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I cannot recall ever being this uninterested in the sequel to a film I enjoyed as I am with M3GAN 2.0.

2022’s M3GAN was not in any way a classic of cinema. The premise was quite simple,  Gemma ( Allison Williams) a designer of advanced robotic toys following a tragic accident, becomes the guardian of her niece. Unsuited to the sudden role of substitute mother Gemma effectively turns the task over to her newly created and quite untested android M3GAN, which, taking its instructions far too literally, ends up becoming a murderous machine.

M3GAN leaned heavily into camp with occasional forays into violence that for the theatrical cut were toned down and not explicitly graphic. The resulting movie was one that was fun, did not take itself too seriously, and provided a brief, in not predictable, period of escape from the dreary world of 2022. The fact that the movie grossed more than 10 times its modest budget, and that the script deliberately left this door open, doomed the cinema landscape to a sequel.

Now, three years later, that sequel has arrived and the lackluster, paint by the numbers approach devoid of camp nature makes it one of the least interesting trailers I have seen in quite a while.

As has happened with previous horror franchises, M3GAN the character has developed a fanbase not unlike Michael from Halloween, Jason from Friday the 13th, and Freddy, from A Nightmare on Elm Street. The monsters have become the heroes and M3GAN now follows that dull and trite path as a new evil artificial intelligence arrives and, in one of the least surprising concepts, only M3GAN can counter it. Of course, if she is to be more of a protagonist then M3GAN required an upgrade that transformed her from a little girl to something with a disturbing amount of sexuality.

This is a horror movie that not only will I miss its theatrical run, I shall also miss its video on demand release, and its streaming debut.