Time for another movie I’ve had in my stock for a while and just haven’t gotten to watching it. It’s not exactly the one I had planned for this week, but when folks are away I find alternate play or something like that. All it means is instead of foreign action we’ll get some home-brewed kind of action instead, with some hints of horror/thriller. We watched the original and found it not bad, so surely the second could be pretty rad? What’s better than one robot? Two. Here comes M3GAN 2.0.

Overseas, bad guys got someone hostage. Bad guys “kill” someone. Gov’t activates the loaned out asset - surprise someone is a robot. Robot initiates systematic takedown of the bad guys, and finds the scientist hostage. Everyone in the ready room is all excited and happy at a job well done - and then the robot murders the scientist and steals a bunch of the very-bad for humans drugs. Less than ten minutes in and we’ve already hit the robot becoming self-aware and going rogue. Back in the normal land of catching up with the last movie and it’s surviving characters, we find out that the characters have moved on with their lives - but not without forgetting it. Our lead lady has become quite a bit anti-AI, and our young one actually has oddly enough becoming even more into programming and robotics (and martial arts). Is it perfect? Oh certainly not, but it is better than trying to survive getting killed by an over-zealous robot babysitter. Don’t worry though - It won’t be long before the plot lines cross back over, resulting in the need for OG M3GAN to be brought back in a new body to fend off the evil robot that now theoretically wants our old crew dead for having anything to do with the history of her creation - direct or not.

The actors do a pretty decent job here. I would like to say, if you’ve seen the first you still know the kind of expectations to come in with. People do a good job, but “good job” also comes with some caveats of what’s intended on paper. For example, the billionaire is overly goofy as heck - campy as can be to the point of satire. Some would look at that and go “oh, it’s horrible” but at the same time there is absolutely nothing anywhere in this movie that tells me that it isn’t or wasn’t the exact point of the character on display, so good acting? The robots do a suitable job of being sassy or spooky without being too overly emotional about things. It all feels quite good for what it feels like the movie wants. That out of the way, it’s definitely something where i wouldn’t necessarily fault someone for feeling like it’s not some award winning flick in the acting department - but I would probably fault them if they tried to tell me that it was all horribly acted because it’s far from that. Nobody phoning home here.

Characters I could see being generally well received in comparison, although folks looking for a super serious play might guffaw at the goofiness going on in a bunch of this. There is spots for growth, or background - but I’m not going to call any of it something brand new and unexpected. Sometimes it feels like perhaps the characters might be holding the actors back, sometimes they work really well. A lot of them get to be just stereotype or backups there for the shenanigans. Most of the fun still comes from our titular returning robot, who has plenty of sass for such a synthetic person. You like sass? Well then I guess you’ll have a favorite character for the runtime. So yeah, everyone does a good enough job of acting that it’s at least not worse than the first - so if you’ve seen that (because most folks that would want to watch a sequel have usually seen the first) then you already know largely if you’ll like it or not (although some are much more campy then I remember).

Visually, it certainly feels like it has more budget behind it. Story-wise perhaps not that much. In fairness to that statement, the story does feel like an extension or semi-natural progression of the first, complete with things that didn’t necessarily feel as though they really went that far in the first. It has more action scenes then the first, feeling a bit spiritually like the switch between Terminator and Terminator 2. I mean, not as refined an experience - but how much of that is nostalgic attachment talking? I mean, a little I’m sure, but I don’t see myself coming back to this as much as those, and as much as they might try I’d more believe the kid as an action star then our lead lady. Still, we get some robots fighting - although surprisingly not as much robot versus robot as you would really expect - with some various levels of damage and cosmetic looks. There’s plenty of tech shenanigans and varying levels of science fiction going on in here, so some level of disbelief suspension might be requried - but at least it all looks pretty good.

When action scenes do pop up, they are generally pretty well done. As a whole I’d say the movie is shot pretty well as far as composition and the likes. Like mentioned, you get a variety of settings to check out, ranging from old concretes all the way up to tech-fairs. Parts come off feeling almost like the nightmare-toys scene from the original Toy Story, other like fancy parties. It keeps moving at a pretty decent brisk feeling pace, Horror still sticks around with how some of the scenes are shot - but it feels far less normal horror or slasher-ish as the first and much more of a almost spy-thriller to be honest. Maybe that’s a weird call, maybe it’s super accurate - just kind of the vibe I get from it at times. Perhaps it’s the higher stakes and the likes.

Audio balance is good. Music is there and does it’s job, but unlike the last movie it’s not sticking around with me this time. I do remember some pretty bumping tunes, but it just doesn’t happen as much for as long to keep it lodged into my brain. Line deliveries range the entirety of the valleys here, so although I do think it’s intentional I will say folks will find it good or bad on a person level. Conceptually, there’s a good amount of stuff going on here. I mean, I’m not the thinking type but the whole yes and no struggle with advanced robots, artificial intelligence, and great science being turned into weapons. Stuff about trust and if robots can feel are in there too - but that’s really all I’m gonna point out - the rest can be figured out yourself by watching.

It’s about as much fun as I had thought it would be. It actually had more twists and turns then I thought it would - but as far as fun levels it’s pretty much right what I expected. I did perhaps expect a little bit more action then what actually existed in the movie, but that’s not to say the movie didn’t didn’t have plenty going on to keep things from being too static. I won’t say that it’s impossible to see things that are going on before it happens - although they do a pretty good job of obfuscating information until they feel like revealing it, meaning for the most part the movie feels less like there’s plot twists and more like the plot just adds new side quests to get to the end goal as you go. It’s on a whole a fine movie, and plenty enough opportunities for some laughs or other forms of entertainment. There’s also plenty of little easter eggs in there - like the Knight Rider theme song, which got a good laugh out of me.

@IMDB

M3GAN 2.0 (2025)