Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.

With the start of summer and the long holiday weekend, there are tons of events going on in Toronto. Downtown streets will be closed today as a million people show up for the Pride Day parade. It’s also the launch of the Italian Contemporary Film Festival in the Distillery District. 

So with a hot summer looming — along with an early deadline — I’m reviewing just one movie this week — something about an AI robot who wants to destroy the world.

M3gan 2.0

Co-Wri/Dir: Gerard Johnstone

Gemma (Allison Williams) is a genius roboticist who lives with her niece Cady (Violet McGraw) in a “smart house” in San Francisco. From an ice dispenser to a Murphy bed, everything in the house anticipate their needs. They moved there after a toy she made for Cady —  an AI-powered doll known as M3GAN —  went terribly wrong. She quit her job at the toy company, destroyed the prototype and devoted her time to writ8ing a book about the dangers of AI. Cady terribly misses her killer doll friend and is now even more alienated from her adopted Mom. She takes out her frustrations by practicing Tae Kwan Do. But one day, their home is raided by a gang of paramilitary soldiers, who attempt to take them captive.

Were they sent by a rival scientist to steal Gemma’s work? No! They’re government agents who accuse her of working for enemy aliens to take down America. You see, a lethal weapon they developed, which takes the form of a single  indestructible, AI killer robot named Amelia (Ivanna Sakhno) has gone rogue, killing her creators. And Amelia’s algorithms can be traced back… to M3GAN! 

So now it’s up to Gemma and her co-workers Tess and Cole (Jen Van Epps, Brian Jordan) to decide should they resurrect Megan, the only thing capable of destroying Amelia? Or would that be too risky?

M3GAN 2.0 is a sequel to the smash hit M3GAN two years back (review here). But while the original was a tight and simple dark comedy about a best-friend-killer-robot doll, Megan 2.0 is an expansive, sprawling mess. The focus has moved from a junior high school kid and her adopted mom, to something much bigger, including a sleazy, tech-bro oligarch trying to win Gemma’s affections and algorithms (Jemaine Clement), and a gentle anti-AI activist who Gemma might be dating (Aristotle Athari). Then there’s all the computer gobbledygook that’s supposed to explain it all but actually makes it more confusing…  and a bunch of other plot lines that I’ve already forgotten about. Luckily, and this is no spoiler, M3GAN does come back, in a number of forms, including as a 2-foot tall teletubby with paddles for hands. Many scenes are still hilarious, though without the evil streak running through the original.

While not as satisfying as the first M3GAN movie, this dumbed-down version is still fast-moving and funny-enough to keep you interested on a hot summer’s day.

M3GAN 2.0 opens this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings.

This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.