Movie Info
Movie Name: Morgan
Studio: Scott Free Productions
Genre(s): Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror/Action/Adventure
Release Date(s): September 2, 2016
MPAA Rating: R
I might have gone overboard with the lipstick…
In a remote farm, an experiment is underway. Morgan (Anya Taylor-Joy) is a thing created by science, but after an accident, Lee Weathers (Kate Mara) has been sent to assess if the experiment is a failure. Lee discovers that the people of the farm are too close to Morgan and think of Morgan as a girl who is only five despite her size. Morgan is being pushed to the edge and something as strong and savage as her could snap.
Directed by Luke Scott, Morgan is a science-fiction thriller. The movie was released to mixed to negative reviews and the film fared poorly at the box office.
The trailers for Morgan didn’t particularly make me want to see the film. It looked like it took every generic aspect of movies like Species and Splice (which weren’t great films either) and shoved them into one film about a genetically engineered child. While the movie wasn’t as bad as it could have been, Morgan also isn’t that good. A ******Spoiler Alert****** is in effect for the rest of the review due to plot points.
Wait…you look just like me…oh…I get it
Morgan has a very odd pacing. If you boil the script down, Morgan goes crazy, Lee shows up, Morgan goes crazier, and Morgan is killed. There isn’t much substance there. It is also full of people doing things which are counter-productive to…survival. Morgan has been proven to be dangerous and it doesn’t matter if she doesn’t have weapons. Pushing her to her limits (intentionally) in a sit-down doesn’t seem smart. I understand the aspect of not being able to kill something that they raised, but they also don’t take reasonable precautions.
The movie is largely built upon the twist ending that isn’t that much of a twist. Kate Mara’s character obviously has something wrong with her the whole time in the movie and it isn’t a surprise to learn that she’s also a test subject. I wish they had made her less polarized because if she is meant to be a supersoldier killer of some sort, it would be obvious because she comes off as psycho from the start…at least Anya Taylor-Joy’s Morgan could blend in better before going crazy. The rest of the cast of Toby Jones, Michelle Yeoh, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Paul Giamatti are wasted.
Nice day for a stroll…and to kill!
Visually the movie has moments. I like some of the outdoor shots and it would have been nice to get a better idea of the worldwide look of the planet where this type of experiment is operating: is it simply normal Earth or in the future? I like the look of Morgan herself because the goal is a subject who can blend in…she’s odd, but she isn’t that odd.
Morgan is a movie that just doesn’t live up to its twist and tries too hard to do so. The movie is rather generic but you can see glimpses of hope in the plot. Unfortunately, this never surfaces and the movie feels half-baked and bland. There are a lot of other films like Morgan that are better…seek them out first.
