M3gan opens in theaters on Friday, June 27.
There was a time when horror mascots took several films to find their way to the status of icon. But from the moment M3gan made his way towards the enforcement of Ronny Chien, it seemed that the dancing murder robot had years of suites and snark in front of her. His unlimited reserves of Generative Smartassery and a tendency to penetrate the song – as well as his thematic echoes rich in real world debate on artificial intelligence – branch directly on M3gan 2.0, which widens the scope and highlights the highlighting of its predecessor, while adding new ideas and even types of films in its programming. But as with any major update, some errors have rushed into the code.
At the top of the layoffs of the suite is a crystalline modulation of the genre. From the moment when the words “somewhere on the Turkish / Iranian border” are planed through M3gan 2.0 Very first stroke It is clear what will follow will be far from the relatively modest and ironic horror film that preceded it. So long at the Robo Rampage which simply threatened the life of anyone who was emitted between the fabulous Supertoy and its human accusation, Cady (McGraw Violet); Hello to the global threat posed by the military quality Android Amelia (Ivanna Sakhno). The Amelia’s troubled patterns have put it on a collision trajectory with Cady, his adoptive aunt / mother Gemma (Allison Williams) and, finally, M3gan and Sakhno embark on the role, with a cold and imposing stature carrying none of the vibrations of cold and imposing parasocial bestocial. But while his goal begins to take shape, it becomes clear that there is little interest in making Amelia a convincing character in its own right. No, it is really an improved villain limited to an ethics of “research and destroy” T-1000.
A few years later, Buggy and Bloody Launch from M3gan, Gemma and Cady (MCGRAW Violet) found a more stable domestic groove, and with that, ways to face. Their relationship benefits from the way they have grown and matured – Gemma defends digital detoxification while Cady studies martial art that entertains the attack on Aikido – and Williams and McGraw have a credible parent / adolescent dynamic that gives the director Gerard Johnstone something to come back while the stakes are raised in apocalyptic proportions. M3gan was not subtle to position its titular character as a replacement for excessive dependence on smart devices, and M3GAN 2.0 also hammers us above the head with categorical pleads against uncontrolled AI. This is a well-intentioned and protruding point, but it is expressed through a caricaturally extreme yin-yang of Tech-Bro Send-ups: Party Animal / Cybernetics Magnate Alton Appleton (Jemaine Clement) and Gemma de Gemma, insufficiently boring, boyfriend, Christian (Aristotle Athari). They blur the waters with observations launched on the state of technology that feel too unidimensional and short -sighted.
Just as M3gan’s first outing paid tribute to the child’s game formula (recognition of 2019 technology remake Go here), the configuration and pontifications of the villain of M3gan 2.0 which have become and pontifications on human relations / machine would have been enough to raise Terminator 2: Judgment Day comparisons by themselves. As the characters predict the infiltration of a technological campus, it seems that Johnstone is a little too indebted to what many think is the best science fiction action film never achieved. By moving the development of its kind, M3gan 2.0 loses the advantage of being a horror film using great jokes to strike above its weight, and rather resembles a science fiction film which collapses to make the most of its budget. This can Work: Happy Death Day 2u took the concept of Slasher with the original temporal loop and exploded it in a comedy on time travel – that yes, there was still a little strike. If the action of M3GAN 2.0 can be useful – and there are sometimes intelligent uses of the capacities of M3gan and Amelia – there are only so many black lips that they can knock out or browse with sharp objects before everything becomes a little repetitive.
It is a good thing when it is always centered around the reigning queen of passive aggressive aces and burns. The rest goes through growing pains because she throws her horror DNA to make room for more elements of science fiction and action, but M3gan herself comes out on the other side. Johnstone strengthens a good expectation for his return through the first act, alluding to his persistent conscience through an intelligent use of intelligent home devices which reminds us of both his large -scale capacities and her poisonous mind. M3gan 2.0 stretches to explain why M3gan would like to give up the freedom to transcend a physical form, but it is such a delicious presence that it is a forgivable logic. In addition, it is an intrinsically physical being on the screen: through several material versions of spectacular realization in M3gan 2.0, M3gan transmits a threat and / or a humor, with the slightest change of expression. And it is even before you do not reach stunned physiological questions like why she must throw a towel with confidence on her shoulder after a difficult training session (other than be a hilarious way of leaving the frame.)
In the more emotional region of M3gan’s hard drive, there is not as much Schmaltz as you can expect from an Android suction for humanity, even if M3gan’s feelings on the subject earn much more nuances when it has given a second chance to protect CADY. M3GAN tackles its own autonomy with, I dare to say it, humility. It’s nice to see M3gan grapping with these questions in a realistic and faithful way to the character.
There is an irony which deserves to be noted here that the success of M3gan as a cinematographic creation descends entirely to the craftsmen and artists responsible for bringing it back to life. The stellar vocal work of Jenna Davis and the continuously impressive physical performances of friend Donald, the animatronic and visual effects without seam, the one -you -brings of Johnstone impregnated with the personality established in the M3gan scenario of Akela Cooper – all this represents a very human work which succeeds in doing so that the character kept a franchise scorer, even if his emanations of Sophomore fail to make normeal platforms.
