Oh no. The sequel to M3gan is absolutely t3rribl3.
It’s as if nobody involved with that 2023 cybershocker – Gerard Johnstone returns to directing duties – has any idea what made it such a hilarious blast.
Yes, the movie had things to say about the dangers of robotics and the threat of artificial intelligence. But those observations were at the level of “that stuff sucks, man!”. M3gan was, more than anything else, a possessed-doll movie in the vein of Chucky, Annabelle or Dead of Night. The laughs came from contrasting the doll’s cute subservience with her taste for hugely creative carnage.
[ M3gan: An AI doll - what could possibly go wrong?Opens in new window ]
About 20 minutes into the woeful sequel it becomes clear what is going on: these people think they are making Terminator 2: Judgment Day. This is partly down to a borderline-apocalyptic plot involving the advance of a robot takeover; it is more to do with the pitting of a now-largely benign M3gan against a more advanced model of her own kind.
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The original got her acronym from “Model 3 generative android”. Amelia (no number, no fun) gets hers from “autonomous military engagement logistics and infiltration android”. Some defence contractor designs her as a sort of ambulatory weapon without realising – have you never seen a movie, dude? – that she is bound to use her powers in an attempted AI overthrow. Such mayhem results.
Meanwhile, Cady (Violet McGraw), the young girl whom M3gan once violently protected, is living in high-tech normality with her computer boffin mom (Allison Williams). After one thing or another, those veterans of the first film find themselves uneasily allied with the now-reformed Model 3 against her boring, boring, boring successor.
M3gan had a beautifully simple concept that was pumped up just enough to justify a taut feature. Not only has that been jettisoned for this spaghetti of confusion, but the central character has been largely neutered to make way for a generic cyborg that would barely pass muster as baddie in a suburban pantomime.
The best joke in the film – referencing one of Kate Bush’s best songs – almost slips away because it is too easy to believe that the comically exaggerated mawkishness is the sort of thing that might be meant sincerely in a film this terrible. That is never a good sign.
In cinemas from Friday, June 27th
