Morgan

Morgan (2016)

40% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 110 reviews)

Runtime: 92 minutes

Directed by: Luke Scott

Starring: Kate Mara, Anya-Marie Joy, Toby Jones, Rose Leslie, Michelle Yeoh

From: 20th Century Fox

Yep, I am one of the few who actually saw this theatrically; since last Friday it's been out in the United States and it's only made 3 million dollars total, which is pretty horrid. The movie itself isn't horrid, but it really should have been better than the mediocrity it was. I explain my thoughts below: 

I'll be honest here, one reason why I am one of the few who has seen this on the big screen: I felt bad this has bombed so hard since it got released last Friday. Certainly, opening on more than 2,000 screens and opening in EIGHTEENTH place at the box office is noteworthy, but in the worst way. Also, I went to a place that does reserved seating (a trend that many seem to love... why, I have no idea) and I also got a ticket for a classic movie which I won't reveal here but Wednesday night I'll be reviewing it. I had a feeling this wasn't so bad it deserved the bad box office, and I was right. Unfortunately, this is pretty similar to a film I love-Ex-Machina-and this is no Ex-Machina, let me tell you that much.

The plot: Anya-Taylor Joy is an artificially created human being who happens to look like a young woman and she is the titular Morgan. She does a bad act so Kate Mara (a “risk-assessment specialist” for the company that is funding this project) goes to the remote mansion in the woods to investigate if this project is worth continuing or if it should terminate. If you were expecting this to be like Ex-Machina and it being a thoughtful & contemplative movie about the synthetic person coming to grips with who they are and how human beings treat them... this isn't so much the case. Instead, this is a case where the two halves of the movie are pretty different. The second half is a more formulaic Hollywood movie so you should expect as much. I have no idea how different this was from the original script, which ended up on the famed Black List of unproduced screenplays a few years ago. What we got here was the typical nonsense-such as characters suddenly acting pretty stupid-and a twist ending to boot; the one here isn't bad but it reminds me of all the times that modern movies feel that they NEED a twist ending, irrelevant of whether one is actually needed.

I can't fault the performance of the cast, which features both familiar faces (including Jennifer Jason Leigh, Michelle Yeoh and Paul Giamatti; how lengthy those roles are... well...) and up and coming actors who got attention for being in some independent movies and if they avoid movies like this, they could become more famous (Joy and Rose Leslie); the talent behind the camera was fine too; this was the directorial debut of Luke Scott and yes, Ridley is his dad, which is why he was one of the producers. I enjoyed the electronic score although even that was reminiscent of Ex-Machina and I preferred that to what I heard last night. The rural scenery was awfully pretty to look at, at least. There are action moments and unfortunately, it was done in an incoherent manner and I am not a fan of such things. In addition, I have also talked about in the past the horrid problem of movie studios deliberately mis-marketing a movie and presenting it in trailers as something it's not, not to mention the “revealing too much” problem, which is also a huge issue. As for the trailer literally created by IBM's Watson supercomputer... it also reveals a lot but overall I'd prefer Watson do more trailers rather than the dumb cliché way they are typically done now.

This wasn't a movie I hated and I don't think it deserved such a poor box office performance; even internationally it isn't performing well. Yet with the plot and all the people involved, it certainly could have been more cerebral, more intelligent, more stirring. Instead, it's a movie which is OK yet one which is destined to be forgotten as the years pass. Not to belabor this point, but Ex-Machina did similar things much better and I say it's a must-see.