MORGAN (2016) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

MORGAN (2016) movie

Genre              |   Sci-Fi Thriller

Classification   |   MA 15+

Running time   |   92 minutes

Released         |  17 November 2016

cast

Kate Mara ... Lee Weathers
​Anya Taylor-Joy ... Morgan
Boyd Holbrook ... Skip Vronsky
Michelle Yeoh ... Dr. Lui Cheng
Brian Cox ... Jim Bryce
Paul Giamatti ... Dr. Alan Shapiro

director

Luke Scott

writer

​Seth W. Owen ... (written by)

cinematographer

​Mark Patten

music

​Max Richter

film editor

​Laura Jennings

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box office result

Worldwide               $​8,810,591

Australia                 $​​n/a

North America        $​​​3,915,251

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the best dialogue

Ted Brenner: [aiming a gun at her] You gotta stop. You're not well, Morgan. You're sick.
Morgan: [disarms him, and shoots him] I'm feeling much better.

Dr. Kathy Grieff: [enters the holding cell] Hi, darling. It's me. I thought we'd have lunch together today. Oh, angel, you look sad. You know, it's a very, very natural thing. It's actually a very human thing to feel sad. But emotions aren't bad.
Dr. Kathy Grieff: I'm sorry, baby. I'm still trying to get them to change their mind and let you out for a little bit.
Dr. Kathy Grieff: [Morgan suddenly lunges at her and begins stabbing her] No! Get off! No! Oh, god!

Morgan: You were right Lee they weren't my friends except Amy

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MORGAN (2016) MOVIE IMAGES

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MORGAN (2016) STORY SYNOPSIS

​Morgan (Anya Taylor-Joy) is a bioengineered child who began walking and talking after one month of existence, exceeding the wildest expectations of her creators. When Morgan attacks one of her handlers, a corporate troubleshooter (Kate Mara) visits the remote, top-secret facility where she's kept to assess the risks of keeping her alive. When the girl breaks free and starts running amok, the staff members find themselves in a dangerous lockdown with an unpredictable and violent synthetic human.

MORGAN (2016) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 14 November 2016
Pop ​Movee Rating ⭐⭐⭐

Morgan has a lot going on throughout its, relatively short, 92 minute running time. The film tackles a number of moral and ethical issues to do with scientific intervention in the evolutionary process and, at points throughout, the story echoes films such as Blade Runner and Ex Machina albeit in a more contemporary, familiar setting. It’s little surprise to learn Morgan was directed by Luke Scott, the son of Ridley Scott. The younger Scott has obviously been influenced by his father’s seminal film based on Philip K. Dick’s novel ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep’. Much like Rutger Hauer’s Roy Batty, Anya Taylor-Joy’s titular character of Morgan longs to experience the joys of the world for as long as she can, but her innate feelings make her violently unpredictable.

The film opens with a brutal attack upon Jennifer Jason Leigh’s Dr. Kathy Grief, set upon by Morgan who uses her hands to gauge the character’s left eye from her skull. The assault prompts an investigation that sees Kate Mara’s Lee Weathers despatched to provide a “light touch” solution to the situation. Her arrival is met with a degree of scepticism from the scientific team who have been working with Morgan and it’s at this point it’s revealed that she is the third version of genetically-engineered being developed in the facility’s lab. Weathers is the ultimate corporate employee charged with the task of evaluating and reporting on her company’s significant investment that seems to have gone awry with a team of scientists, some of whom seem to have gone down the ‘Heart of Darkness’ path with their prolonged isolation. Weathers’ situation becomes more protracted when the company’s consulting psychiatrist, Dr. Alan Shapiro (played by Paul Giamatti), is late in arriving to the facility. Her longer-than-planned stay allows her to uncover more information about the Doctors who have worked with Morgan since she was created, revealing backstory about each of the characters to help frame their actions later in the film.

The film’s best performances are delivered from the two leads, Mara and Taylor-Joy, along with Giamatti’s Dr. Shapiro. Mara is cool and calculating and, despite her diminutive stature, packs a real physical punch as the story moves toward its denouement. Taylor-Joy blends childlike wonder with surges of uncontrollable anger, playing Morgan in an emotionally underdeveloped manner, only partially aware that she has caused real harm. It’s not until the arrival of Giamatti’s character that the broader group feel the full force of their experiment, as Dr.Shapiro does a far nastier version of Rick Deckard’s Voight-Kampff empathy test, in another nod to Blade Runner. In an unusual plot thread, Rose Leslie features throughout the film’s second half as Dr. Amy Menser, the scientist who has been responsible for monitoring Morgan’s emotional development. The story hints that Menser may have taken a little too much liberty with her subject and there’s a definite attachment between the two that isn’t fully realised on the screen.

At its foundation, Morgan is a Thriller and, like all good Thrillers, there are red herrings and twists thrown in throughout to tease the viewer.Those who pay attention will pick the twist in the story very early in proceedings and Seth W. Owen’s screenplay drops just enough breadcrumbs to keep the viewer thinking up until the film’s climax. Director Scott and Film Editor Laura Jennings, an experienced Visual Effects film editor, do a solid job at building the story’s tension and make some interesting character point-of-view choices with a number of shots as the film progresses. While not an instant classic, there’s more than enough in Morgan to keep viewers connected to the film and it is an above-average entry into the realms of the Science Fiction “Cautionary Tale” that harkens all the way back to Mary Shelley’s original Frankenstein story. ​

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