Horror-Comedy Reinvents Terminator 2 for the A.I. Age
DIRECTOR: GERARD JOHNSTONE/2025
Something you should know up front: I have mixed feeling about artificial intelligence. In the cons column, I worry it’s making the world dependent on Big Tech, proliferating plagiarism, reducing improvement of our critical thinking, and infringing on artists’ livelihoods. In the pro column: I guess it’s pretty funny when M3GAN dances?
Three years since M3GAN introduced us to the children’s robot BFF—and since she turned into a psycho killer to protect her kid, Cady (Violet McGraw)—her inventor Gemma (Allison Williams) is struggling to keep her tech and robotics company afloat. Though her co-workers Cole (Brian Jordan Alvarez) and Tess (Jen Van Epps) are committed to discovering the company’s next big idea, their billionaire competitor Alton Appleton (Jermaine Clement, wonderfully smarmy) thinks their new stance on A.I. restraint is holding them back. But when the government raids their home, Gemma and Cady discover they may be the targets of a robot (Ivanna Sakhno) built from M3GAN’s code. Though even she can’t believe she’s saying it, Gemma realizes there’s only one “person” who can protect them: M3GAN.
If that robot-villain-turns-child-protector-in-the-sequel plot sounds familiar, it’s because Terminator 2: Judgment Day did it pretty perfectly almost 35 years ago. At least M3GAN 2.0 acknowledges the film it’s aping with several Linda Hamilton/Mackenzie Davis-inspired haircuts and at least one scene that’s so darn similar it must be an homage. Also to its credit, the VFX work looks pretty darn spectacular for a genre film not hoping to make a billion dollars, which is perhaps the most worthy way to honor a James Cameron classic. There’s one key difference between T2 and 2.0: This is as silly as they come.
That’s not a complaint in it of itself—if you enter M3GAN 2.0 with an open heart, you’ll almost certainly leave delighted. M3GAN (powered physically by Amie Donald and with vocals by Jenna Davis) is still the snarky, dancing fiend who won’t scare anyone over the age of 13 and gets away with saying things we wish we could. As her foil, Allison Williams knows exactly what movie she’s in, turning Gemma into the most uptight lead of a big-budget movie since Bryce Dallas Howard’s theme park director in the first Jurassic World. (Unlike Jurassic World, this movie also knows just how annoying Gemma is.) As further evidence of its taste, 2.0 pays tribute to another action legend even more than the Terminator: Steven Seagal.
Seagal, though plenty successful, is a better representative for the less-than-prestigious aspirations of this franchise. M3GAN 2.0 is best when it’s leaning into its comedy, like M3GAN’s a cappella Kate Bush performance or when revealing Appleton’s seduction chamber inspired by Rock Hudson’s bachelor pad in Pillow Talk. It’s less successful when it attempts to dig into the A.I.-deas supposedly generating this plot. Aside from the toothless, vague belief we should limit children from overusing it, I can’t tell you what anyone on or behind the screen thinks about artificial intelligence. Gemma’s paramour is an activist focused on preventing A.I. expansion (Aristotle Athari, we hardly knew ye on Saturday Night Live), but without giving anything away, the events of the film do beg us consider the benefits of the tools he’s arguing against. A generous reading would be 2.0 understands A.I. can’t be stopped and believes we might as well make the best of it, but it presents quite a bit of gleeful carnage for a “best” case scenario.
For a more thoughtful take on the role of artificial intelligence in a genre film, check out an earlier release from this year, Companion, which was also falsely marketed as a slasher horror flick. This Dumpuary thriller turned out to be a sneakily thoughtful exploration of modern dysfunctional relationships underneath its murder mystery-esque structure. While the A.I. served more as a metaphor than a sci-fi postulation of our future, it found creative ways to demonstrate how we use and abuse technology to use and abuse other people. And hey, it even had a memorable dancing scene! Then again, was it dance-off that turned into a robot duel peppered with zingy one-liners and with dozens of casualties? So far, that’s an A.I. experience only M3GAN can deliver.