M3GAN 2.0: the child killbot returns for a lively, satisfying sequel

Eventually, someone will have to explain why so many 21^st century movie monsters look like (but aren’t) little girls… witness: vampire Eli (from 2008’s Let the Right One In), possessed doll Annabelle, miniature adult Esther (Orphan, 2009) and AI-inhabited robot companion M3gan. All popular enough to found franchises. M3gan has a certain kinship with the Terminator, which is why this sequel knowingly models itself on James Cameron’s Terminator 2 Judgment Day.  

In its second outing, the Arnold Schwarzenegger-shaped killbot went from villain to good guy – pitted against a liquid metal nemesis generations beyond its tech. In her 2.0 turn, M3gan is no longer a threat to creator Gemma, who programmed the robot to look after her niece Cady (Violet McGraw) because she was too busy to be a proper surrogate parent. 

Here, Gemma and M3gan argue about whether artificial intelligence can only fake empathy – and the robot tries to settle the matter with a creepy cover of Kate Bush’s ‘This Woman’s Work’ (Gemma begs in vain for M3gan to stop before she gets to the chorus). For the purposes of this movie, Gemma recognises that M3gan will help save the human race from AI subjugation if it’s the best call for Cady. Amelia (Ivanna Sakhno), a slinkier military model fembot, serves the function of Robert Patrick’s morphing cop from T2. But in M3gan 2,0, the slightly overcomplex scenario reprograms machine and human characters periodically, so a quartet of female characters are alternately enemies and allies but also switch and meld consciousnesses. Borrowing elements from action-horrors Upgrade (2018) and Malignant (2021), one battle has Gemma and M3gan sharing a body. Even little Cady has programmed herself by watching Steven Seagal films.

M3gan was a cautionary tale about relying on tech for emotional support, but clicked because M3gan herself is an appealing mix of sweet menace and monster. This is a bigger conspiracy story about another megalomaniac tech bro and apocalyptic AI – neither in short supply in the pulp thrillers of the 2020s. It’s less personal, but just as funny: set-pieces include putting M3gan’s consciousness in an unthreatening preschool learning aid (‘a plastic Tellytubby’) and disguising her (purple wig, TRON wetsuit) as a human doing a robot act to infiltrate a trade fair. Footnotes run to funny digs at cyber crime – M3gan has supported Cady financially by using credit fraud to buy a container load of Gemma’s book about contemporary parenting – and irritants like the Microsoft paperclip. Directed again by Gerard Johnstone, who showed his skills with unconventional horror as far back as Housebound (2014), M3gan 2.0 is a satisfying, lively sequel.

► M3GAN 2.0 is in UK cinemas now.