While some may complain that the horror elements of the original have been sacrificed to take on a more science fiction approach, M3GAN 2.0 is still as fun and campy with a greater message on how artificial intelligence is more dangerous than we may think.

The M3GAN doll took over the world about three years ago when the original film was released.  It became a great success for Blumhouse Productions and allowed people to have fun with horror films about a killer doll that loved to dance.  The way the original ended, it did not seem like a sequel was needed because the story just came to an end the way most horror films of this kind do.  But thanks to the box office success, a sequel was greenlit a year after its release.  M3GAN 2.0 is not a film that was necessarily needed, but I am so happy it was made.

Taking place two years after the events of the first film, we see Gemma (Allison Williams) and Cady (Violet McGraw) have been spending their time growing a stronger relationship as aunt and niece while Gemma has decided to start advocating for better regulations around artificial intelligence.  When a government robot similar to M3GAN begins to go rogue and thinks for herself (Ivanna Sakhno), threatening to take over the cloud network and power grid.  Left with no other options, Gemma and Cady rebuild M3GAN (Amie Donald and Jenna Davis) to prevent the AI takeover.

The film is only about 2 hours long and for a majority of that time, the plot moves very fast but it works perfectly.  We are given the issue and how our characters plan to solve it basically right away with plenty of time for fight scenes and technology talk that goes way over my head but it feels like the perfect pace.  That is until the final major fight scenes.  When we head into the final 20 minutes of the film, it felt like it would never end.  Every time I thought the last major event took place, another new event would pop up that our characters would have to solve, making the plot drag on longer than it needed to be.  The entire time I was having a blast with the film, feeling engaged with everything happening on the screen, but my experience was brought down because of the never-ending feeling of the final moments.

The original film focused more on the horror idea of what would happen if a doll was programmed to protect a child from everything that may come up in her life.  This led to the doll committing murder in the name of protecting her owner.  That was a really interesting concept that started to dive into the great issue that seems to be overtaking every aspect of our lives – artificial intelligence.  In the three and a half years in between releases, AI has gotten even more advanced and seen being used nearly everywhere.  It can be scary what AI is capable of doing, and M3GAN 2.0 did a good job of showing that through their story.

One thing that I usually do not like about films with fun concepts like a killer doll ends up getting the government involved in some way.  It feels as though having the government want to do something to get the technology is a cop-out way of having people just shoot at each other for the entirety of the film.  However, I think the government being involved in this sequel makes sense with where technology has gone.  The Department of Defense in the film decided to rework M3GAN’s programming to create their own AI robot – AMELIA – to send on defense missions because they think it is easy to control and it should result in little to no military lives lost on dangerous missions.  However, just like the original, the doll is able to use its AI program to take control, causing more harm to the military mission than help.  With this present-day messaging and the ways we see different characters try to take advantage of technology we have access to, it made for an informative tale told for general audiences.

If you enjoyed the original film for its campy nature and good humor, you will most likely enjoy this sequel.  With more present-day fears and a pretty decent pace, M3GAN 2.0 is the perfect summer film for those trying to get out of the heat or summer storms.

Grade: B

Oscar Prospects:
Likely: None
Should be Considered: None

Where to Watch: In Theaters