Latest news with #Terminator2-style
Time Magazine
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time Magazine
M3GAN 2.0 Is a Horror Sequel With No Horror
Warning: This post contains spoilers for M3GAN 2.0. M3GAN became a surprise hit in early 2023, earning nearly $182 million worldwide against a budget of just $12 million, due in part to the balance the movie managed to strike between creepy horror and campy comedy. Here was an AI-powered doll who came pre-loaded with meme-worthy dance moves and the ability to spontaneously burst into an a cappella rendition of Sia's "Titanium," but who was also capable of chasing school children into oncoming traffic and fatally wielding a machete. Over two years later, M3GAN 2.0 brings its sassy titular android back for a sequel that delivers on the comedy front, but strips M3GAN of her horror appeal in favor of a more action-centric plot. When a horror sequel featuring the same big bad as the first movie gets the green light, there's generally one of two routes it can go: a new and improved (or, more often, not so impressive) take on the original story or a Terminator 2-style installment in which the villain comes up against an even greater threat. M3GAN 2.0, written and directed by Gerard Johnstone, opts for the latter, a decision that sends the franchise in a new direction by giving M3GAN (played by Amie Donald and voiced by Jenna Davis) a redemption arc following her previous murderous rampage. "For me, it was just so obvious, because the reaction to the first film happened on this global scale," Johnstone told Variety of the reason for the tonal shift. "The technology that M3GAN has is being fought over by various nations. At the moment, everyone's in this race to be the first to get AGI. It felt like a story that needed to play out on a much bigger canvas." In the two years that have passed since the events of the first film, roboticist Gemma (Allison Williams) has become a staunch advocate for government regulation of AI, while her now-preteen niece Cady (Violet McGraw) has thrown herself into computer science and the martial arts practice of aikido to work through her trauma. But when a team of FBI agents breaks into their home one night, Gemma learns that not only did M3GAN's digital consciousness survive the destruction of her body, but her underlying tech was also stolen to create a military-grade AI super-soldier named AMELIA (Ivanna Sakhno). Oh, and AMELIA has gone rogue and wants to destroy humanity. Naturally, this development forces Gemma to team up with M3GAN and build her a new and improved body in order to try to save the world alongside her colleagues Cole (Brian Jordan Alvarez) and Tess (Jen Van Epps), and fellow tech activist Christian (Aristotle Athari)—a potential love interest who, surprise, actually turns out to be the person behind AMELIA's creation. While we won't get into the somewhat convoluted details of how exactly AMELIA intends to bring her goals to fruition, just know the movie reads as a satirical cautionary tale about the evolution of AI. Johnstone, however, has said he views the sequel as more of a parenting allegory. "We're not saying, 'Don't build AI.' We're asking, 'What happens when you don't train it right?'" he told Creative Screenwriting. "You don't train kids like dogs. You raise them. That's the same with AI." In the end, an action-packed showdown at a Palo Alto tech campus culminates in M3gan proving she has developed true empathy by sacrificing herself in order to save Cady and Gemma, and eliminate the threat of AMELIA and the mysterious all-powerful Motherboard AI she's after. But worry not, M3GAN 2.0's final moments reveal M3GAN's source code is still alive and well, leaving the door open for future sequels that could fall under a variety of genres. According to Johnstone, the sky is apparently the limit. "I would not be surprised if there's another five of these movies," he told the Hollywood Reporter. "So, who knows, maybe I'll come back for the fifth one."
Scotsman
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
M3GAN 2.0 review: 'an amusing reflection of the current moment'
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... M3GAN 2.0 (15) ★★★ In the two years since satirical sci-fi horror comedy M3GAN came out, a lot of the generative AI tech its killer toy-bot plot was riffing on has become worryingly commonplace. It's appropriate, then, that its outré sequel M3GAN 2.0 has undergone an exponential upgrade in keeping with its title. If the first film operated in a speculative sweet-spot somewhere between getting in under the wire and being late to the party (turncoat robots and humanity-destroying AI have, after all, been a staple of cinema for decades), the new film's goofily preposterous plot is so outlandish it manages to make a weirdly trenchant mockery of our current chaotic reality, right down to the fact it opens with an AI-powered attack on Iran by an incompetent American government agency that hasn't thought through the destabilising consequences of its actions. Gemma (Allison Williams) and M3GAN in M3GAN 2.0, directed by Gerard Johnstone. | Contributed As accidentally tasteless as that sounds, the film quickly returns us to the world of the first film where M3gan's chastened inventor, Gemma (Allison Williams), has volte-faced into becoming a public evangelist for responsible tech restrictions while simultaneously trying to take a more hands-on approach to parenting Cady (Violet McGraw), the orphaned, now-teenaged, niece she mistakenly left to the care of the over-zealous M3gan doll first time round (M3gan is once again partly played by teenage dancer Amie Donald and voiced by Jenna Davis). Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad As the film opens, that murderous robo-protector now exists in cyberspace only, her body having been destroyed and her source code supposedly erased. But when a US military-sanctioned cyborg assassin ripped off from M3gan goes rogue (she's called Amelia and is played by Ivanna Sakhno), Gemma – with Cady's help – has to reboot, rebuild and reprogram her original creation to take it down, Terminator 2-style. M3GAN in M3GAN 2.0 directed by Gerard Johnstone | Contributed Once again directed by Gerard Johnstone and produced by horror maestros James Wan and Jason Blum, the film certainly isn't shy about embracing its influences, paying blatant tongue-in-cheek homage to the aforementioned T2 (and the Matrix) as it morphs into a full-scale action extravaganza. Consequently, it sacrifices the slasher movie element that made the first film such a hoot, though mercifully not the campiness, which provides waves of weirdness that ensure that, while M3GAN 2.0 is no candidate for greatness, it is, in its own bizarre way, an amusing reflection of the current moment.
