Though there have been many better horror movies in the past decade (many, many more), few can be said to have captured the zeitgeist quite like M3GAN. A cheap, enjoyably trashy killer-doll movie released by genre factory Blumhouse in the middle of the dreaded January Horror Dump, M3GAN, with its prim, uncanny antiheroine and lurid-for-PG-13 kills, struck a nerve, the rare film to become both a semi-ironic meme favorite and an honest-to-god box office hit. Its sequel, inevitably (if cumbersomely) titled M3GAN 2.0, has received an upgrade itself, its release shifted from the chilly winter netherworld to a prime Summer Blockbuster slot. Unfortunately, while there’s still plenty of that trademark M3GAN lunacy to be had, M3GAN 2.0 is something of a victim of its own ambition. Like so many revivals of favorite toys of old, M3GAN isn’t quite as much fun the second time around.

2.0 picks up two years after the events of the first film, in which its titular AI-powered android was wiped and dismantled following a misguided killing spree. M3GAN’s inventor, tech wizard Gemma Forrester (Allison Williams) has, understandably, become an outspoken anti-AI advocate, while her orphaned niece Cady (Violet McGraw) continues to sulk in her room learning to code in private. The pair are drawn back into the fray when another killer robot, AMELIA (Ivanna Sakhno), goes rogue and draws the attention of the federal government— not least because she shows evidence of sharing some of M3GAN’s source code. Of course, M3GAN isn’t really gone herself; in her final moments she uploaded her personality to the cloud, where she’s been secretly continuing her mission to protect Cady at all costs (while also somehow fashioning herself a crude new body in an underground lair). As AMELIA’s endgame becomes clear, M3GAN— with a little tweak to her programming— begrudgingly joins forces with Gemma and her team to try to stop her.

M3GAN 2.0 suffers from what its tech-world protagonists might call “mission creep.” Part of what made the first film such an irresistible guilty pleasure was the sheer, stupid simplicity of its premise, and the agreeable nastiness with which it followed through on it (there aren’t many films which can get an audience to cheer for a 12-year-old boy getting struck and killed by a car, and fewer still which could do so within the bounds of a PG-13 rating). Unfortunately, the sequel seems to take its new summer blockbuster status literally. M3GAN was never particularly “scary,” but 2.0 barely even pretends to be a horror picture, instead dropping its title character into what can only be described as a Marvel-style superhero epic, complete with quips, fight scenes, and a press-the-button-to-save-the-world climax. M3GAN’s Terminator 2-style reverse heel turn provides some fun opportunities for her to trade barbs with her inventor and one-time frenemy (and Williams makes a very good buddy-cop straightman), but it loses track of what made the original such an unexpected viral success.

Worse is the sequel’s alarmingly muddled messaging on the dangers of artificial intelligence. When the first film was released in early 2023, generative AI was still novel enough that its timing felt serendipitous. In the years since, we have seen real-world dangers of the technology which put M3GAN to shame, horror stories of ChatGPT driving users to madness and helpfully suggesting they top their pizzas with glue (to say nothing of the continuing environmental and economic devastation wrought by AI and its processing centers). This would seem to position M3GAN 2.0 as a horror movie for its moment, but it instead takes a frustrating both-sides approach, softening M3GAN’s edges just as we’re coming to realize how brutal she could actually be. Gemma raises some valid points, but her anti-AI crusade is portrayed as something of a punchline; she eventually comes around to deliver a speech to congress about how, rather than deny AI, we simply need to be “better parents” to it. This is all perhaps unsurprising in light of Blumhouse’s announced partnership with Meta, but it’s still dispiriting that even a killer AI movie can’t decide whether it’s pro- or anti-AI.

But maybe I’m overthinking it. No one is going to M3GAN 2.0 for the incisive commentary or to get scared out of their wits; they’re going to see the cunty doll. Even here, the sequel doesn’t quite measure up the bonkers highs of its predecessor (notably, original screenwriter Akela Cooper only gets a story credit this time around), but it does get some good mileage out of M3GAN’s unnerving attempts to do good. “I just want you to know that I see you,” she intones, unblinking, her cold hand pressing a lab assistant’s arm. Later, in the film’s best scene, she attempts to calm Gemma by singing her “This Woman’s Work” by Kate Bush in its entirety, complete with swelling background music (“M3GAN, please don’t take it to the chorus,” her inventor pleads to no avail). M3GAN 2.0 is a very silly and stupid movie, but at least it knows it’s a silly and stupid movie, which is more than you can say for much of the Hollywood product shoveled into multiplexes this time of year.

Unless this one bombs outright, it seems safe to say we haven’t seen the last of M3GAN; if there are two things in this world it’s nearly impossible to get rid of, it’s iconic horror characters and unwanted AI. To that end, why not continue the series’ transformation with a different genre and release window each outing? M3GAN 3.0 could be an Oscar-bait tearjerker at the height of awards season, while an animated M3G4N might be dropped for the kids on February vacation. It might sound like I’m being facetious— and okay, yes, of course I am— but it speaks to the series’ loopy charms that I can halfway imagine this happening. M3GAN 2.0 is not a “good movie” by any stretch, or even as enjoyably good-bad as model 1.0, but as empty summer calories go you could surely do worse. At least M3GAN acknowledges she rolled in off an assembly line.

M3GAN 2.0
2025
dir. Gerard Johnstone
119 min.

Now playing @ Somerville Theatre, Kendall Square Cinema, Apple Cinemas Cambridge, Alamo Drafthouse Boston Common, and all local AMCs