How do you improve upon camp perfection? Gerard Johnstone’s M3GAN was already ideally programmed for maximum meme-ification, thanks to the heavily marketed sequence of its killer robot doing TikTok-ready dances while it chases its latest victim. But even when the sassy AI doll was destroyed by its creator Gemma (Allison Williams) and her grieving niece Cady (Violet McGraw), it was clear that M3GAN had to get a sequel. And it did it the only way M3GAN could: by going full superhero.
M3GAN 2.0, which sees Johnstone return as director alongside screenwriter Akela Cooper, proves that the first film was no fluke. The first M3GAN was explicitly made to be a silly, absurd horror hit — from the schoolgirl stylings of its uncanny valley doll, to the pop song needle-drops and dance scenes. And its raucous reception showed that Johnstone, Cooper, and James Wan (who wrote the story alongside Cooper) hit all the right notes. With its sequel, they double down on the camp silliness, and then some. You liked M3GAN dancing? Well, here’s a whole choreographed show where she pops and locks for a cheering audience. You were a fan of M3GAN singing an early aughts pop song? Here’s her bringing the movie to a halt to sing Kate Bush’s “This Woman’s Work” to a perplexed and increasingly irritated Gemma. You embrace M3GAN as our new horror icon and savior? Well, now she’s a superhero.
