This year is a big one for horror franchises, with several established universes getting new chapters on the big screen. One of those is Blumhouse’s M3GAN 2.0, a sequel to one of 2023’s best horror movies, which picks up two years after the events of the killer doll’s first murder spree. Critics were able to catch a screening of the flick before it hits the 2025 movie calendar on June 27, and some big changes have left them a bit conflicted.
Allison Williams and Violet McGraw lead the M3GAN 2.0 cast, and we’ll also be meeting a new robot villain named AMELIA. The Terminator 2-inspired plot sees Gemma and Cady calling on their former foe to help protect them against this greater threat. In CinemaBlend’s review of M3GAN 2.0, Sarah El-Mahmoud notes that the sequel is different — and maybe even better? — than the original, offering a new flavor of slasher goodness. She gives it 3.5 out of 5 stars, writing:
M3GAN 2.0 operates on a larger scale with set pieces like a stylish car chase, multiple epic showdowns between M3GAN and AMELIA, and world-ending stakes. The more insulated storyline of the first movie is a fun ride, but seeing M3GAN 2.0 pull all the stops to match the iconic status of M3GAN feels like a step in the right direction.
Mark Kennedy of the AP, however, wonders if writer/director Gerard Johnstone goes a little too big by straight-up changing the genre with its “horribly convoluted plot.” Whereas the first movie took place primarily at Gemma and Cady’s Seattle home, M3GAN 2.0 opens at the Turkish-Iranian border. Kennedy gives it 2 out of 4 stars and says:
Most of the same team that gave us the refreshing horror-comedy original two years ago have not only gone super-big, but also changed the franchise’s genre, turning M3GAN 2.0 into an action movie with two AI robots, two villains, FBI units, wingsuits, neural implants, a Mission: Impossible-style vault heist, exosuits, a 250-mph street chase in a supercar, a power grid disaster, a countdown clock, the United Nations and the fate of the planet at stake.
EW’s Jordan Hoffman, meanwhile, gives it a B, calling the upcoming horror movie an upgrade in creativity (despite its “confusing and idiotic plot”). Hoffman likes that Gerard Johnstone didn’t take the easy route and do a simple retread of the killer original. In the critic’s words:
M3GAN 2.0 luxuriates in the tropes of heist and spy movies, taking us to secret hideouts that almost reach Austin Powers levels of parody. But the reason this movie works as well as it does is that everyone plays it totally straight. The film succeeds as camp because, for the characters, it is deadly serious.
David Fear of Rolling Stone agrees with the critic above, but only with the part where the plot doesn’t make any sense. While the critic credits the director for avoiding the “rinse-and-repeat cycle,” a sequel should at least deliver some of what got fans excited in the first place. M3GAN 2.0 is devoid of scares, witty comebacks and anything resembling fun. Fear continues:
Conceptually, you can see how this might be an interesting switch-up. Execution-wise? Woo, boy. Recasting her from potential slasher-flick franchise superstar to something like M3GAN Bond must have felt like an upgrade. The result is more like the Microsoft Bob of horror sequels. Her model is 2.0. The overbaked, underwhelming, narratively restless movie itself is 0.0 percent watchable.
Brian Truitt of USA TODAY rates the upcoming Blumhouse horror 2 out of 4 stars, saying the singing, dancing robot we fell in love with two years ago has been “defanged and watered down” in this follow-up. In Truitt’s words:
Rather than being clever like the original movie, a horror-tinged sci-fi satire/parental cautionary tale, sequel M3GAN 2.0 is the type of combo goofy comedy/undercooked action flick that would earn an epic sick burn from M3GAN herself. She's the needle-dropping, TikTok-ready meme queen who's supposed to slay, and in this one, she just loses her way.
This seems to be an interesting new chapter in the M3GAN-verse, which is also getting a pretty cool-sounding M3GAN spinoff as well as possibly a third killer doll movie. Critics seem to appreciate the director’s ambitions to do something different with the sequel, but they don’t agree on whether that was successful or pays homage to what we liked from the first movie.
You can decide for yourself soon enough! M3GAN 2.0 is rated PG-13 and hits theaters Friday, June 27.
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