At The Movies: M3GAN 2.0 a m3diocre reboot, Hot Milk will leave you cold
The titular robotic doll in M3GAN 2.0 is played by Amie Donald and voiced by Jenna Davis.
M3GAN 2.0 (PG13)
120 minutes, now showing
★★☆☆☆
The story: Two years after she went rogue on a homicidal spree and was consequently destroyed, artificial intelligence doll M3GAN (Amie Donald, voiced by Jenna Davis) is reconstructed to take down military-grade cyborg Amelia (Ivanna Sakhno), or Autonomous Military Engagement Logistics & Infiltration Android, operating on her stolen source code.
M3GAN 2.0, a sequel to the American sleeper hit M3GAN (2022), would be Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) if Arnold Schwarzenegger were a twerking plastic tween with a pussy bow. Here is a killing machine that proved such a memeified fan favourite, she is rehabilitated as a hero to save humanity from her evil spawn.
This upgraded M3GAN invention of Seattle engineer Gemma (Allison Williams) is faster and stronger, because Amelia , a US government weapon, is a powerful nemesis who has gained sentience and decided to assassinate everyone.
The franchise under returning New Zealand writer-director Gerard Johnstone has accordingly expanded from a campy horror-lite into a big, banal sci-fi adventure again embroiling Gemma's orphan niece Cady (Violet McGraw) and lab mates (Brian Jordan Alvarez and Jen Van Epps).
The comic action is leaden with military conspiracies, spy hijinks, gunplay mayhem and amoral tech billionaires (one is played by Jemaine Clement) all but named Elon Musk.
And yet, the exposition dumps that often stop the action dead are somehow worse. Gemma is now an advocate for regulating AI. Her cautionary messages on technology's perils and potentials are shallow attempts at relevance, at odds with the dated 1980s Steven Seagal references and superfluous to a B-movie that is just an over-long lead-up to the anticipated fembot-on-fembot death match.
Hot take: This m3diocre reboot is relieved by only the marquee star's catty humour.
Hot Milk (R21)
93 minutes, opens on July 3
★★☆☆☆
Vicky Krieps (left) and Emma Mackey in Hot Milk.
PHOTO: SHAW ORGANISATION
The story: London anthropology student Sofia (Emma Mackey) accompanies her mother Rose (Fiona Shaw) to a private clinic in a Spanish coastal town, seeking a cure for the latter's crippling joint pains. What she finds is a holiday romance and the possibility of freedom.
The title is likely a metaphor for toxic maternity, how a mother's nurturing milk is scarring instead. Hot Milk is in any case a misnomer for this watered-down psychological drama on mother-daughter co-dependency, adapted from Deborah Levy's 2016 novel.
Rose is the cranky narcissist in a wheelchair, and Sofia's own life is in paralysis as her sole caregiver, trapped by Rose's needs over a possibly psychosomatic illness.
English actress Mackey (Sex Education, 2019 to 2023; Emily, 2022) plays Sofia like a heavy-browed storm cloud in a bikini that barely conceals her resentment.
She is stewing in the Mediterranean waters – the sunlit scenery dazzles – when German free spirit Ingrid (Vicky Krieps) rides a horse along the beach. A couple of shared cigarettes are all it takes for the two women to become sexual confidantes, driven by Sofia's long-suppressed desire to break loose.
The feature directing debut of British playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz has no dramatic structure and hence no narrative continuity, despite her recognition for scripting films on female rebellion like Disobedience (2017) and She Said (2022). Things simply happen, such as Sofia next looking up her estranged father in Greece and learning of Rose's troubled family history.
Ingrid, too, has a traumatic past, as well as male lovers who change from scene to scene.
Things will not end well. Neither will the movie, which devolves into a succession of scenes alternating between Rose and Sofia being miserable.
Hot take: The coda is a cliffhanger, but getting there is an uninvolving experience.
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