Not acerbic enough to be satire, but not nimble enough to offer genuine commentary, M3GAN 2.0 instead propels us into an unexpected action-comedy without warning, eschewing its horror roots and doing a half-decent impression of a Cameron movie. The screenplay is one part True Lies (1994) and ten parts T2 (1991). Uneven, it feels every bit of the AI moment in which it was created as the very AI it demonizes for fun.
Humanoid AMELIA (Ivanna Sakhno) is a new, more advanced version of the retired, glitchy AI doll M3GAN (Jenna Davis; Amie Donald). When AMELIA embarks on an unexplained murder spree, toymaker and whiz engineer Gemma (Allison Williams) agrees to reboot M3GAN to help end the mayhem. Gemma’s niece Cady (Violet McGraw) — who Gemma first programmed M3GAN to defend — comes along for the ride and adds some much-needed Zoomer perspective to the proceedings, while the millennials wallow in their hubris.
The first M3GAN (2023) wasn’t all original either, but was just askew enough from expectation to hint at exhilaration. It sizzled with winking creativity and made the malaise of 21st-century life feel a little less daunting — the kind of task a subversive genre like horror is well-suited to perform. Against a background of January slop, it slayed.
But no one asked for T2.1 in 2025. It’s like the group of beer bellies who snap open cans and blast Morgan Wallen from a bluetooth speaker on the beach, as though everyone within earshot should be grateful.
On The Town podcast, producer and Blumhouse studio head Jason Blum owned up to his team’s whiff now that the opening returns for M3GAN 2.0 are in and underwhelming. The few horror heads who bought tickets left with their adrenaline reserves completely intact, and most of the audience who would have enjoyed the movie never picked it. What family is going to risk the nightmare fuel of a horror sequel when F1 and Mission Impossible have open seats — in IMAX, no less? Economic uncertainy only compounds the issue when the wallets surface.
And as for those who caught and understood the unviral marketing, turns out no one wanted another wry CGI’d romp after 15 years of Marvel gradually perfecting, then immediately oversaturating the formula. Go figure.
2.0 is fun in the same way that the rogue beach speaker plays something you like a few times an hour, or when you find yourself tapping your foot by accident. M3GAN’s smarm remains immaculately imagined, and watching her rip on humans is a real misanthropic joy — but those humans are mostly stiffer than she is and quite literally mute her wit with a voice command.
The movie misses the nitroused presence of a Ronny Chieng. The big robot bad, billed as a supposed challenger to M3GAN’s abilities, is by definition one-note even if she’s textbook cool, and Allison Williams’ stoicism is far better suited to horror than action-comedy.
M3GAN 2.0 is still a “movie” in the ‘90s sense of the word: blockbuster-ish, narratively neat, budgeted appropriately, quotable — and, on some other version of Earth in a less crowded moment, ready to be the monocultural makeover the planet needs.
Ryan Derenberger is a freelance journalist and editor, a Journalism and AP Language teacher at Whitman HS in Bethesda, MD, and the founder of 'The Idea Sift.' He also serves on the board of directors for student journalism nonprofit 'Kidizenship.'
