Even before the advent of movies, the “lifeless” automaton that moved through a series of mechanical actions was popular in Europe. The robot is nothing new. The fear of the robot gaining sentience is also nothing new. M3gan 2.0 (2025, directed by Gerard Johnstone) is not a revolutionary film.
It is not even as fun as its predecessor, M3gan (2022, same director). The first one is quite plausible, considering that machines are raising today’s children. Plus, the original was so much fun because it was so unapologetically stupid. A dancing robot with on-fleek hair and face? That schoolgirl costume with a killer directive? Fun.
M3gan 2.0 is just too self-aware for its own good. The blatant pandering to the market has resulted in a convoluted mess that knows its bells and whistles. It is still campy, but with a budget, which takes away much of the charm and simplicity of the first. Now, we have battling robotic divas out for world domination and omnipotence. That is a bridge too far: from automated playmate to geopolitical pawn.
The movie feels like it was written by a room of joke writers and robot cinema nerds, resulting in this wiry mess. The jokes—some of them pretty funny—feel like they came off a cynical Fordian factory assembly line. Among the few notable things in this movie is the billionaire who functions as (1) a Fu-Manchu figure and (2) Elon Musk with less addiction to public adulation.
The Fu-Manchu is a racist trope created to drum up fear against an “Oriental” man with access to resources and technology. The billionaire figure is non-white. The Elon Musk additive is the sheer force of self-belief that he is a savior. You see, self-awareness recognizes possibilities. Self-belief cannot distinguish between aspirations and delusions. The billionaire figure enables a tin-woman catfight.
But that is the rub: why a battling female-presenting robot? The first one made sense because M3gan was created to be a companion to an orphaned girl. Now, we have armored, mechanized amazons having a slugfest. It’s a catfight—but with literal nuts and bolts. Why this fascination with battling womanly figures encrusted in shiny chrome curves? The very cradle/throne for the opposing woman-robot resembles that of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927).
This is a crucial detail in Lang’s movie because the beautiful lead character Maria’s features were transposed to the Maschinenmensch (Machine-Human). As a human, Maria was pure of heart and earnest. The machine Maria dresses and dances provocatively to stir the lust of human men. There is an attachment to a certain taboo of a machine serving men. This is akin to the contemporary version of Adam’s rib, wherein a woman’s existence is seen as an extension of a man’s. There is something primeval and patriarchal about two “woman” robots displaying their shapely limbs while attacking each other. Is this feminist when there are sparse discussions about the relevance of women as creators, but only as toys for powerful men? In this movie, everybody loses.
You may reach Chong Ardivilla at kartunistatonto@gmail.com or chonggo.bsky.social
