M3GAN 2.0

image for M3GAN 2.0

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Not suitable under 12; not recommended under 15; parental guidance to 15 (violence, scary scenes)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for M3GAN 2.0
  • a review of M3GAN 2.0 completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 1 July 2025.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 12 Not suitable due to violence and scary scenes.
Children aged 12–14 Not recommended due to violence and scary scenes.
Children aged 15 Parental guidance recommended due to violence and scary scenes.
Children aged 16 and over Ok for this age group.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: M3GAN 2.0
Classification: M
Consumer advice lines: Science fiction themes, violence and coarse language
Length: 120 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Christian Bradley (Aristotle Athari) is a cybersecurity expert and an anti AI activist, who steals Gemma’s (Allison Williams) code for the original M3GAN, to create a robot, AMELIA (Ivanna Sakhno) for military purposes. However, during a demonstration of AMELIA’s capabilities, the robot kills the scientist she was meant to rescue and steals his formulas. It is apparent that AMELIA has become self-aware and out of control. Consequently, the military approach Gemma for help in disabling AMELIA.

At home, Gemma discovers that although she had destroyed M3GAN’s body, the robot had installed her software into Gemma’s smart home. M3GAN (Amie Donald and voice of Jenna Davis) reveals to Gemma that she would be able to destroy AMELIA if Gemma were to build her a new body. Very reluctantly, Gemma agrees but gives her a ‘Teletubby’ body to make her less threatening. Eventually M3GAN proves that she can be trusted and is given her original body back. She then has to prevent AMELIA from accessing the Motherboard which can bring about human extinction.

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Science Fiction; Artificial Intelligence; Robots.

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is a lot of violence in this movie – including kicking, punching, throwing, martial arts, sword and gunfights – some examples include:

  • A woman is seen with a sack over her head. A soldier points a gun at her head and shoots.
  • Soldiers drag a body across a room and drop it next to a furnace.
  • Cady uses Aikido on some bully school girls.
  • Cady fires laser beams at an intruder.
  • Gemma reminds M3GAN that last time she was active, she threatened ‘to rip Gemma’s tongue out and put her in a wheelchair’.
  • A self-driving car smashes through a plate glass window and drives at high speed, causing several cars to crash.
  • AMELIA tries to strangle Tess, Gemma’s business partner. Cady throws water over the robot, disabling it.
  • AMELIA’s hand gets chopped off in a sword fight.
  • A man is seen speared through the middle.
  • AMELIA abducts Cady.
  • Gemma is seen clamped to a bed, while a neural implant is inserted into her brain. A doctor is about to put a large hypodermic needle into her arm, when M3GAN attacks him.
  • A man holds Cady over a high railing, threatening to drop her.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

  • M3GAN is quite creepy, she has glassy doll’s eyes and a mouth which only moves up and down when she speaks.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:

  • Cady remembers her parents who were killed in a car accident – she’s clearly upset.
  • M3GAN projects herself onto Gemma’s TV screen and all across her walls.

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged eight to thirteen, including the following:

  • A seemingly dead corpse wakes up and comes back to life.
  • AMELIA unzips a suitcase from inside and manoeuvres herself out of the case.
  • Cady is bullied at school.
  • Cady and Gemma are asleep at night, when a person in a black suit with green eyes enters their home. The house is plunged into darkness. Cady and Gemma hide beneath a cupboard, clearly frightened.
  • Cady and Gemma are trapped underground in tunnels.
  • AMELIA’s chopped-off hand crawls back to her across the floor.
  • M3GAN is seen with black marks all over her face and messy hair after guards had punched her. Her jaw drops from her face but realigns itself. At one point, the black marks look like they’re on fire.
  • AMELIA’s eyes glow white and white beams shine out of them.

Thirteen and overinfo

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

  • Some younger children in this age group could be disturbed by the above-mentioned scenes.
  • AMELIA’s body is chopped in half. The legs continue walking, while the top half grabs Cady and drags her through a wall.

Product placement

  • None noted.

Sexual references

There are some sexual references in this movie, including:

  • Mention of someone looking like a prostitute.
  • Christian makes advances to Gemma.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:

  • A billionaire, called Anton, tries to seduce AMELIA. He kisses her passionately but she is unresponsive.

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

  • Mention of cocaine.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

  • Bitch
  • Goddamn/Goddammit
  • Oh my God
  • Shit
  • Suck ups
  • Batshit
  • Shitbag
  • Jesus
  • Fuck
  • Bullshit.

In a nutshell

M3GAN 2.0 is more sci-fi than horror in this follow-up to the original M3GAN film. There is a lot of violence throughout, scary scenes and some coarse language, making it unsuitable for under 12’s and not recommended for under 15s but the message of the threat of artificial intelligence taking over is well portrayed. Best suited for 15’s and up.

The main message from this movie is that there needs to be safer laws around technology, and in particular, artificial intelligence.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • Resilience
  • Loyalty.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

  • M3GAN redeems herself in this sequel but she still resorts to using a lot of violence and is the recipient of violence. Is this more acceptable because she’s a robot?
  • Cady is older in this movie but still a school girl. Cady is seen fighting off school bullies with her Aikido skills as well as using guns and firing them. Is it appropriate for a teenager to be portrayed in this manner?