Artificially Lifeless

(081425) The first M3GAN was a passable high-tech horror thriller about a homicidal artificial child companion. The original film was made on a relatively low budget, but it was surprisingly successful with both critics and audiences. The film also had a great gimmick, and you could actually chat with an AI named M3GAN that you could interact with repeatedly. The chat version of M3GAN would send you increasingly sinister text responses, starting out friendly and sounding increasingly like the evil film character.

I gave the first one two and a half stars because I thought it was a mistake to make a bloodless, mostly gore less PG-13 horror film aimed toward the whole family (this film has the same rating) to sell more toys or merch. They should have either made a scary horror film or a harmless family drama. Doing both puts it at cross purposes. It was like having a shark with no teeth. But the later more violent R-rated cut, which was released on DVD, was I felt a far better horror film and I would rate that version solid three stars.

Like in the first film, M3GAN’s physical presence in this one was provided by Arnie Donald, with vocals by Jenna Davis. The basic idea behind the character was fairly interesting, and if she were handled right, the character could have been the next Chucky or Freddy Krueger. There is also some decent talent involved in the production of the film. It was directed by Gerard Johnston, the New Zealand-born filmmaker who made Housebound (2014) and the first M3GAN (2024). He is rejoined by a horror veteran from the first film, Allison Williams, who played the mom and made her big splash in the modern horror classic, Get Out (2017). Also returning is Violet McGraw, who was featured in the mini-series The Haunting of Hill House (2018) as the daughter.

M3GAN 2.0 gets rid of most of the aspects that made the original film work at times. Unsurprisingly, it has done much worse at the box office than the original and received mixed reviews. Many of the original film’s best moments occurred because the innocent Barbie-like automaton’s actions and snarky dialogue contrasted sharply with her girlish appearance and demeanor.

But with the second film, they took a different and completely wrongheaded route. Rather than make a quasi-horror film like the first one about an evil artificial being, they made a sci-fi film using Terminator 2 as a template. Here, they pit a no longer villainous M3gan, who is now more like an anti-hero, against a worse and more powerful android who wants to seemingly destroy humanity. If that was not bad enough, they put the character in a convoluted, overcomplicated spy plot that takes away from the remaining dark comedy and horror elements. This film does not seem to know what it wants to do or be, and it is always tripping over itself as it pushes the story forward.

In the first film, a scientist named Gemma created a robot companion to baby sit and keep her adopted daughter company. Her creation, "M3GAN", was badly needed because the girl’s mom died tragically, and Gemma, the aunt who adopted her, was a workaholic techno expert who spent all of her time and energy at work. Of course, the artificial being got out of control and killed people in wrongheaded efforts to protect the girl in a more modern update of the standard babysitter from hell plot that was used in such films as The Hand that Rocks the Cradle. Then M3gan ended up in a life and death struggle with Gemma and seemingly perished at the end. But the robot actually survived because she downloaded her consciousness onto the internet after her physical body was destroyed (I’m pretty sure both Brainiac and Ultron in the comics do the same thing). So now a more benevolent M3gan (she never stopped evolving) has been watching and helping out the girl and her mom from afar.

It turns out that the M3GAN’s code has been stolen by shady members of the government agency and used to create a superior A1 robot named AMELIA. The government pressures Gemma to help trap the new AI, who, like the Frankenstein monster, has rebelled against her creators. But what no one knows is that AMELIA was being used as a war weapon of mass destruction, and she had good reasons to rebel. M3gan, who has become stuck in a small doll, makes her presence known to the girl and later Gemma. She agrees that she will help catch AMELIA, hoping that they can help her get a new body.

M3GAN 2.0 is a pointless, overcomplicated, and derivative film that probably should not have been made at all. Compared to recent clever films about artificial intelligence like Her (2013), Ex Machina (2014), Companion, and even the recent Megan Fox vehicle, Subservience, this is a stupid, uninspired, and monotonous film that wastes a decent cast and a potentially interesting subject matter.

The first film ended up being a cautionary tale about what can happen when non-parenting occurs. This film does not have nearly as clear a moral compass or message. It seems like it was made to exploit a product, not to make audience members think or feel. This film represents a devolution rather than an evolution from the first film.