M3GAN 2.0 – Film

U.S. Army Colonel Sattler, head of a secret branch of the Pentagon specializing in new technologies, gives a demonstration of AMELIA, an android designed for infiltration and assassination missions and built using technology copied from the original M3GAN. During her mission, however, AMELIA reveals to Sattler that she is self-aware and escapes from his control.

Two years after M3GAN went rogue,^[a] Gemma—now an author and an advocate for AI regulation in partnership with cybersecurity expert Christian—is working on an experimental robotic exoskeleton with former workmates Cole and Tess. She still lives with her niece Cady, who is studying computer science. Gemma turns down an offer from misanthropic billionaire Alton Appleton to work for him.

After Gemma learns from Sattler of AMELIA’s existence, M3GAN reveals herself to Gemma, having survived by making a backup of her mind in Gemma’s smart home, and offers collaboration to stop AMELIA in return for a physical body. Still traumatized from M3GAN’s crimes, Gemma traps M3GAN in a Moxie robot until she can prove herself trustworthy. M3GAN warns Gemma that AMELIA will ambush Alton during a party he is hosting.

At the party, Gemma discovers Cole has joined Alton’s company and uses his keycard to enter the server room. M3GAN hacks into it and finds that AMELIA murdered Alton after copying his biometrics to gain access to his company’s systems. Escaping back to Gemma’s house, M3GAN leads Gemma, Cady, Cole, and Tess into an underground bunker she built and stocked with supplies to hide once AMELIA completes an AI takeover. Cady confronts M3GAN, who expresses sincere regret for her behavior. Cady encourages M3GAN to help them, not because of her programming, but because it is the right thing to do.

Gemma and her team create a new body for M3GAN, who reveals that AMELIA aims to merge Alton’s cloud computing infrastructure with a primitive rogue AI built by Xenox in the 1980s, whose motherboard has been trapped in isolation. After decades of machine learning, it can grant master control to any technology. Learning that only Christian knows the Motherboard’s location, M3GAN poses as a dancer to meet Christian at a tech conference, but Gemma calls him, enabling AMELIA to trace and find him. AMELIA assassinates a Chinese ambassador meeting with Christian, kidnaps Cady and escapes. Gemma, Tess, Cole, and M3GAN take Christian to their bunker, where he reveals the Motherboard is hidden in Xenox’s old headquarters, protected by a security system using Christian’s hand geometry. They build a hand replica for M3GAN and plan to infiltrate, destroy the Motherboard, and rescue Cady.

Christian incapacitates Tess and reveals to Gemma that AMELIA is, in fact, just a non-sentient drone under his control. Christian had deliberately created and manipulated AMELIA to stoke fear of AI, which he believes must be under complete human control, and intends to persuade the leaders of the G20 to approve regulations to eliminate AI from the global economy. He then disables both M3GAN and AMELIA, and orders the installation of a neural implant to enslave Gemma for refusing to help him. Unknown to Christian, M3GAN had uploaded herself into the implant before her body was shut down and helps Gemma escape.

Cole rescues Cady, and they go to AMELIA, using her residual programming to turn her to their side. Sustaining heavy damage, AMELIA reboots—now actually self-aware—and plans to absorb the Motherboard’s knowledge to cause human extinction. Christian attempts to flee the building, but AMELIA kills him and takes his hand to access the Motherboard. Cole leaves with Tess while M3GAN reinserts herself into her robotic body and battles AMELIA. As AMELIA overpowers M3GAN and merges herself with the Motherboard, M3GAN decides to sacrifice herself by using the EMP failsafe in her arm to defeat AMELIA. After saying goodbye to Gemma and Cady, M3GAN tackles AMELIA and Gemma triggers the EMP, destroying both androids and the Motherboard in the process.

With evidence from the vault, Gemma testifies before Congress, urging AI regulation that allows humans to cooperate alongside it rather than control it. At home, she and Cady find that M3GAN survived by installing a second backup of herself on Gemma’s computer.