M3GAN 2.0 (2025) Review

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

2023 was what I can recollect to be the decade's best year for film with such consistency in quality. Ironically, M3GAN was the kickstart of that year due to being grounded entertainment for a whole new horror flick. With a sequel however, it's bound to be off the walls. 


PLOT


2025's M3GAN 2.0 takes place two years after the events of the preceding film. Gemma is now an advocate for AI's ethical usage due to the creation of M3GAN going awry, scoring a partnership with cybersecurity expert Christian and developing robotic exoskeleton with teammates Cole & Tess. While she turns down a deal from billionaire Alton Appleton to work him, her niece Cady is actually interested in computer science. One night, she meets Colonel Tim Sattler (Tim Sharp) who alerts her of a new AI named AMELIA (Autonomous Military Engagement Logistics & Infiltration Android) meant for infiltration/assassination missions has gone rogue, erased all traces of past existence and killed a broker who sold her to him. He visits Gemma because M3GAN's blueprints were used to make AMELIA and suspects her to be responsible but she recalls wiping out her hard drives. Although he has no true proof of her possible involvement, he urges her to work with the FBI before departing which she has no interest in. Once he leaves, M3GAN reveals to have survived deletion due to making a backup file before being defeated. She offers to help defeating Amelia in exchange of a new body, but her creator only gives her a harmless Moxie one as she doesn't trust her yet. The two follow Amelia to a party hosted by Appleton, as she intends to steal his biometric data and plot AI world domination. She does get what she needs after killing him. Amelia chases them away when they try hacking into her, but she chases them all the way to Gemma's home. With no choice, M3GAN guides Gemma, Cady and Tess & Cole to a bunker she's prepared to survive Amelia's takeover, as her access on Alton's servers has caused a nationwide breach where she controls the entire country in terms of internet and technology communications. Cady however is able to convince M3GAN to continue helping them stop the bigger threat, having picked up on her sincere regret of her past actions. Once given a new body, she finds out Amelia is after a motherboard made in the 80s by Xenox, that was the first rogue AI and Christian is the only one to know where it is. She tries to confront him of it's location, but Gemma's decision to intervene causes Amelia to abduct Cady, injure Sattler and kill a Chinese ambassador. When the group catches Christian up on what's going on, he admits the location of the motherboard to be in Palo Alto. Since the security system uses Christian's hand geometry, M3GAN is given a hand replica to infiltrate & destroy it to rescue Cady. Just when Gemma feels suspicious of her, she considers using an EMP failsafe until Christian intervenes and incapacitates both her and Tess. Gemma wakes up in the facility and Christian confesses to be the true manipulator Amelia, hoping to stoke fear of AI so humans can have full control and intends to get regulations approved to eliminate it from global economy. He was able to retrieve M3GAN's blueprints thanks to Gemma's former coworker Kurt who sent them before he died. Once he disables M3GAN, he intends to enslave Gemma with a neural implant and kill both Tess & Cole. Because Cole snuck in separately and accidentally knocked himself out with chloroform he used on a tour guide, he is able to find Cady and find out Christian's intentions from her. M3GAN is however able to upload herself to Gemma's implant so they can break free together. Cady then tries to reprogram Amelia with a residual programming, but she instead to absorb the motherboard's programming to commit human extinction. She then kills Christian and uses his hand to access the motherboard but M3GAN reinserts into her robotic body and uses Gemma's failsafe to prevent that from happening. The EMP would destroy the motherboard and both robots at once. As Gemma & Cady escape Palo Alto with Tess & Cole, the former uses evidence from the vault to testify before Congress to urge AI regulation that'll humans to cooperate rather than control. The film ends with Gemma finding out M3GAN survived with a second backup, leaving her and Cady delighted of her return.


THOUGHTS


Writer/Director Gerard Johnstone probably didn’t know exactly where to start with a sequel for M3GAN until he was greenlit to do so and he sure delivered. The editing was very deliverable in making the returning robot all the more formidable than before. Flipping the genre here was smart in order to shake up the plot in more ways than one. M3GAN does have a path similar to the Terminator where she goes from ultimate threat to relief of an ally, but the difference is she remembers her past and uses it as an attempt of redemption. This pays off due to the believably of Amie Donald nailing the character’s physicality in costume and Jenna Davis returning to voice the expected maturity. If this doesn’t work, the rest of the movie doesn’t. Thankfully, the callbacks pay off in a big way in between all the laughs because you know you can’t take it serious seeing her in a Moxie to prove her trust. As if dancing to taunt her victim wasn’t enough, she dances while undercover before having another singing number and pounces again. Then it is Ivanna Sakhno who pulls it off in reflecting Amelia’s cunningness to come from how she’s seen humanity at its worst and wants to take advantage of wanting to live to her liking. When you add this with Aristotle Athari being a stingy mastermind as Christian and Jemaine Clement being an over the top self absorbed figure who doesn’t appreciate the advantages he has nails the point of the fear that is technophobia, where we don’t want our creation of machines running our lives. From there, we’re reminded of how we have to better manage the control we already got if we don’t want our worst fears coming true and that message doesn’t work the way it does without the returning protagonists. You can argue that Jen Van Epps & Brian Jordan Alvarez come off oversimplified as loyal friends in the roles of Tess & Cole respectively. Heck, you can admit Cole antes it up in being comedic relief. Having said that, you still see they genuinely want to save the world with their friend. Alison Williams gives a big 180 who now shows Gemma to be an overprotective parent as her falling out with M3GAN reminded her of her failure to protect Cady in the first place, hence her ongoing advocacy. But getting to see how much M3GAN genuinely cares, she sees firsthand it’s not too late to fix mistakes which defends her coming around in trusting her. In all honesty, she doesn’t even bother had it not been for Cady’s genuine remorse. With the time she spent with her, she knows how much she meant well despite losing control and I believe Violet McGraw does a great job using her teenage rebellious nature as an advantage to show she can handle herself and she proved with the Akido she practiced thanks to her aunt and used effectively to her liking. When she isn’t proving her grit, her will to forgive M3GAN proves in unorthodox fashion that forgiveness can be given to the unexpected. The fact Amelia doesn’t get the time to have a second chance and M3GAN proved how much she cared comes to show you can redeem yourself as long as you just show don’t tell. With the self awareness to have a second backup, I sure hope the family figures out how to maintain whatever happiness they got. At this point, I don’t think there’s should be a follow up for this because I would not be ready for any repetition that can come from it. While this movie is fine on its own, there are still a few things that don’t make much sense when looking back on it. For example, it’s totally on Sattler to not have failsafes for Amelia to be self aware, but I still scratch my head over the fact the broker was able to bag her up undetected at the airport. It’s even very awkward Gemma didn’t consider reading Cady ‘Goodnight Moon’ before reading an article on the fears of technology. And if she’s so anti AI, she shouldn’t be in a smart house. I mean there’s no shame living in a farm if she’s that paranoid. And while I’m distraught on how casual M3GAN pulled off making a bunker unbeknownst to Gemma, it’s hysterical no one before Sattler noticed Gemma in the cap when she got in the convention. It’s way too easy like an MCU movie for her to pull off. Lastly, how exactly did people know how to contact Christian? I have to ask since he was pretty secretive about Amelia for a while, so it wouldn’t be a bad thing to know how he kept in touch with these people willing to control Amelia. Other than that, M3GAN 2.0 will be looked back on as a sci fi action sequel that was aware of its stakes and doesn’t overstay its welcome. If you dug the first one, I promise you’ll feel the same with this as well.