The trailer for M3GAN 2.0 laid its cards on the table: this wasn’t going to be more of the same creepy killer doll carry on. Rather, it would pit its titular menace against an even creepier killer robot. Viewers were quick to point out similarities to Big Jim Cameron’s Terminator 2, a comparison no doubt intended by the filmmakers.
Co-producers Blumhouse Productions are not known for their big budgets, and the sequel is once again a somewhat modest b-picture. It’s much better for it, gleefully schlocky and self-aware without insulting its audience. It’s also not really a horror film, although certain scenes show director Gerard Johnstone can still crank up the unease when he needs to.
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Following M3GAN’s forcible decommissioning in the first film (stabbed through the head by her creator Gemma after murdering several people), it turns out she’s survived by living as an AI in Gemma’s smart home, one of several leaps of logic that are papered over by Johnstone’s deft ‘ah who cares, look over here!’ style of direction.
Soon enough, she’s leading the charge against AMELIA, a deadly android created from M3GAN’s original programming. Several scenes show AMELIA slicing her way through soldiers from various nations in distinctly PG-13 ways (though it must be said the movie pushes hard at the limits of what’s acceptable under the rating).
Caught up in the ensuing pursuit are Gemma, her niece Cady, and assistants Cole and Tess. There’s a billionaire played by Jemaine Clement, an army colonel played by Timm Sharp, and it’s all very, very silly.
In fact, rather than playing out like the type of action film it’s clearly inspired by, M3GAN 2.0 mostly lands closer to flat-out comedy. Very few moments play out without a gag. Any time M3GAN is speaking, she is cracking jokes, be they about other characters or her own homicidal inclinations, and it all lands rather well, an instructive model of the ‘just go with it and you’ll have fun’ mode of movie-making.
Much like Terminator 2, the filmmakers know what fans of the first enjoyed, and cranks them up to eleventy-stupid (copyright Mark Kermode). M3GAN dances for longer. She scampers on all fours. She sings (in a scene that manages to out-funny its predecessor). Much like Arnie’s T-1000, she’s forbidden from killing, so settles for some light maiming instead.
I thought about T2 a lot while watching M3GAN 2.0. Cameron’s budget for that sequel was swollen to an absurd degree, meaning he could do things like literally blow up a building, and employ then-nascent digital effects (no such luck budget-wise for Johnstone, who evidently had to be much cannier). Both films deal with the threat of AI, although M3GAN 2.0 ends on a more conciliatory note. It made me worry about the people who think ChatGPT is speaking directly to them (as opposed to what it’s actually doing: calculating probable outcomes in a way that mimics human speech).
The movie also contains a direct nod to Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead II. Basically a remake of the first movie with more money to spend on fake blood, Raimi made a similar pivot away from horror into slapstick comedy, Bruce Campbell throwing himself around a haunted cabin to great effect. Like the M3GAN sequel, it’s much more violent, but much goofier too.
There’s a long list of these more-is-more follow-ups. Steven Spielberg made his first sequel in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, one of his most-derided films. It upped the stakes by having a T-Rex rampage through San Diego, but in most ways was a letdown, even undercutting the threat of the first movie by showing a velociraptor taken down by a teenage girl doing gymnastics.
Spielberg produced second Transformers instalment Revenge Of The Fallen, an infamously cursed sequel (though that didn’t stop director Michael Bay from slopping out FIVE more). Made during a writer’s strike in Hollywood, it’s largely understood that Bay took on uncredited writing duties himself, leading to some straight-up racist caricatures, and plotting that takes the word ‘incomprehensible’ to new lows.
A personal favourite in this genre is Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Joe Dante acquiesced to studio demands for a sequel, and turned in a full-blown parody of the original. It’s a complete delight, applying the joke-every-second approach of Airplane! or Top Secret! to a mini-monster movie while swiping at gentrification, Donald Trump, Batman, and anything else Dante cares to skewer (mostly the first Gremlins).
Time will tell if M3GAN 2.0 sits alongside these overblown follow-ups (although it’s most certainly better than two of them). It’s a movie that’s always entertaining, often very funny, and never takes itself seriously. There’s been some dissent over the approach from fans who preferred the original’s creepy tone, but any movie that’s this dedicated to upping the absurdity is to be commended.
