After the underlying tech for M3GAN is stolen and misused by a powerful defense contractor to create a military-grade weapon known as Amelia, M3GAN's creator Gemma realizes that the only option is...
Part of me is still surprised that the first M3GAN was as memorable as it was, putting aside the obvious that it kick-started an actually good January movie streak. Recycling it’s concepts from Chucky, Terminator, Orphan and even IRobot for the new generation did make it derivative but hot damn, did it have personality to spare and a surprisingly poised amount of emotion on it’s sleeve. It being so unapologetically campy, over-the-top and par-for-the-course was just the icing on the cake.
“M3GAN 2.0”, in contrast…..is just plain stupid, nearly everything I feared the first film was going to be.
I will say though Gerald Johnstone’s directing really was trying to iron out the idiosyncrasies that made the original click the best he could; he still has a vague sense of understanding of the HOW needing to match the WHAT in a particular narrative space. But the direction quickly tumbleweeds into a caricature both of itself and the other movies it imitates; sure, these movies never could establish an identity outside its inspirations but this was a considerable leap backward.
To say I don’t appreciate the almost immediate shift in atmosphere, scope and scale here would be both impolite and dismissive; the presentation evidently harbors this grand ambition marked to grow bigger, expand beyond and stretch itself out just thin enough to feel like three separate movies in one; the production design reflects that, gradually ditching the more domesticated, retro stylings of suburban life for more bloated, ostentatious displays. Now the quaint charm of pastel-colored houses and neatly trimmed minimalism giving way to sprawling, opulent settings ripped straight out of Mission Impossible filled with lavish decor and intricate details would’ve worked as a credible evolution….had the transition not been so abrupt. Worldbuilding was jarringly flimsy at best and, at worst, seemed hellbent on making up for lost time that was never there and it made everything feel foreign and airless.
Visibly adrift in both stability and robustness, Toby Oliver’s cinematography passes by virtue of competence and technical proficiency but was devoid of any real striking innovation in its shots with one obvious exception; it truly was a shadow of its own potential. The editing isn’t twice as concise or thoughtful in its importance on carefully considered pauses and focal points and the pacing is absolutely laborious. In stark contrast, its predecessor’s sense of rhythm and flow was more digestible with a more bearable runtime to boot too; this had no business stretching itself out to two hours, let alone for the most remedial of action movie templates.
I can appreciate them taking the late-Chucky-films approach early in regards to its tone; still wobbling that tightrope between riotously campy pop-culture, delightful self-awareness and alchemical blend of havoc and mayhem only cranked up to 100 but said tightrope isn’t as judiciously dosed with its camp. The blend of animatronics, mo-cap and VFX continue to contribute to the rubbery visual aesthetic for most scenes and still places both puppets in stable uncanny valley territory with double the budget, costumes are mostly unremarkable regardless of who wears what and only two separate tracks from Chris Bacon’s score stood out amongst the generic dross.
Our litany of action sequences stick to the decent choreography and so-so fluid motion but not a single one is distinctly memorable enough to leave a lasting impression, competent sound design can only get that action so far and this time, it can’t fully take advantage of the PG rating despite placing itself in a position where it could’ve benefited from an R-rating.
Despite the cast understanding the assignment and clearly having fun with the material, they can only do so much with what they’ve been given. Jenna Davis continues to give an undeniable magnetism to M3GAN’s voice and theatrics, Allison Williams is adequate and Violet McGraw is clearly trying her hardest against a script that doesn’t have the same nuance as the first film. There’s a lot of flimsy dialogue, some wooden acting you just can’t overlook and the more significant ensemble vary heavily both in agency and importance, further emphasizing how forgettable most of these characters are.
Here we have yet another classic example of a movie both succumbing to, and weirdly shifting around annoying Hollywood staple: going full throttle too fast on franchise building. This is basically Terminator 2 meets The Final Reckoning if it was a direct-to-DVD feature made purely from the lens of a Tik-Toker; me personally, it’s the plot of Portal 2 where GlaDOS teams up with you to take care of Wheatley, only the end result feels like emotional cataracts. A redundant exercise in ‘more isn’t always better’, it does set up its beats and execute them under more tame, safer constraints but this time by condensing them beneath a plot structure that’s way too unnecessarily messy for what it needed to be. It has an obviously inflated bigger-is-better ethos that overrides the few shreds of pathos that carries over from the first film, vast majority of its twists and endings are telegraphed so far in advance there’s legit no room for tension and the increase in scale and scope only feels like bloat, sacrificing most of its intimate charm that made the original so effective.
I would bet good money the entire production behind this became a Hello Neighbor situation: they probably didn’t expect M3GAN to be as popular as she was and gain a sizable community surrounding her but once Gerald, Akela Cooper and everyone else at Blumhouse found out the real selling points behind what made the character pop off, they leaned way too far in on the thirst trap of viral moments and meme-worthy one-liners, proposing to marry its own parody without bothering to buy the ring for it and thus marking a dissonant devolution. Yeah, yeah, I know the plot barely matters in films such as these and M3GAN has proven to be too adaptable to be chained down to ONE genre but the difference is at least its predecessor had heart.
The first movie was a cautionary tale first, meme-slopbucket second and while they didn’t completely abandon the fundamental basics of rudimentary screenwriting, so many organic flourishes have been left at the door in favor of sanitized algorithmic-chasing clout. Sure, this one feigns poking through the veil of android oligarchies, warning of the consequences of combining wealthy tech giants’ excessive ownership with reckless advancement of artificial intelligence but that’s not a consistent running theme until halfway through and more of a instigator for the plot to happen. Then of course, there’s the more rudimentary themes that carry over from previously: Gemma’s emotional fragility and unavailability as both a parent and a team player, technology lessening our hopes of proper communication, rampant consumerism without concern for the consequences and how we tend to bury our fears into something to mask ourselves from properly expressing that pain. And that’s on top of further doubling down on the complicated existence of A.I in general; as someone who really does want to believe that A.I can be used ethically depending on its usage and by whom, this one gives off way too many mixed signals. Not just because it blatantly sets up a somewhat intriguing address on the matter only to wuss out at the last minute but also due to the climate this is being released in.
Hollywood has been all in on A.I, using it to replace writers, actors and make cheaper production designs just for the sake of time and convenience, further cementing why the damn stroke didn’t do much of anything. So the fact that they themselves are forcibly putting out this idea of ‘Make peace and be nice with A.I’s existence because they’re gonna be sticking around whether you like it or not’ feels manipulative, tacky and hypocritical since we know Hollywood and other opportunistic jackasses are always going to abuse SOMETHING to get any profit out of it. Again, part of me wants to agree with that statement to some extent but it’s becoming really difficult to remain ethical or neutral about the subject because the misuse of A.I won’t just be deleterious for the film industry; it’ll be damaging for every single one, which is damning because this film is bluntly ripping off and satirizing a beloved sci-fi film about the dangers unchecked in letting A.I go rampant.
While I can make peace with M3GAN 2.0’s existence being entirely to show off, get laughs, look really cool and than disappear, there is such a thing as leaning too hard to where the tonal pendulum swings perilously close to self-parody. Oscillating between different forms without mastering any, its own self-gratification is sporadic and without the narrative cohesion or emotional resonance from before, it isn’t nearly as fun this time.
