Movie Breakdown: Morgan

Pre-Screening Stance:

Kate Mara, Michelle Yeoh, Anya Taylor-Joy, Toby Jones, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Paul Giamatti.  That’s a hell of a cast!  The trailers have left a lot to be desired though, and I’m assuming that there’s a reason why the film is getting dumped here at the tail-end of August.  So, let’s just say my expectations are firmly in check.

Post-Screening Ramble:

Morgan is essentially a poor man’s Ex Machina, but not in a good way.  Here’s the story – Lee Weathers (a crabby, stone-faced, business haircut-sporting Kate Mara) is sent to a secret research facility to check-in on a still-in-development synthetic being.  For the first chunk of the movie she doesn’t do much but talk with the scientists and their creation, Morgan (Anya Taylor-Joy, the girl from The Witch), and this is largely where the film is similar to Ex Machina.  However, in place of that film’s clever dialogue, there’s just a whole slew of forgettable bits that are meant to give the film’s paper-thin plot and characters some weight.  It doesn’t work.  This doesn’t really matter anyhow, I suppose, as once a few pieces are set, all that pesky talking gets jettisoned in favor of good ole shaky cam-riddled violence.  Only the fighting/shooting/whatever doesn’t feel particularly gritty or real, and instead the scenes kind of come off like those old Star Trek episodes where the crew is obviously pretending to flail around inside of a “rocking” Enterprise.  No thanks.

Skip Morgan.  It’s nothing more than a big slab of mediocrity.

One Last Thought:

I think it’s silly when people claim to know a film’s twist right from the beginning.  I mean, come on!  That’s just a ridiculous claim like 95% of the time!  With that being said, I totally knew what was going to happen about 30 seconds into Morgan.  It was that obvious.