I loved the 2021 horror film “Malignant” so much that I noted the name of the screenwriter who’d written such a terrific and twisty script.

Thus, when I found out Akela Cooper had written the 2022 killer doll movie “M3GAN” I eagerly anticipated it. However, I was disappointed. Compared to “Malignant”, it was relatively bloodless and generally tame.

So, I went into “M3GAN”’s recent sequel prepared to be let down. Instead, I loved it and thought it was a distinct improvement on the original.

It should be noted the film is not really a horror film. It’s more a superhero film in the style of the Marvel movies, though with a bit more bite.

In the new story, the homicidal girl-doll robot M3GAN has survived her destruction and is reactivated to fight another killer robot on the scene.  This results in the return of all the major characters from the original film, including roboticist Gemma (Allison Williams) and her niece Cady (Violet McGraw).

The film is clearly indebted to “Terminator 2”. Like Arnold‘s killer borg, the returning M3GAN takes on a projective role for her young charge, Cady, and faces off against a svelte, newer model.

There are plenty of twists and turns and neutered PG-13 bloodshed. One major twist was pretty easy to see coming, but the motivation of certain characters caught me off guard. This film has some complex politics in regard to AI.

For technology history nerds, there’s a nice reference to the Xerox research lab where a lot of today’s technology was cultivated.

There’s a setup for a sequel, which I would absolutely go see. (And by “go see”, I mean lie on my couch and watch it when it shows up on Netflix.)

Best line: If you put an AI in a human brain, it is not going to ride shotgun.