M3GAN 2.0 only came out in the cinemas a little while ago, and then it was almost straight to streaming. Reports said it didn’t do the numbers at the box office.
My experience with the first one was: I liked it. That’s all I can say, as I don’t remember much about it. A girl gets a robot, it tries to kill everyone, and it was left open for a sequel.
M3GAN 2.0 stars Alison Williams, Violet McGraw, Amie Donald, Jenna Davis, Brian Jordan Alvarez, Jen Van Epps, Ivanna Sakhno, Aristotle Athari, and Jemaine Clemment. Gerald Johnstone is back as director from the first one.
The Story
The story takes a major turn in this sequel, and I mean one in a ‘batshit crazy’ way.
Two years after M3GAN’s rampage, her creator, Gemma, resorts to resurrecting her infamous creation in order to take down Amelia, the military-grade weapon who was built by a defense contractor who stole M3GAN’s underlying tech.
The main issue here is it’s basically Terminator 2; a killer robot, but this time it’s here to save the main protagonist from an even worse killer robot.
It turns out, the killer robot in M3GAN 2.0 is Amelia (Sakhno), which stands for Android Mechanised Electronic Lethal Leggy Android or something like that. She’s a weapon developed by the army to infiltrate places and kill people. It turns out Amelia is sentient and trying to find a motherboard so she can take over the world. Think the beginnings of Skynet, another Terminator reference.
Anyway, Gemma (Williams) is still looking after Cady (McGraw). Gemma has been developing helpful machines, not killing ones anymore. #boring
She’s approached by Clement, I forget the character’s name, who’s made a new chip that can help him walk and be inserted into his brain. Gemma says no, then the real story kicks in. In fact, I don’t know why I mentioned Clement. How do you delete on this thing?
The Real Story
Basically, Amelia is trying to take over the world, but someone is trying to stop her, Megan. It turns out, from the last one, Megan is still about and trying to fulfil her main directive: Protect Cady, at all costs.
The rest of M3GAN is about Megan and gang vs Amelia. That’s a bit harsh; there is more to the story than that. However, it’s a little predictable in that ‘No way! I totally didn’t see that coming…wait, yes I did’ type way. The story is more engrossing than the original movie, but that’s not saying much.
The Cast
I liked seeing Clement in this because I like him in general. I’m a huge fan of Flight of the Conchords, when he pops up in a movie, I’m happy.
The weakest link in M3GAN is Cady, played by McGraw. Sorry, but she is really unconvincing, and whenever she is ‘acting’, it really takes you out of the movie.
However, the plus of the movie is Williams. Man alive, she is gorgeous! She’s one of those ladies who is so hot, I caught myself not listening to her character talk. I would just gaze into her beautiful blue eyes and imagine dinner with her. We would chat about love, life and the pursuit of happiness, while playing a little footsy under the table.
I imagine she would be bowled over by my wit and playfully ask if we were going back to my place or hers.
Where was I? Oh yeah, Williams is good in this movie.
Logic
As per usual, it’s the little things that annoy me about M3GAN 2.0. All the way through, I kept thinking it was totally Terminator 2.
Then there are other things. Near the beginning of the movie, one of the characters demonstrates an electro-skeleton, which means he can pick up tonnes of weight. Later, the skeleton gets a mind of goes to kill one of the main characters. It could snap the person in half in a second, but no, it tries to strangle the person. Why? So there’s time to save the said person. Don’t show a killing machine, then have it just lazily try to kill someone.
Songs
Yes, there are songs in it, you have to have one of the robots doing the Robot, or the Robo-boogie. There is an expo, where Megan sneaks in, and she ends up dancing on stage. You can’t have a Megan movie without her dancing; that would be like having a Disney movie without ‘the message’.
Later, Megan and Gemma are talking, and Megan starts to sing to her. I was laughing because it was totally the wrong tone for the movie. Although saying that, I’m not sure what tone they were going for; action movie? AI hate? Sexy young robot vibe? Espionage thriller? M3GAN 2.0 goes to a lot of different places.
Overall
I honestly can’t tell you how I feel about M3GAN. I was entertained, but I don’t know why. It’s different from the first movie, but I don’t know how. I’m not sure if it’s a work of genius (well, not that far) or the stupidest idea since killing off Luke Skywalker (again, not that far).
In the trailer, they made a big deal of the line:
Hold on to your vaginas!
In the movie, it’s used once, and it seems totally out of context. If I were to guess, I think they put it in the trailer for a joke, saw everyone hated it and dropped it down to once.
If you like the first movie, or even remember it, give this a try. As I said, I had fun with it, but I just can’t work out why. It was stupid, but clever. There were hints of very clever, with an overall tone of batshit crazy.
I’m giving M3GAN 2.0 a straight down the middle 2.5 out of 5. Oddest movie I’ve seen in a while.
M3GAN 2.0 is now on VoD. Here are some images of Williams to end the article, just because I know you’re all as shallow as me.
