'M3GAN 2.0' Review: The Killer Doll Gets an Upgrade (and Less Screen time)

M3GAN is still a beloved horror figure, but this sequel doesn't let her flourish

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The 2022 horror feature M3GAN delighted audiences with its mix of fun frights and utterly bonkers storytelling that, coupled with a dance sequence that instantly went viral, turned a little story of a killer doll into a phenom. So it was unsurprising that Universal felt they had a potential franchise on their hands and immediately greenlit a sequel. But did lightning strike twice? Where the first M3GAN drew inspiration from Child’s Play (and potentially Disney’s Life Size), M3GAN 2.0 decides to go for straight up ‘80s action movie, and all that that implies. While it aims to hearken back to the likes of Terminator 2 it comes off like a haphazard logjam of various robot movies with little that makes it feel, decidedly, M3GAN.

Taking place after the events of the first feature, Funki toy creator Gemma (Allison Williams) has taken the L and become a crusader for eliminating tech from children’s lives. Cady (Violet McGraw) is a budding aikido addict with a love for Steven Seagal. When the government comes to Gemma to reveal the existence of another AI robot named Amelia (Ivanna Sakhno), Gemma realizes there’s only one person (?) that can stop her: M3GAN. After resurrecting the doll, M3GAN and Gemma are forced to work together, and trust each other, in order to save the world from destruction.

You might presume to have gone back in time once M3GAN 2.0 starts. Whether that’s an opening that sees a group of foreign men execute a woman or Cady’s blind love for Seagal in 2025, director (and screenwriter) Gerard Johnstone really enjoys his ‘80s actioners. Because of this there’s a lot of exposition. Like too much. We get exposition from the U.S. government about the opening attack wherein Amelia kills an asset she was meant to rescue. More exposition comes from detailing what Gemma and Cady have been up to since the first film. Spoiler, Gemma didn’t really get in that much trouble for crafting a doll that killed numerous people and no doubt destroyed a company. She still has a shitload of money and is able to afford a massive house in the Mission district in San Francisco. And then there’s additional exposition to explain M3GAN’s return. It’s a lot of information that bloats the runtime to nearly two hours.

Though this feels less like a Schwarzenegger or Stallone movie and more something Chuck Norris might have made. Johnstone takes the reins as sole screenwriter this go-round and the loss of Akela Cooper is acutely felt in that M3GAN 2.0 forsakes the weirdness in favor of straightforward action. (This is less of a horror movie than the first film.) Stray lines certainly bring the laughs because of how bizarre they are—”You wouldn’t give your child cocaine. Why would you give them a smart phone” is a personal favorite—but the various things you loved about M3GAN the first go-round are absent. There’s no fun, quirky dance and there’s only one musical number, albeit hearing M3GAN croon Kate Bush’s “This Woman’s Work” is one for the ages.

If you saw the last two Mission: Impossible movies there’s a similar theme at play with the reliance on AI. M3GAN and the gang are all trying to get access to a motherboard seeking sentience. The movie turns into a heist film as the various entities split up and try to gain the pieces they need. But there are so many interesting threads that go unexplored: from M3GAN discovering she doesn’t need to rely on humans, to questions of trusting between AI and humanity. Gemma and M3GAN continue to dive into navigating their trust issues, and while that’s intriguing—how can the pair trust each other when they’ve tried to kill each other—it’s quickly solved.

There’s a theme connecting all of M3GAN 2.0’s flaws and that’s an absence of M3GAN herself. Jenna Davis’s vocal work continues to be a highlight, bringing in the childlike innocence of M3GAN’s voice with a cool confidence that makes her intimidating despite her small stature. What worked so well about the first one was the physical presence M3GAN brought in, aided by a live actor. Here, M3GAN’s face looks far more CGI rendered and there are limited scenes where M3GAN is physically on-screen, more often relegated to a disembodied voice in someone’s head or a hologram. The middle portion, wherein M3GAN needs to find a new upgraded body is great because Williams and the supporting cast have someone to work off of.

The absence of M3GAN could be because the story is more content with poking fun at the various new things that are being technologically celebrated rather than telling a story about the character. Sakhno’s character, Amelia, is so close a cousin to Kristanna Loken’s T-X from Terminator 3 as to be a little sister. The performance is fine, albeit Sakhno’s is just meant to look seductive and robotic. A detour introduction to a disabled tech genius, played by Jemaine Clement, is clearly inspired by Elon Musk and Sam Altman. It certainly would have been interesting to use the disability in tech story for something interesting—there’s far more exploiting of disabled people with it—but instead uses it to craft a shlocky villain. Outside of the disability angle being utilized to just show how tech makes a douchey tech bro walk, Clement gives the same haughty asshole performance he tends to give.

M3GAN 2.0 works when M3GAN is front and center but, as it stands now, there’s just not enough of her. Jenna Davis and Allison Williams continue to work well off each other, but their central conflict is smothered by a haphazard ‘80s techno plot that’s too muddled to be interesting. At least we can all still do the M3GAN dance.

Grade: D+

M3GAN 2.0 hits theaters Friday.

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