M3GAN 2.0

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2. M3GAN 2.0

The Reel Review

B

Two years after her murderous rampage, the snarky AI robot M3GAN is back, this time to save humanity from AMELIA, a rogue military robot planning an AI takeover of the entire planet. Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, Amie Donald and Ivanna Sakhno star in this sequel to the popular 2022 sci-fi action thriller.

M3GAN 2.0 totally leans into camp, with several surprising and hilarious, laugh-out-loud moments, loads of action sequences and a much higher body count than the original. Although M3GAN, Williams and McGraw dominate the screen time, they are joined by comedian Aristotle Athari as a tediously pretentious Elon Musk-type tech billionaire and a terrific Sakhno as the military cyborg who bears an uncanny resemblance to Elizabeth Olson.

Unfortunately, it is the overly complicated story from returning director Gerard Johnstone and writers James Wan and Akela Cooper that has this sequel falling short of the original. The midsection is bogged down with nonsensical tech world mumbo jumbo and an overly convoluted story when all we really want is to see M3GAN kick some ass and crack some jokes. There is still enough of that, however, to make M3GAN 2.0 an entertaining good time.

REEL FACTS

• In the film, M3GAN asks to be made taller since the now 15-year-old Amie Donald who played her had gone through a growth spurt.

• Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, Ivanna Sahkno is best known for the role of Shin Hati in the 2023 Disney+ Star Wars spin-off sci-fi series Ahsoka. The 27-year-old is also a political activist for her home country.

• Allison Williams, the daughter of former NBC News anchor Brian Williams, recently revealed that she and fellow actor Alexander Dreymon are married, having tied the knot sometime after the 2021 birth of their son Arlo. The two met while filming the 2020 thriller Horizon Line.