Rent Megan 2.0 (2025)

M2: Judgement Nay - Megan 2.0 review by griggs

M3GAN 2.0 struggles to find its footing and rarely justifies its existence. The first film was marketed squarely as horror but never fully delivered on that front. Instead, it found unexpected success through bursts of action and darkly comic beats. This sequel leans hard into that shift, abandoning tension in favour of broad comedy and loud spectacle. The result feels lightweight and derivative, lacking the eerie undertone that gave the original its edge.

The first act drags, and once things finally get moving, the tone lurches wildly—most notably with the arrival of Jermaine Clement’s character, a strange mash-up of Austin Powers and a bargain-bin tech-bro. Clement is a gifted comic actor, but he’s completely miscast here; he dominates the screen with ease, exposing how flat the rest of the cast is by comparison.

The plot plays like a pale pastiche of Terminator 2, with M2 herself relegated to a handful of uninspired action sequences. The supporting characters grate, the twist is visible a mile off, and the whole film feels like a laboured attempt to replicate the first’s accidental magic. It misses the mark by some distance.

Very OTT Comedy Horror with Cartoon Characters and LOTS of Martial-arts-type Fight Sequences - Megan 2.0 review by PV

Despite some laugh-out-loud funny lines, this descends into cartoon character comedy horror with a big martial arts mood - and I always find the latter, the endless theatrical mock fights, boring in all films.

No-one else seems to mention the comedy element but I felt that was a strength here, some cracking comic one liners esp in the first half made this movie bearable.

The plot's a tad convoluted esp for a younger audience. And it's all scientific nonsense of course, as per the first film M3GAN which pushed the credibility bar hard.

The ending is OTT, no spoilers, and i must admit I almost fell asleep in the last third of the film. The first half, first act, is strongest.

I see I gave the first MEGAN film 3 stars;

this squeal marks a decline, so 2 stars for MEGAN 2.0

Megan 2.0 follows the other killer doll franchise. - Megan 2.0 review by LW

This sequel is being unfairly compared to Terminator 2's shift from horror thriller to action. A much fairer comparison is between the earlier and later incarnations of Chucky in the Child's Play franchise. The horror element of Megan was the extent to which an AI behaves as a consequence of what we instruct it to do and how unexpected and literal this can be. In Megan 2.0 the killer doll gets to mock how it manipulates people by sifting their personal data. Megan may or may not be truly sentient, which adds some suspense to the film, but she is full of foul mouthed, scathing and exasperated observations about humans in the digital world and how AI is merely a mirror of humanity's online life. I thought the film a fun way of playing with the idea that AI is just a collection of our own best and worst interests taken to their uninhibited conclusion.

As far as the plot goes there is a quick catch up that sees the lives of Megan's creator and her daughter threatened as part of a conspiracy involving a rogue government robot that uses Megan's code. The original Megan, thriving as a computer virus and happily manipulating things ti fulfil her core mission of protecting her unsuspecting creators, springs into action to unravel the plot and save them with her own ruthless methods. Car chases, infiltrations, secret labs, robot fights, dance numbers, evil corporations, psychotic tech bros, genre in jokes and expletive laden quips from the killer doll ensue.

If you liked Chucky in his dafter moments you might warm to Megan's tongue in cheek action thriller make over.