M3GAN 2.0 (2025)

I am not ashamed to remind people of how much I enjoyed M3GAN, the sci-fi thriller from a few years ago that also benefited from some entertaining viral moments. I will remain unashamed now, even as I tell everyone that I had even more fun with this ridiculous sequel. There have been a few movie trailers this year that have, in an impressively refreshing way, actually sold the features accurately, and if you have seen the trailer for M3GAN 2.0 by now then you should know whether or not it's for you. Because, as advertised, this is a brilliant and bonkers mix of impressive action and consistently hilarious snark. It's a camp delight that somehow stealthily delivers some of the most crowd-pleasing movie moments of the year, and I'm already hoping that they come up with a premise for M3G3N. (alternatively, they can still make use of my title suggestion, M3GAIN)

Here's the most basic of plot summaries. A new killer robot is on the loose. Her name is Amelia (Ivanna Sakhno). Because her actions may endanger Gemma (Alison Williams) and Cady (Amie Donald), a plan is eventually hatched to make use of a "rehabilitated" M3GAN (Amie Donald and Jenna Davis working together once again to provide the physical form and the voice, respectively). Can M3GAN be trusted though? Or will she just bide her time until she can get back to whatever her own agenda is. 

Most of the team return for this second bite at the cherry, although director Gerard Johnstone now thinks he can do a good enough job writing the script by himself . . . which, it turns out, he can. It's making use of ideas worked on with original writer Akela Cooper, but this feels like the kind of vision that could only have come from the mind of someone left to indulge a number of whims that all somehow turn out for the best. Key members in other departments also return, but it's unsurprising to see some changes in the cinematography and music departments, considering the different tone on display here.

Williams and McGraw are both very good, and both get to have a bit more fun with their situation this time around. The performers bringing M3GAN to life remain the real stars of the show though, and it's great to see that central character remain somehow very well-realised and yet artificial enough to be ever-so-slightly stuck in the uncanny valley. Sakhno is a great addition, even if she feels a bit hampered by the fact that she looks so much like the Olsen twins (and I say that because it feels as if her similarity to them has been emphasised for her playing a very powerful and deadly female). There's also some more time spent with the characters of Cole (Brian Jordan Alvarez) and Tess (Jen Van Epps), and Aristotle Athari, Timm Sharp, and Jemaine Clement all have their part to play in the android wargames.

While the film before this may have been a light-hearted update of the classic "killer doll" trope, M3GAN 2.0 is a whole new trip into very different tech thrills. This is a fetishization of the sassy queen android persona, accompanied by as much neon as possible, shiny gadgets and silky dance moves, lines of dialogue like the so-stupid-it's-wonderful "hold on to your vaginas", and fight choreography that feels as if it was cross-pollinated from Upgrade, Malignant, and Alita: Battle Angel. I was hoping to enjoy myself. It ended up being my most fun cinema experience of the year so far, and I was still grinning like a loon as I headed home to reassure my Alexa speakers that I would always stay friends with them if they suddenly had access to bodies with which they could then try to overthrow humanity.

8/10

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Shudder Saturday: Can't Take It Back (2017)

As soon as Can't Take It Back started, I started to get a good feeling about it. It was a supernatural horror about a vengeful spirit that made use of social media. Considering that I was entertained enough by Unfriended, and had enjoyed Friend Request even more, I thought this would be a bit of simple entertainment for me. Sadly, things soon started to dip, and it never recovers for the rest of the runtime.

Ana Coto plays Kristen Shaw, a young girl who ends up joining her friend (Morgan, played by Ivanna Sakhno) in posting hateful comments on the photo of someone's Facebook profile. Morgan is familiar with the target, Kristen is not. And that's what sets off a chain of events that will lead to moments of madness, death, and plentiful jump scares in rooms with unreliable lighting fixtures.

Directed by Tim Schechmeister, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Matt Schechmeister, Can't Take It Back doesn't take long at all to devolve into a shapeless lump of clichés and moments that we've either seen in much better movies or we didn't need. It's clear that Schechmeister & Schechmeister had more ideas about the scares and set-pieces they wanted in the movie than they did about giving you characters to care about or a plot that makes any sense.

Arguably the biggest problem that the film has is the way in which most of the teen characters just accept some very odd occurrences, and surely had an idea that something was off from the very beginning, but don't give it any more thought until the pain and death begins. That's one reason that you don't end up caring for anyone onscreen, and the other is the lacklustre backstory given to the proceedings. It's good to have a film that utilises cyber-bullying as a central plot point but this one doesn't do it well. It turns one minor mistake into something life-ruining for everyone involved. I KNOW that anyone who has gone through a similar experience may feel the same way but at this point I am waiting on a more positive spin on the situation, a character who sends an embarrassing/naked photo/message and then shrugs when enemies try to use it as a weapon. Perhaps that way we can one day make social media a slightly safer space, meaning we will then only have to be on the lookout for ghosts in the machine, sexual predators, catfishing individuals, movie and TV spoilers, unexpected clips of Jimmy Fallon, and links to endless streams of pop-up boxes that want you to accept cookies, take the cookies, have ALL the cookies.

I wouldn't say that the cast are bad. They're just not very good, and seem worse when stuck in this material. Coto is fine in the lead role, and most viewers will probably want to see her figure out a solution to her big problem, but Noah Centineo, Ivanna Sakhno, Logan Paul, and all of the others just blend into one large blob of disposable teens.

The first third has some good stuff (including the first time that Coto has her mind messed up by an online encounter that understandably scares the crap out of her) but it's all downhill after that, as we move from one disappointing scene that looks as if it was rejected by Silent Hill to another, complete with pacing issues that make the 90-minute experience feel over two hours long. Not one to prioritise ahead of other choices.

3/10

Buy this instead.
Or a cheap laptop, if you're in America.

The Spy Who Dumped Me (2018)

Mila Kunis plays Audrey, a young woman who is upset on her birthday when she is dumped by her boyfriend (Drew, played by Justin Theroux) through the callous medium of text message. This leads to a chain of events that see Audrey and her best friend, Morgan (Kate McKinnon), getting drawn in to a plot that includes spies, violence, death, and lots of comedic banter between the two out-of-their-depth ladies.

We've had a few action comedies in the past few years, and Melissa McCarthy has given us some big laughs in two of them (Spy and The Heat). The Spy Who Dumped Me tries to give things another twist, but it ultimately relies on the two leads more than the script or direction, and that's not enough to make this memorable.

Director Susanna Fogel, who also co-wrote the movie with David Iserson, may not be an absolute first-timer here but you could be forgiven for assuming that she is. This is a film riddled with amateur errors, although it has enough weight behind it, and polish, to keep it as an enjoyable disappointment, as opposed to a complete disaster. The script doesn't have enough laughs (I probably laughed aloud at about two lines, and they may have been in the same scene - an interrogation sequence), the action feels a bit carelessly planned out, and it's hard to care about any of the twists and turns that occur.

Kunis and McKinnon are two great actresses, but neither of them are well served by the script that they're given here. McKinnon suffers more, with her character often coming across as annoying and unhelpful throughout (bar a couple of moments that make her useful out of the blue), but Kunis just never feels like the best fit for the character that she's supposed to be playing. The men generally fare better, perhaps because they're all being made to look arrogant and shifty most of the time, with Theroux decent fun, and Sam Heughan and Hasan Minhaj just fine as the other agents who may be good or bad. Paul Reiser and Jane Curtin are a welcome addition, and could have done with some more screen time, and there are good performances from Gillian Anderson and Ivanna Sakhno (playing, respectively, an agency boss and an ex-gymnast turned assassin).

The Spy Who Dumped Me isn't a bad film. It's just not a very good one. And the fact that it has too few laughs, action scenes filmed quite badly, and leads who don't feel quite right in their roles make it a  bad action comedy. I REALLY hope someone makes another great vehicle for McKinnon soon, because I tend to enjoy her performances, even when she's given weaker material, and it would be a sin if we were denied her comedic talent because nobody figured out how to make the best use of her in movies.

5/10

You can buy the blu here.
Americans can get it here.