Morgan Reviews

I actually didn’t know this movie had been a huge flop when it was released but since there was a decent cast involved and since it was available on Disney+, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, to be honest, I have to admit that the beginning was actually not bad at all. Sure, it was really derivative, it mostly reminded me of the vastly superior ‘Ex Machina’, but I was fairly intrigued, at least, up until the psychological evaluation with Paul Giamatti’s character. In fact, even this scene was fine but only to a certain point. Indeed, this psychologist was dealing with a possibly aggressive AI and, yet, he kept pushing her buttons while there was no security at all. I mean, in the previous incident, she did attack Kathy Grieff for less than that so this scene was pretty much ruined by the really reckless and rather unprofessional approach of this so-called expert. To make things worse, from this point on, the damned thing basically went on auto-pilot and focused on some underwhelming action scenes until the very end. Obviously, it was a rather weak approach for this material and, to make things worse, it was just bewildering that everyone involved (except for the cook/nutritionist) would actually defend Morgan. I mean, it was an interesting concept, the idea that, to develop an AI pretty much like a human being, the people around him/her/it should try to be as friendly as possible. However, at this point, she had violently assaulted one of them and even killed someone else so it was rather ridiculous that ALL of them would go on full mutiny to protect her. There was also a twist at the end (that Kate Mara’s character was also some AI) but it was actually really predictable and they didn’t do anything interesting with this. Anyway, to conclude, I think I might have been generous with my rating here but I guess it might still be worth a look, at least, if you like the genre. 

Summary: A risk management consultant is hired to investigate an incident involving an artificially intelligent girl who is being experimented on and wants to leave the facility. However, the consultant thinks that Morgan is a potential threat to society based on her behavior and hostile reactions to the people who have created her and believes she must be terminated. 

The Good: 

Cinematography wasn't bad - there were a couple of shots here and there that were similar to Ex Machina with the nature shots and ambiance in certain areas of the film.

Some of the performances in the movie were really good - Anya Taylor-Joy's second movie (her first being The Witch which was released earlier this year) and captures the AI creation / teenager role well. Rose Leslie, Michelle Yeoh and Toby Jones were also good, with Leslie breaking out of that Ygritte character from Game of Thrones as the sympathetic behaviorist and a decent American accent. 

The Mixed:

I really don't know what to say about Kate Mara's acting here. She does okay with her role, but doesn't have much range with some of the other movies I've seen her in (Transendence, The Martian).

The writing is all right, but perhaps what could have made the movie better was if the writing was more focused on Morgan instead of Lee in order to avoid the predictability of the end of [spoiler]Lee being the first and successful creation[/spoiler] and actually develop the other characters, mainly Morgan and the rest of the team while keeping Lee a mystery and making her character shady to the team.

Paul Giamatti's acting was over-the-top [spoiler]in the psych-evaluation scene[/spoiler] and forced. Maybe if he was more calmer and actually not showing that he was building up to be some friendly psychologist to a pissed off man in order to evoke emotions out of Morgan the scene would've played out better.

The marketing for this movie was poor - were the directors and crew aiming for a sci-fi horror or sci-fi thriller? Check out the trailers and you'll see what I mean.

The Bad:

Is it me, or did anybody notice how bad Michael Yare's (the black guy who plays Ted) acting was? No need to comment much on this, but there wasn't a single ounce of emotion on the man when he's face to face with Morgan.

The action sequences are choppy - I HATE scenes in action movies that have so many cuts! I just hope that if Luke Scott makes another action movie that he doesn't follow the footsteps of Paul Greengrass or Olivier Megaton.

I didn't really care for the characters much in this movie. As I said in the mixed section of this movie, if the writing had been a little better then you could really feel for some of the characters. 

TL;DR: Morgan had a promising story despite it being a copy of Ex Machina and Species, but with a great performance from Anya Taylor-Joy as the titular character and some decent cinematography is all let down by some mixed performances, poor marketing and writing without any other originality. 

Verdict: This movie would be something to watch if you're bored or just looking for a popcorn flick and tired of all the superhero action movies out in theaters today. 5/10