M3GAN 2.0 is an impressive sequel because of how thoroughly it avoids repeating the format of part 1.0. It’s not even the same genre – more straight up sci-fi thriller than killer doll horror – but it feels of a piece by having the same joyful sense of absurdity. I laughed at its audacity to open as a straight up action movie – imagine if CHILD’S PLAY 2 opened with the infiltration of a terrorist compound on the Turkish-Iranian border! U.S. Army Colonel Sattler (Timm Sharp, KING OF THE ANTS) watches remotely from a war room, bragging that his agent Amelia (Ivanna Sakhno, High Fidelity) is in fact a highly advanced android on loan to Saudia Arabia to skirt laws. But just as they’re celebrating a successful test run Amelia executes the scientist she’s supposed to capture, steals his biological weapons and turns off her tracking. She’s gone rogue.
Then we get an info dump on our part 1 characters, now living in fake San Francisco instead of fake Seattle. Gemma (Allison Williams, GET OUT), genius roboticist/flawed aunt whose artificially intelligent doll creation Megan went on a killing spree, has spun her infamy into a successful career as an author and AI regulation advocate in partnership with her new boyfriend, cybersecurity expert Christian Bradley (Aristotle Athari, featured player on SNL season 47). She still works with Tess (Jen Van Epps, 1 episode Power Rangers Dino Fury) and Cole (Brian Jordan Alvarez, 80 FOR BRADY), but instead of electronic toys they’re trying to make useful and ethical things like an exo-skeleton for the disabled. (read the rest of this shit…)
