Tikok has long been a marketing tool for Hollywood studios. But in 2022 there were two horror films who exceeded all expectations due to the hype on the Chinese video platform. It started with “Smile”, which was originally supposed to be published directly at the Paramount+ streaming service. But after the grinning faces on Tikkok had disturbed the camera, the $ 17 million was rinse into the box office in the end. Just a few months later followed “M3gan“About a humanoid AI doll that really does everything to protect her young owner.
However, it was less of their murderous tendencies than their dance moves who went viral on Tikok – and ended up taking revenue with a budget of just twelve million. However, the parallels do not end, because there are also similarities between the sequels: Parker Finn used his free ticket at “Smile 2” to finally establish themselves as a horror audotic va with a darling, colorful pop horror melodrama. Gerard Johnstone now tries something similar with “M3gan 2.0“ – just with much less success, even if there is still enough crazy ideas in the sequel to be fun.
Unfortunately, you can only see him on the scenes from behind: the children's AI robot can be seen on the left, in which M3gan stuck in the first half of the film.
After the highly developed M3gan Ki-Puppe could be stopped at the last second, the participants had a rethink: even her creator Gemma (Allison Williams) with her new lobbyist friend Christian (Aristotle Athari) is now setting up for anti-Ki regulations. But there is a player who of course cannot miss such a chance: the US military. With Amelia (Ivanna Sakhno) it now has its own robot AI, which, however, runs at the Turkish-Iranian border Amok when they first missed.
Obviously Amelia pursues autonomous goals – and Gemma's niece Cady (Violet McGraw) also seems to play an important role in them. But M3gan, who was not completely destroyed, but has hidden somewhere online, can of course not allow her former playmate to happen. That is why the Babysitter AI has caught a plan for months to protect Cady. However, Gemma remains skeptical, which is why M3Gan is initially not allowed to return to her old body, but is interconnected in a pedagogically valuable children's toy robot with very limited movement options …
No more horror
Already in the-quite positive-conclusion of our criticism of “M3Gan” we found: “A really nice nasty little horror satire, which is more convincing with her caustic-bite humor than with creepy scenes (…).” In the sequel, crushing is finally over-anyway, “M3GAN 2.0” is less a horror film at its core than a superhero variation with a broadly created AI conspiracy and an exhibited cynical streak. This is revealed u. When dealing with the makers with the desired youth release: Like the predecessor, the sequel is again “PG-13”-relatively bloodless.
Would “M3GAN 2.0” be a better (horror) film with an R-rating? Probably already. But if you have to be cut away, then like to do it like this: When you tear around the head, there is a cut to the “Breaking News” blinding of a news program on TV shortly before the expected broken neck. And right from the start, the special strength of Amelia is also underlined by the fact that she can thresh her head from the body with a single punch – which we “only” see as a shadow play on the wall.
M3gan finally has her body back – and has even grown by a few centimeters.
Like Parker Finn at “Smile 2”, Gerard Johnstone obviously strives to make his continuation “bigger” – he is just turned in the wrong direction: If the plot of “M3Gan” was still comparatively simple, the plot of “M3GAN 2.0” is now completely overloaded – feels two thirds of the proud runtime of almost exactly two hours that (too many) figures exposure, explanations, explain explanations, explanations and the general general places of philosophical on the future of the AI. So the fun elements of the film hardly really get going before they are slowed down directly from the next dialogue spell.
The dance sequence in M3Gan's new anime outfit is by no means as iconic as in the first film-but the nasty humor in particular is still damn mood. When Jemaine Clement wants to impress his date as a windy AI investor, he turns off the electricity to the whole city because it looks particularly spectacular from the window of his penthouse suite-shit on the screams and crashs, which then suddenly sound up from the streets.
Endless allusions
You can also tell that Gerard Johnstone completely passes his own thing in the sequel that the target audience of the film and the target audience of the interspersed pop culture quotes do not fit together-which I personally feel as pleasantly anachronistic: “M3Gan” may have become so successful thanks to Tikok and Generation Z-but in the final it is the title of Steven-Seagal-Spine Like “Hard to Kill” and “Nico” (= “above the law”), which save the day, while in the meantime the “Knight Rider” title melody sounds and M3 goose is certainly not reminiscent of “Kevin-alone at home”.
Conclusion: In the two hours of “M3GAN 2.0” there is probably a really entertaining 80 minute-only too much is talked and explained between the moody inserts.