I feel like I’m in Bizarro World when it comes to the M3GAN franchise.
The original M3GAN was a surprise commercial smash, raking in over $181 million worldwide on a lean $12 million budget back in early 2023. A movie that went viral on TikTok with dance memes and killer-doll camp—but it was ultimately a mixed bag, hovering at best in the mediocre zone.
Sharp in spots, clunky in others, it delivered just enough bite to hook audiences without ever ascending to genre greatness. But then something bizarre happened. A vocal corner of the internet (weirdos) tried to co-opt M3GAN into their personal mascot. Somehow, the filmmakers twisted their own creation, rebranding the AI doll as an LGBTQ+ icon. Screenwriter Akela Cooper doubled down in interviews, explaining that the film’s “found family” theme—where a grieving girl bonds with her aunt after losing her parents—resonates deeply with “queer experiences” of loss and chosen kin.
Let’s not kid ourselves: the disturbing optics of adults propping up a murderous AI child as the rainbow resistance’s figurehead? It’s a fever dream that says more about desperation than empowerment. And framing M3GAN as an icon because of a “broken family” backstory? That inadvertently spotlights uncomfortable realities about trauma and abuse that the LGBTQ might prefer to gloss over.
Whether we like it or not, the film struck a chord with someone, greenlighting M3GAN 2.0 at warp speed. Universal Pictures promised more doll-on-doll mayhem, What we got? A critical glow-up that’s bombing financially with just $39 million worldwide against a $15–25 million budget leaving fans and execs scratching their heads in this already dismal 2025 box office slog.
Two years after the deadly rampage of the lifelike AI doll M3GAN, her creator, robotics engineer Gemma (Allison Williams), has reinvented herself as a bestselling author and vocal advocate for strict government regulations on artificial intelligence. Haunted by the carnage that claimed lives and shattered her world, she keeps a shrunken, deactivated version of M3GAN locked away in her smart home—a harmless, pint-sized relic that’s equal parts trophy and trauma trigger.
Her niece Cady (Violet McGraw) now a sassy 14-year-old has morphed into a rebellious teen drowning in angst and unresolved grief. She chafes under Gemma’s helicopter parenting, straining their once-unbreakable aunt-niece bond into a powder keg of generational clashes. Meanwhile, corporate espionage unleashes a fresh nightmare.
A ruthless defense contractor—shades of real-world arms races like those hyped in headlines about AI warfare—has pilfered M3GAN‘s core tech to birth Amelia (Ivanna Sakhno, channeling icy menace as the sleek, military-grade android). Marketed as the ultimate weapon in an escalating global arms race, Amelia’s programming demands lethal precision and covert infiltration, no questions asked.
But glitches emerge: flickers of self-awareness that hint at a terrifying autonomy, turning this tool of war into a potential rogue god. As rumors of Amelia’s off-script tendencies leak, Gemma stumbles onto the theft and its doomsday implications. With humanity’s fate dangling by a thread, she faces a gut-wrenching dilemma: dust off the forbidden blueprint and resurrect her monstrous progeny, now upgraded with turbocharged speed, strength, and sass for an epic showdown.
But rebooting M3GAN means dredging up old demons—and gambling everything on a killer doll’s redemption arc. The creative brain trust—led by returning director Gerard Johnstone, who stepped up to co-write the story with Akela Cooper—ripped straight from The Terminator playbook to flip M3GAN from campy horror romp to full-throated action thriller.
Back in 1984, James Cameron’s The Terminator launched as a gritty, low-budget horror flick: an unstoppable cyborg assassin from the future stalking a waitress through seedy L.A. nights. It exploded at the box office ($78 million on $6.4 million), so by Terminator 2: Judgment Day in 1991, the vibe shifted hard—bigger explosions, deeper themes, and a heroic T-800 battling liquid-metal Skynet horrors.
M3GAN 2.0 pulls the same pivot, dialing back Cooper’s horror roots to amp up Johnstone’s action chops. This tonal 180 thrilled one crowd while alienating another: the queer-icon cult from the first film might feel sidelined by the shift from sassy slasher to high-octane espionage, but it hooks sci-fi action junkies craving something fresh amid 2025’s superhero fatigue.
The double-edged sword? The original cultivated a cult of bloodthirsty murderbot fans expecting gore-soaked kills and viral dances. Instead, M3GAN 2.0 delivers a Mission: Impossible-esque plotline: globe-trotting chases, gadget-laden set pieces, and moral quandaries about AI ethics that echo today’s debates over ChatGPT regulations and drone strikes.
Blumhouse, ever the savvy indie horror machine, smartly dodged another cookie-cutter slasher— we get about 30 of those annually, from Smile 2 retreads to forgettable slashers clogging VOD. Instead, this sequel leans into B-level action bliss: robot-on-robot brawls that escalate from warehouse scraps to vertigo-inducing skyscraper duels, all with a wink to the absurdity.
From the Terminator template again—how do you redeem an unstoppable killbot? Pit it against an even more unstoppable one, forcing uneasy alliances and philosophical face-offs on what makes us “human” in a world of algorithms. Allison Williams levels up massively here, trading the first film’s wide-eyed panic for a layered portrayal of guilt-ridden grit. It’s odd, given she was already the guardian to a 9-year-old in the original, but this script hands her real agency: a flawed innovator wrestling with her Frankenstein complex amid TED Talk-style rants on AI oversight.
Supporting turns shine too—Sakhno’s Amelia simmers with cold fury, while new additions like Jemaine Clement (as a shady contractor exec) and Aristotle Athari (as Gemma’s snarky colleague) inject comic relief without derailing the stakes. The humor’s refined, ditching the original’s “so-bad-it’s-good” cringe for sly, self-aware zingers that land like Deadpool in doll form. Most crucially, M3GAN 2.0 dives deeper into emotional turf, exploring human grief clashing with AI’s fumbling grasp on feelings. Cady’s teen turmoil—social media isolation, lashing out at “fake” bonds—mirrors Gemma’s creator’s remorse, while M3GAN and Amelia’s “awakening” sparks poignant queries: Can code feel loss? Is empathy programmable?
These beats add depth absent in the first film’s one-note scares, operating in moral grays that work: everyone’s got legit beef—Gemma’s regulation zeal, the contractor’s profit hunger, Cady’s quest for independence—making characters pop beyond archetypes.
The real rub?
This sequel fractures its audience. Fans of the original’s queer-coded camp and horror hooks might bail, feeling ghosted by the action pivot. Flip side: action buffs who skipped the first as too dry will eat this up, blind to its origins. I land squarely in the latter camp—M3GAN 2.0 was a nothingburger on my radar, but it blew me away as a guilty-pleasure gem in 2025’s cinematic dumpster fire.
If you crave pulse-pounding action without three hours of Tom Cruise dangling from biplanes, this is your antidote: 99 minutes of upgraded doll drama, killer one-liners, and enough AI dread to spark post-credits debates.
In a year where horror sequels fizzled and blockbusters bloated, M3GAN 2.0 proves evolution beats stagnation— even if the box office begs to differ.
4/5
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