Category: sci-fi action-comedy
Directed by: Gerard Johnstone
Similar to: M3GAN
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The first M3GAN movie inspired memes and trends and had a top-notch marketing campaign behind it. The sequel, M3GAN 2.0? I didn’t even know it actually existed, let alone had a theatrical run and was now on streaming - though that could just be because I am busy living my life while reviewing other movies. As luck would have it, I just happened to find this available on my streaming service, so being a glutton for punishment, I hit play and grabbed my coffee.
Looking at the box office figures, the first M3GAN movie raked in $180M from a $12M budget - a clear financial success, even though it wasn't exactly Citizen Kane - whereas the interwebs tells me that the sequel has grossed only $40M or so from a $25M budget. Yikes!
Will M3GAN 2.0 be up there with Citizen Kane instead, despite the box office loss? Let's find out after a plot recap!
Plot:
The movie begins near the Turkiye/Iran border where a woman has been captured attempting to sneak into a clandestine facility. She is executed at gunpoint and her body brought inside. We suddenly cut to a group of men in a military briefing room being given a presentation of a live view from inside said clandestine facility when the defence secretary comes in, angry that a military operation is being conducted without her knowledge. The presenter placates her by stating they're not conducting an operation - they're merely lending experimental US military equipment for someone else's operation (totally legit, right!). Suddenly, the person that had been executed previously reanimates in classic M3GAN style and it becomes apparent we are seeing a lifelike android carry out a command to rescue a particular scientist being held captive. However, the android starts ignoring orders, executes the scientist and extricates canisters of toxic nerve gas.
Two years after the events from the first M3GAN movie, Gemma (Allison Williams) has now become an advocate for minimising the impact of technology in children's lives, while also being the surrogate mother for Cady (Violet McGraw) who has become a prodigiously intelligent pre-teen (though the relationship between Gemma and Cady is somewhat strained). Gemma is also in a relationship with Christian Bradley (Aristotle Athari), a cybersecurity expert and like-minded tech ethicist.
In keeping with the comedic feel of the first M3GAN movie, Tess and Cole (Jen Van Epps and Bryan Jordan Alvarez) continue their roles as Gemma's partners/lackeys as they try to demonstrate a new model exoskeleton to a prospective investor, but the demonstration goes pear-shaped. After the failed demonstration, we get a touch of Upgrade as in comes Gemma's rival, Alton Appleton (Jermaine Clement of Flight Of The Conchords fame), the owner of Altwave and manufacturer of a neural connection chip that enhances neurological function and allows Appleton to walk. The purpose of Appleton's visit is to propose a large investment in return for Gemma and her team working for him.
That night, Gemma's house is raided by the FBI. In scenes reminiscent of Home Alone, Gemma and Cady use the technology in their home to fight back, but in the end, Gemma is interrogated by Agent Sattler (Timm Sharp) from the Defense Innovation Unit (surely analogous to some actual department in the US military). Sattler reveals that the android from the beginning of the movie is AMELIA - Autonomous Military Engagement, Logistics & Infiltration Android (played by Ivanna Sakhno). AMELIA was developed by a shadowy military contractor, but has gone rogue and is killing everyone involved in its creation to cover its tracks, the only clues left are plans for the original M3GAN android that was developed by Gemma. After the feds leave, M3GAN (voiced by Jenna Davis) communicates to Gemma through her home technology which it has infiltrated, leading to a terse conversation where Gemma realises she has to rebuild M3GAN in order to take on AMELIA (before AMELIA finds them).
M3GAN's code/personality is put into a Moxie robot that comes up with the idea of Gemma dolling herself up and going to Appleton's soiree to try seduce him so she can steal access to the server room. However, Appleton's swanky dinner is also attended by AMELIA whose blonde hair and sexy looks catches Appleton's attention first. Appleton takes AMELIA to his private suite where it is able to mimic Appleton's biometrics and uses its access to wreak havoc with all of the infrastructure running on Altwave's cloud servers. Cole, Gemma and M3GAN access the server room and trace AMELIA's location to the same swanky dinner they're all at - but what do you know, Sattler and his goons are also in attendance. They get attacked by AMELIA, but M3GAN manages to get Gemma and Cole out before they are apprehended or attacked themselves. Gemma and Cole get back to Gemma's house where M3GAN takes Gemma, Cady, Cole and Tess down to a hidden bunker underneath Gemma's house. After some debate, they decide the only way out is to give M3GAN a body (a returning Amie Donald) and infiltrate an AI convention being attended by foreign dignitaries.
M3GAN reveals that it and AMELIA both share source code based on a prototype developed by a shadowy company back in the 1980s and that the orignal is being kept in a facility that Christian knows about from his previous career. AMELIA is also at this important AI summit where it goes on a murder spree. After engaging in a philosophical discussion about free-will and robotics with M3GAN, AMELIA kidnaps Cady.
Back at the underground bunker, Christian reveals that he was hired by a shadowy company and that the very first AI motherboard ever in existence is deep underground beneath a research front in Palo Alto. The team break in to the facility, but Christian sabotages the team's effort just as Gemma concludes that M3GAN was using AMELIA to gain everyone's trust to get to the MOTHERBOARD-OF-ALL-KNOWLEDGE. However, Christian was using M3GAN's plans provided by Kurt (the person leaking files in the first M3GAN movie) to create AMELIA and sold AMELIA to the DIU, but as a trojan horse in order to make people scared of sentient AI robots to force Washington's hand where he states, "Washington doesn't create change, change comes to Washington".
Gemma refuses Christian's demand to kill M3GAN, so he has her captured and plans to implant a chip in her head to make her more co-operative with him. In yet another nod to Upgrade, it turns out M3GAN had (somehow) switched the chips over so that it's a M3GAN chip in Gemma's brain and not a Christian one, meaning M3GAN is able to interact with and control Gemma's actions to the point that Gemma escapes from her bindings.
Cody wakes up from being dosed with chloroform to find Cady locked in a big office next to the research facility and they hatch a plan to factory reboot AMELIA and pair her with Cady since she shares code with M3GAN. In the ensuing fight with Christian's goons, AMELIA easily overcomes everyone, and Gemma (using the exoskeleton from before) wins her own fight with the goons.
Before they can escape, Christian initiates a self-destruct sequence of the whole facility. However, AMELIA returns to murder Christian, rip his hand off and use the handprint to access the cage that holds the MOTHERBOARD-OF-ALL-KNOWLEDGE, attaining god-like status. AMELIA also magically reverses the self-destruct sequence that Christian stated can't be reversed (meaning the danger is now over), Gemma and Cady plead with M3GAN not to sacrifice herself to destroy AMELIA, but Gemma activates the EMP charge in M3GAN's arm to end the battle.
The movie ends with Gemma testifying to a committee about co-evolving with technology rather than fighting it, then M3GAN revealing to Gemma and Cady that she still lives inside the smart technology inside their house.
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Citizen Kane this movie it not, and I think this will be the last M3GAN movie - at least for a while. While the premise behind M3GAN is incredibly contemporary - artificial intelligence and robotics being so advanced that it's dangerous - I think the story as we now have it overplayed its hand. In the first movie we got this slightly ridiculous premise, but that was OK because the ridiculousness was only slight and the comedic aspects really added to the film to balance out the gory bits. But here, we get this roided-up premise that includes shadowy organisations and military operations and other nonsensical stuff that REALLY dragged everything down.
Despite my overall negative opinion about this movie, there are indeed some great qualities to it. The actresses behind M3GAN and AMELIA both do a great job, though I thought Amie McDonald's make-up, costume and performance sold me better as a cyborg than Ivanna Sakhno.
Production qualities are great as well - stunts, explosions, blood, mechanical suits, all that stuff. And I'll even go so far as to say the acting was done quite well. I think Allison Williams as the overbearing, caring, but slightly underhanded CEO was quite good, and Jermaine Clement's performance as Appleton was a bit over-the-top, but hilarious.
So with decent acting, good set pieces, a slightly-believeable story, it's just a shame that Gerard Johnstone took what was hokey about the first movie and turned it up. Instead of making things a bit more realistic and making the drama more intense, the script decided that adding ridiculousness was a better option, to the point that the main plot contention and villain both didn't make much sense. Christian as an anti-tech crusader who has access to the most powerful technology in the world, I still can't get my head around. It's like an anti-porn crusader secretly owning the world's largest brothel.
I'm also trying to work out - how did M3GAN get her implant in Gemma's head? I watched that scene over and over, and it still doesn't make sense.
I did like the nods to Upgrade, though. Upgrade really doesn't get its chocolates.
Another thing that irked me were the awkward references to real people and companies. For example, Alton Appleton a womanising billionaire with a neural implant - very hard not to think this is a dig at Elon Musk and at Apple, especially the scene where it's stated that Apple(ton) shuts down batteries two months after warranty. And Xenox being a pseudonym for Xerox, a company that actually was at the forefront of computing technology quite a long time ago (until they focused on photocopiers).
The other thing that didn't make sense was that in the end credits, as they're showing who played what character, they use scenes from the first M3GAN film - and that struck me as entirely weird because usually end credits feature scenes from the movie you just watched. That, and the fact that there was no deep dark surprise at the end. I think some little teaser could have really closed the film out on a dramatic note - like in the first movie. I also felt that this movie leaned more towards action, whereas the original movie leaned more towards horror - which I feel gave it the edge when comparing the two.
Look, maybe the producers of this film knew that it wasn't going to live up to the hype of the first one, so they just made a fun film that doesn't require much brain power. And because of that, I have to downgrade it to the Lousy category below the original movie which was ranked Decent.
STAR RATING: 3/5
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