M3GAN 2.0 (2025) Review

Just when you thought it was safe to plug your smart speaker back in, M3GAN returns – new limbs, sharper lines, and even snarkier software. Following the surprise hit of 2023, Gerard Johnstone’s M3GAN 2.0 leans hard into the absurdities of modern tech culture while flipping the script on its original premise. The result is a riotous blend of action, satire, and low-simmer social commentary, delivered with all the dead-eyed charm you’d expect from your favourite killer doll.

We catch up with Gemma (Allison Williams), once the unwitting creator of chaos, now turned poster girl for AI regulation. She’s traded in corporate ambition for Aikido classes and moral accountability, raising Cady (Violet McGraw) in a post-trauma bubble of screen-free, ethically aware parenting. But peace is short-lived. Enter Amelia, a new, militarised android built from stolen M3GAN schematics, who promptly begins leaving a trail of bodies and shredded code. Faced with extinction, Gemma makes a reluctant pact with the devil she knows: bring M3GAN back online.

If the first film played like Child’s Play for the TikTok generation, the sequel riffs more freely on Terminator 2. This time, M3GAN’s not the threat, she’s the reluctant saviour, rebooted with upgraded specs and just enough menace to keep things spicy. She’s still got the glint in her eye and the voice of someone who’s watched too many hours of YouTube tutorials. Jenna Davis and Amie Donald return to voice and perform the titular tech terror, managing once again to make her both hilarious and vaguely unsettling.

What’s striking here is how little interest the film has in horror this time round. The jump scares are few, the gore minimal. Instead, Johnstone uses the genre trappings as a springboard for action set pieces and sly critiques of tech evangelism. Jemaine Clement turns up as a wheelchair-bound billionaire with Elon Musk delusions, all charisma and sinister undertones. There’s a genuinely funny thread involving aikido, 90s action films, and Cady’s sudden love of Steven Seagal – a joke that gets more mileage than it ought to, especially given the age of the target audience.

The real joy, though, lies in the film’s willingness to embrace its own silliness. Whereas the first film had a few funny moments, part two leans right into the comedic elements. M3GAN sings This Woman’s Work in a moment of robotic redemption so bizarre it loops back around to brilliance. There are droid battles, malfunctioning smart devices, and enough visual nods to Metropolis, Robocop and Ex Machina to keep the cinephiles happy. It’s a messy, often madcap film, but one that commits to its tone with real confidence.

The script does occasionally overdose on camp, and at nearly two hours, it flirts with overstaying its welcome. Yet it manages to do something most sequels don’t: evolve. M3GAN 2.0 isn’t trying to recreate the tension of its predecessor, instead it’s asking what happens when artificial intelligence becomes less a menace and more a mirror. And if that mirror has killer cheekbones, perfect posture, and a thirst for vengeance? All the better.

This might not be the future Asimov warned us about, but it’s certainly the one we deserve – and it’s weirdly great fun.

Movie Rating:

M3GAN 2.0 trailer