The filmmakers behind ‘M3GAN 2.0’ have taken a different approach this time around. Where the original film played as a domestic thriller – featuring an AI doll who came across as a sort of twisted Mary Poppins, relieving the family of their domestic chores such as cooking the dinner as well as childcare – this sequel leans more into ‘Mission: Impossible’ or James Bond territory, albeit without the blockbuster budget.

There’s a playful, summer-thriller vibe here, and it’s fun to watch a film where the rogue AI might actually be on humanity’s side for once. That twist adds a fresh riff on familiar tropes. But at two hours, the film begins to run out of steam. The movie toys with deeper ethical questions, such as about the role and responsibility of AI, and whether it could, or should, ‘save’ the world, but it lacks the depth or narrative clarity to fully explore them.

We’re given a familiar mix of evil corporations, political conspiracies, and high-tech surveillance, but the ideas are often broader than the film’s ability to handle them. There’s even a surreal moment where M3GAN sings Kate Bush, which is amusing, if odd, and it feels like an attempt to shoehorn in yet another genre – the musical – into a film already juggling espionage and sci-fi thriller tropes.

Ultimately, ‘M3GAN 2.0’ feels vacuous and generic – ironically so, given how self-aware it seems at times. The script itself feels like it might have been written by AI – and maybe that’s the point. Whether intentionally or not, the film seems caught in a feedback loop between parody and sincerity. There is something intriguing in the idea that M3GAN’s physical form has been destroyed, but her data continues to exist in the cloud – watching, waiting, possibly guiding us.

It plays on familiar psychological fears of omniscience and surveillance, though again, the film mostly pays lip service to these ideas. I wonder whether in twenty years ‘M3GAN 2.0’ will be seen as a prescient exploration of AI anxieties, or as a cultural relic of a fleeting tech panic. For now, it’s a curious but flawed entry in the evolving conversation about AI, identity, and control.