Producer Ridley Scott has teamed with his son Luke for the new
Horror/Suspense film “Morgan” which blends Horror and Suspense in what may
well be a new franchise for FOX.
The film follows an isolated research facility surrounded by trees where
an experiment named Morgan (Anya Taylor-Joy), has had an “incident” which
has caused the parent company to dispatch a troubleshooter named Lee
Weathers (Kate Mara) to evaluate the program.
The cold and no-nonsense Weathers meets some hesitation from the research
team as they see her as a company tool intent on closing their program and
years of research and being unable to see the potential and progress of
their work.
As Weathers and the audience gets to know Morgan, they learn that she is a
genetic creation who became aware and functional at a very early age and
her recent act of violence has her confined to a cage where she listens to
music, plays Chess, and spends her time dreaming of her former visits
outside.
As Morgan is evaluated it appears that there is far more to her than first
appears. The creation is capable of great empathy, wisdom, and
appreciation for beauty, but also has a very dark side, which can appear
out of nowhere.
As the complex study and interactions with Morgan unfold, Lee and the
scientists are faced with a series of difficult decisions that sets things
on a course from which they may not return.
The film takes a while to get up to speed and does not have anything that
viewers have not seen before. I was able to figure out the twists to the
film early on and an incident that is referred to in the film would have
made a far more interesting film than what we were given. Perhaps it is
being saved for a possible prequel because as it currently stands,
“Morgan”, is an interesting if formulaic film that borrows from several
other films.
The funny thing about it is that like “Prometheus” the more I
thought about it, the more questions I had and perhaps like his father,
Scott is using the film to setup a much larger universe and future films.
I only wish there was a bit more to this as the premise though interesting
does not have enough for the versatile and talented cast to do and they
deserved much better.
2.5 stars out of 5.
