Movie Review 043 Morgan

Morgan
[090216] 65%

It is a familiar concept of a creation going against its creator that is executed well but stopped short from adding anything new or revolutionary to the premise, with predictable trajectory of the story but a nice twist in the end that tied everything together more cleanly.

Retreading the concept of artificial intelligence with a strong family values behind it and what it means to be human, interacting with human-like behaviors until 'its' main purpose reared its ugly head, with just enough of the relationship between the creators and the subject being established for the turn to be justified. 

While most of the workers at the facility offered interesting and varied perspective on Morgan and the latest incident that brought Lee in (with a number of glorified cameos), Amy Menser {Rose Leslie}, the sociologist, was definitely the standout (aside from Morgan herself) as she made a believable, dynamic connection with her that affected the child tremendously.

Although the subject appeared blank and devoid of emotions at the start, the social and familial interactions with the others made her learn how to be human and display feelings properly, portrayed wonderfully by Anya Taylor-Joy with timely use of robotic gestures and explosion of emotions when needed as an innocent synthetic child prodigy in a major conceptual conflict.

The audience surrogate of Lee Weathers had to judge the situation as objectively as she could, with the scientists' emotional attachment to it could ended up being a distraction and her interaction with 'her' pulled out some sense of humanity from each of them.   

An intriguing cerebral sci-fi thriller was definitely in sight but the lack of proper character development and the lack of full commitment to it detract significantly from the movie, regressing it to a solid but contrived sci-fi action thriller that could have been so, so much more. 

- Synopsis -

A corporate risk-management consultant must decide whether or not to terminate an artificially created humanoid being.

Cast
Kate Mara - Lee Weathers
Anya Taylor-Joy - Morgan
Rose Leslie - Dr. Amy Menser
...

- 42%/ 38%, 6.1/10, wiki, official -

(Director Luke Scott [debut], Cinematographer Mark Patten [the Martian], Budget $8 Millions = Box Office $3.9>> Millions [US], Duration 1hr 32mn, Rating R, Genre - Horror, Mistery, Sci-Fi)

+ Highlights: good familial bonds between them in the facility that served as an effective conflict for the protagonist, excellent performance by Anya as Morgan and Rose as Amy, short but engaging performance by Paul Giamatti, the intense standoff and riveting exchange of dialogues in that interview, gorgeous cinematography from the third act onwards, fantastic action beats especially hand-to-hand combat sequences, good overall tone and steady pacing, the shot to the sky, the ending plot twist that warrant a repeat viewing

- Lowlights: a foreshadowing of supernatural twist but instead turned to sc-fi action thriller, no further extension of the enhanced method with nano-technology, not enough explanation of 'its' rapid growth, stupid decision to push it too far by Giamatti's character, too short of time spent with Morgan that needed more time to flesh out her character, sorely needed more character development for most of the surface level supporting characters, rather predictable storyline with no new ideas to the concept, too much edit and too close shot compositions for the fights but effective sound design nonetheless

Source: Collider, SlashFilm