Checked out the new sci-fi/horror drama Morgan which is about a team of scientists who create an artificial surly teenager in a lab and things go wrong. Shocking, i know.
This movie is directed by Ridley Scott’s kid (and is produced by Scott Free Productions) which probably explains how this low budget flick got such a good cast… Kate Mara, Paul Giamati, Michelle Yeoh, Toby Jones, Jennifer Jason Jason Leigh, and Brian Cox. All do good work though some are just glorified cameos… but the real star is Anya Taylor-Joy, a new actress previously seen in the pretty good movie The Witch. She’s Morgan… a character she plays with a kind of unworldly creepiness – even when she’s playing sincere, it feels like she’s just putting on a costume of what sincere should look like. A great acting job even though they don’t spend nearly enough time with her.
Less good though for weird reason is Kate Mara who plays a Risk Analyst Consultant sent to the lab where Morgan was engineered. She has to determine if a recent accident (oops, Morgan gouged out the eye of Jennifer Jason Leigh’s character) exposes the corporation to undue risk and if the project (read: Morgan) should be terminated. She kind of plays her character as one-note and there’a good reason for this as the movie ruins by having a completely unnecessary coda. Ugh. So much better if they just played it subtle.
Anyhow, the movie is kind of about whether or not we, the audience, buys into whatever Morgan (and the actress) is selling. Is she worth saving, should she be terminated? The movie is kind of like a dumber Ex Machina and a way smarter Species. It wants to be both a heady thoughtful movie about the responsibility of genetic science and a horror action movie… kind of treads both and kind of doesn’t work as well as it should. It’s not a bad movie… it has good elements but if you want a good thinker’s movie, it’s not it and if you want a good supernatural or sci-fi action flick, it ain’t that either.
But the actors sure are committed to it and they almost all do a really good job. The movie looks good and is trying… but doesn’t always succeed. Kind of worth checking out. Certainly nothing (except the very end) egregiously wrong with it.
Score: 79