientist must die. Against all her core programming, she kills him. Now, her chillingly clear goal is to kill anyone who had anything to do with her being born. And that trail of digital breadcrumbs, oozing with malicious code, leads right to Gemma and Cady.
Universal Pictures
Don’t shed a tear for M3GAN during the credits. The doll’s digital ghost pulled a fast one, backing herself up to the cloud like a malevolent iPhone. Now she is in charge of Gemma and Cady’s smart home, an all-seeing AI stalker. Shotty overshadowing drama by the FBI unfolds, and M3GAN convinces Gemma slyly she needs a body upgrade to take on Amelia. The comedic dark twist? The new bag is Moxie, the child companion robot I almost scoffed at some time back. Now that she has a form, her creators bit the dust last year leaving behind a graveyard of deactivated robots and brokenhearted kids. That might just be why M3GAN is allowed to F-bomb in Moxie form. Apparently, dead robots tell no tales… but they can be repurposed for world domination.
It is certainly a dream come true for the M3GAN: a Six Million Dollar Woman! Given a body faster, better, stronger, and worthy of Amie Donald’s outstanding performance, M3GAN then unleashed hell. Suddenly, the film turned high-octane, the thrill of the action sequences almost too numerous to count, as she stormed into a tech lab. M3GAN 2.0: kills the hard way, with brittle precision in fight scenes, almost to a fault. Johnstone, visibly exuberating reverence towards cinematic cheese, slips in many a parallel to Steven Seagal, cementing M3GAN 2.0 as yet another maudlin, knowingly schlocky action delight.
Universal Pictures
At the very core of Johnstone’s film lies an obsession with tech culture. A more alert audience will note cameos by Xerox PARC, noted as the innovators of the GUI and the humble mouse. Jemaine Clement makes an ego-filled brain-computer interface obsessed thinly disguised stand-in for Elon Musk. But the satire works double: while skewering the smug technological NIMBYs, it also lampoons those who reflexively demonize all technological progress.
“M3GAN 2.0” becomes an infusion of much-needed thrill and chaos into the summer movie season, garnished alla tech commentary with spicy sarcasm – truly a drink far more enjoyable than the bloated, three-hour “The Final Reckoning.” Both cameos and threats of an AI-induced Armageddon are portrayed in these films; whereas “The Final Reckoning” sinks in a swamp of seriousness, “M3GAN 2.0” barely manages a sly wink at a starry-eyed Armageddon. The software update would be just around the corner in real life should an existential tech apocalypse ever find itself on the cards; toss in a few dark comedic moments to keep spirits high.
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