– By Cate Marquis –
MORGAN promises high-tech thrills but delivers only old-fashioned cheesy horror
In the sci-fi thriller MORGAN, Kate Mara plays a corporate troubleshooter, Lee Weathers, who is sent to investigate what is going on at a research facility working on an bio-engineering project after a terrible accident. The project, which centers on a bio-engineered human-like creation called Morgan, is top-secret and hidden away in a remote, wooded location, in a crumbling old mansion. It is Weather’s job to evaluate the project and terminate it if needed.
Morgan (Anya Taylor-Joy) looks like an innocent teen-aged girl, one who is fond of wearing hoodies, but those looks are deceiving. Morgan is an experiment to create an advanced, humanoid tool using synthetic DNA. The bio-engineering being is only five year old, but looks nearly grown and has shown remarkable abilities. A team of scientists, led by Dr. Ziegler (Toby Jones) and Dr. Chen (Michelle Yeoh), are living and working at the facility, where they are tasked with training and evaluating the project’s creation. The team includes psychologist Dr. Amy Menser (Rose Leslie), Dr. Kathy Grieff (Jennifer Jason Leigh), and cook Skip (Boyd Holbrook), and several others. Hopes were high for this secret experiment to create a synthetic human-like being capable of emotions as well as carrying out its assigned tasks, but now Morgan has shown erratic behavior.
MORGAN is a high-tech thriller that wants to be another EX MACHINA but is too dumbed-down to hit the mark. Rather than EX MACHINA’s taut suspense and intelligent reflection on the line between human and machine, this would-be sci-fi thriller plays out more like a cheesy horror film, the kind where the characters always go in the creepy basement, exactly where they shouldn’t go. The sad thing is MORGAN boasts a lot of acting talent, although one has to wonder if anyone of them read the script first before signing on.
MORGAN is directed by Luke Scott, the son of Ridley Scott, who is making his feature film debut, with his father as producer on the movie. On one level, MORGAN is a kind of ’70s style horror film but in other ways it harkens back to ’50s science fiction, and even earlier “mad scientist” and monster movies. Morgan is a kind of Frankenstein monster – just a lot cuter and with a genetic-engineering pedigree.
Mara’s character always calls Morgan “it” but everyone working directly with the project says “she,” which the troubleshooter takes as a dangerous sign of too much emotional involvement. It is seems hard to expect otherwise for a creation that looks like a female child, was born of a surrogate mother who is part of the team, and raised from infancy by the scientists. The fact that Morgan could walk and talk at one month and has some unique, non-human abilities makes some difference, as does the fact it is the professional task of these scientists to conduct this experiment. But in day-to-day care over five years, one might expect some attachment to occur, and Morgan’s appealing appearance and child-like trust plays into that as well. The degree of this emotional link varies person-to-person, but clearly some scientific detachment has been lost. Plus the scientists might want to keep the project that employs them going.
No one behaves in a very reasonable manner in this film, although the film hints that Morgan’s psychic powers might be influencing them. Taylor-Joy plays Morgan with the kind of wide-eyed innocence she brought to her previous strong performance in the intriguing THE WITCH. Despite Morgan’s unpredictable behavior and some violent incidents, the scientists time and again put themselves in risky positions with her. Rose Leslie (familiar to fans of GAME OF THRONES as Jon Snow’s Wildling love) plays an behaviorist who is particularly attached to Morgan and determinedly blind to any problems. Even Jennifer Jason Leigh as Kathy, the scientist Morgan attacked, seems weirdly trusting of the humanoid.
Paul Giamatti, as a psychologist sent to evaluate Morgan, telegraphs great disdain for the project and plainly tells them in advance that Morgan will fail his test. Brushing aside warnings and a chance to view video of the “incident,” he insists on being in the same room with her/it and takes no precautions in doing so – classic cheesy horror film stuff. Giamatti chews the scenery as this nonsensical character, because what else can he do.
Mara plays her role with a stone-faced stoicism which fits the character’s task. Despite her seeming competence, she botches the job over and over, and her target eludes her repeatedly, often with little effort. The result is the kind of laughable action/chase one often sees in bad horror films. When she finally succeeds, it is almost by accident. The film concludes by revealing the not-too-surprising secrets behind the top-secret project.
Look at that cast – Toby Jones, Paul Giamatti, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Michelle Yeoh – and you have to wonder how all those talented people ended up in this disappointing little film. That is the biggest mystery of the creaky horror thriller MORGAN.
© Cate Marquis
