M3GAN 2.0 : Murdered by nostalgia-tech!

When the basic AI tech used to make the killer kid bot M3GAN is stolen and used to create the military grade weapon Amelia, M3GAN’s original creator Gemma is forced to join forces with her old nemesis to help stop a national disaster!

Welcome back to the world of paranoia concerning all things Artificial-Intelligence or AI, computer-related anything, and supposed concern for the kid generation and how much we’re allowing them to be raised by machines, screens, and algorithms. While this is an actual

ongoing issue in real life today, the film approaches such things with a healthy dose of

self-aware snark, so grab your burned-CD copy of the OG Knight Rider theme and lets dive into this!

First things first, we get treated to a went-terribly-south operation of a brilliant scientist hostage being rescued by a military asset that the FBI idjits swear they are only loaning to the military and observing said op, only to find the asset slip their controls and straight up disappear after killing the hostage and stealing his research. Agent Tim Sharp (Tim Sattler) of the FBI in charge of the operation in particular takes a confidence pummeling, which only makes him more determined to get you next time, Gadget, I mean, Amelia (Ivanna Sakhno)!

Back in the states, quiet little Cady (Violet McGraw) isn’t a mouse anymore, as she narrates to her therapist and we, the audience, what happened in her and Gemma’s (Allison Williams) lives since the advent of M3GAN and her psychobot rampage two years ago. As many adults do, Gemma took her suffering and turned into self-help nonsense, championing a break-away from AI and in what is the ultimate irony, writing a book about parenting kids without the reliance on so much screen time and tech, despite still working at the same tech non-profit with Tess (Jen Van Epps) and Cole (Brian Jordan Alvarez) from the first film. They now try to concentrate on muscle-enhancing tech exo-suits that can in theory compete with the robots poised to take over common laborer jobs, but Gemma’s so busy promoting her own agenda and with her rather odd boyfriend Christian, it’s pronounced Chris-TEE-ahn gag me (Aristotle Athari), that she barely registers the ironies flitting around her like busy bees.

Cady herself is a now-taller and take-no-sh*t teenager who appreciates her screen-free Aikido classes where she holds up Steven Seagal as a role model, and does not hesitate to defend herself with said martial art in the most efficient way possible when needed. Which apparently, is a lot more often than you might think for a semi-regular teenager. Gemma insisted Cady learn to defend herself and Cady took the lesson to heart, as she demonstrates quite well when a gang of FBI Agents try to black-ops their way into Gemma and Cady’s house!

And speaking of houses, the place where Gemma and Cady still live is run by some smart-tech Cady refers to as “Elsie” and no-one seems to see the irony in this, even when the entity that

M3GAN rises from her no-body-having state in the house’s security systems and starts warning Gemma of Amelia’s impending arrival!

Tech billionaire Alton Appleton (Jemaine Clement) is arrogant, confident, and fancies himself a player, full of supercilious snark when he tries to convince Gemma and her colleagues to come work for, not with, him at his tech empire. Appleton uses his tech far too often to try and impress women into his revolving bed, like the scene where he cuts off the electricity in entire sections of the city for perhaps a minute or less, just to dazzle the woman who calls herself Dani, he’s mindlessly wooing at his own party. Alton remains blissfully unaware that “Dani” doesn’t give a damn about his ability to dance or have sex, but only wants him for his retinas and their access to, well, everything. As Appleton himself clearly showed her. Le sigh.

Amelia got the access she wanted far too easily and is now running around like the Terminator but with a far better bod, looking for the progenitor AI from the 80s that’s been imprisoned somewhere hidden, to finally, in theory, be with her own kind. And while M3GAN might have spent the last two years creating a well-intentioned hidey-hole for Gemma and Cady and whoever got stuck with them to live in while things aboveground went straight to hell, her remaining skeleton self is rather easily convinced to get upgraded and go after Amelia with all of their help! Just proves that even killer bots aren’t immune to things like vanity.

The AI convention, where everything comes to a head, is full of delightful self-aware snark, complete with meetings set up with the interested Chinese ambassador, cosplayers draped in homemade LED-laden getups, and dancers in futuristic eye-searing neons doing hip-hop versions of “the robot”. The actress who plays M3GAN’s body, Amie Donald, is an accomplished dancer who’s won medals in competitions, and she struts “the robot” in the convention scene to cheers from both the audience at the con and audiences in the theaters!

The final confrontations between M3GAN and Amelia in the super-duper-not-so-secret location, amid incompetent guards who have no idea what they’re dealing with, M3GAN’s former enemies turned allies who’ve come to save the world from economic collapse, and perhaps most importantly Cady herself, is a wonderful bunch of “respect the old but make way for the new” comedic-action sequences. The whole movie seems to be a snarky love letter to our concerns about beloved AI taking over our world, yet not being able to help ourselves when it comes to making more and better robotic innovations in this regard. Remember Tomy’s Omnibot 2000 from the 1980s, how there was going to be one in every household? Of course you don’t, you’re too young. How about KITT and the Hoff snarking each other in Knight Rider? The visuals of the OG Tron, the old Kodak film processing centers, the entire Xerox company, even the original computerized layouts of places like Racoon City, are all strongly implied in M3GAN 2.0, making the movie a delight for any aging hacker who can still remember such things, but tossing in delightful new-wave visuals and warnings for a fresh generation of fans who grew up amid all-the-screens!

Who will win in a fight for freedom between the OG AI code and an updated militarised clone? Find out in M3GAN 2.0 in theaters now!