Morgan

Luke Scott’s Morgan is the equivalent of looking in your kitchen cabinets and picking the perfect glass to have a drink of water.  Once the glass is chosen, you grab the ice cold water pitcher out of the refrigerator and slowly pour it into the glass.  Slow and steady, the water rises to the top, looking more and more refreshing as it fills.  Then, at the exact moment that you’re about to enjoy your ice cold beverage, someone comes along and smacks it out of your hand.  As you stare down in bewilderment at what just happened, you hear the person responsible for this development say, “See, isn’t that more exciting?”

Technically, they’re right, but who cares about exciting when you just want to enjoy a glass of damn water?

Morgan (the film, not the character) is the glass slapping person in this instance.

The film has a decent enough, if not familiar sounding premise, that is aided by an exceptionally well-rounded cast.  It then takes that premise and cast, and fills it with  potential for a strong morality tale about playing God, and then chooses to neglect all of it by descending into nothing more than a garden variety sci-fi thriller.  If you’re looking for more of the horror aspects that Morgan‘s trailer suggests, then you’ll most likely be bored by the film’s first half, with it’s slow pace, and non-existent body count.  But, if you go into the film with more of an open mind, then you’ll be accepting of the sci-fi tropes about synthetic organisms and their rights as living things.  The problem with the the latter is, as I’ve said, ruined by the film’s second half, which falls into the preference of the former.  Leaving both audience types most likely coming out of the film with a rather large resounding “meh.”

The film stars Kate Mara as Lee, a  corporate troubleshooter, that is being sent to a remote, top-secret location, where she is to investigate and evaluate a terrifying accident. The accident was triggered by Morgan (Anya Taylor-Joy), a scientifically created being, designed to be a perfect weapon for an unnamed company.  The rub is that Morgan’s creators, led by Dr. Lui Cheng (Michelle Yeoh) and Dr. Simon Ziegler (Toby Jones), have attempted to give “her” a conscience, and an ability to form relationships.  This, of course results in not only Morgan caring for her “friends”, but the other specialists in becoming fond of her.  So, now you have a group made up of about eight characters, that have been stuck in this remote location for years, wanting to see their project succeeds.  More than that, they don’t want to see Morgan…their Morgan, be terminated.  Which will be what exactly happens if Lee, and a therapist, played by Paul Giamatti, feel as though the incident in which Morgan attacked a doctor, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, may be more than a one-time thing.

The film, only with a 92 minute run-time, spends the first half of that introducing us to all of the characters, giving some of them hints of personality, while others…seem nice…I guess. The good news is that the talented cast makes the most out of every character, personality or not.  Rose Leslie (Game of Thrones) in particular makes you see why she’s Morgan’s favorite; Yeoh, Jones, and Giamatti, all deliver professional performances that they could do in their sleep.  The rest of the cast gets the similar thankless work, but they made me believe that they cared about Morgan.  The two best performances in the film go to Mara and Joy.  Mara’s Lee seems to be made of steel, which can be interpreted as stiff, but once the performance is put into context, it makes sense.  Joy builds on the promise she showed in this year’s The Witch, playing Morgan as a seemingly innocent “human,” who presents a mystery of both infinite promise and incalculable danger.

Again, once those first 45 minutes are up, and the next 45 minutes begin, the film switches gears to what it’s opening moments promised.  The problem for me wasn’t the switch in pace, so much as how quickly it made the first half irrelevant.  The questions of what Morgan is capable of are answered, and the body-count piles up at such a fast rate, that I didn’t care.  I know that Luke Scott, the director and son of the great Ridley Scott, was going for something visceral and unrelenting, but it lost it’s power by not making me care about the victims enough.  Just as the film’s moral dilemma was reaching it’s zenith, it begins to kill it’s way to the finish line, instead of continuing to ask the questions it once seemed so interested in.  Scott does know how to create tension, and his fight sequences are hard-hitting, though edited too quickly; he wisely focuses on his actors as opposed to his visuals, so I think he shows some promise, and with a little longer of a script, could’ve made a far better film. A twist ending has the groundwork laid out for it so that it doesn’t cheat, though some may find it to be too obvious.  I, again, feel the quickened pace of the second half lessened it’s impact.

I won’t call Morgan a shattered glass; more of one that’s half-full.  I just wish the second half had more to it.

Grade: C+