Hey, I have an idea! Let’s create a synthetic human in a lab and then try to teach it not to murder everything in sight. What could possibly go wrong? This may sound like a stupid concept in 2016, but you better believe people in this movie still think it’s a good one after years of trial and mostly error. We’re supposed to assume that scientists are vastly smarter than the rest of us when it comes to common sense and critical thinking.
Yet when the subject is creating artificial life, they somehow become the biggest idiots in the room. You would think that once the body count reaches double digits, someone might take the hint, cut their losses, and declare the experiment a failure. Unfortunately, the characters in Morgan operate under the classic “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” motto. So try, try again as we take a trip to Dumbass Island and dig into the origin of Morgan.
The film opens with surveillance footage of a young girl repeatedly stabbing a woman in the eye while the victim screams in agony. Get used to those screams—they occur with depressing frequency. Corporate risk-management officer Lee Weathers (Kate Mara) is called in to evaluate whether the Morgan project should continue or be terminated. Jennifer Jason Leigh plays the injured scientist and looks about as well as she did in The Hateful Eight. Lee arrives at the remote facility and meets the full team, all of whom try to convince her that despite the violent outburst, the project is still worth pursuing—against every scrap of common sense.
It goes without saying that the scientists are a collection of unlikable idiots. The group includes a range of thinly drawn types: the domestic-violence-adjacent researcher, the comic-relief figure, the obligatory young hotshot, the older authority presence, the disposable couple, and a behavioral psychologist who generates an odd romantic tension with the subject. They are overseen by the project’s “mother” figure, played by Michelle Yeoh. The team walks Lee through their previous failures and explains that Morgan represents their furthest advance yet. In only five years the synthetic being has shown rapid emotional growth and superhuman physical abilities.
The story centers on Mara’s character for good reason: she is all business and refuses to let emotion cloud her judgment. In a movie full of reckless scientists, she is the only rational person on screen. The downside is that being purely rational leaves her with almost no depth or warmth. You want to root for the one character with a functioning brain, yet the script gives her very little personality to root for.Anya Taylor-Joy does excellent work as Morgan, portraying an emotionally confused and dangerous being who looks and behaves like a volatile teenager (which, depending on your perspective, may not be much of a stretch). She steals every scene she is in. Unfortunately, pacing is one of the film’s biggest problems. The first two acts move so slowly and remain so monotone that the movie becomes genuinely boring and difficult to stay invested in. It introduces almost no interesting ideas or complications that might hold a viewer’s attention.
The closest thing to character development is a strange, underdeveloped vibe between Morgan and the team’s behavioral psychologist (Rose Leslie). The suggestion of a romantic connection feels uncomfortable given that Morgan is presented as a teenager while the psychologist is clearly an adult.Despite being produced by Ridley Scott, the film feels oddly bland and generic. It is sold as a sci-fi horror movie, yet it generates roughly as much fear as an unexpected cable bill. Credit where it is due: Anya Taylor-Joy delivers a strong, committed performance. Bigger names like Paul Giamatti and Jennifer Jason Leigh are criminally underused. Kate Mara is professional and controlled, but the material gives her almost no range, which causes her performance to flatten out.I did enjoy the twist that arrives late in the film, but it is not nearly enough to redeem the overall stupidity of the premise and the lethargic execution.
Morgan is a standard “mad scientists ignore every warning sign” story dressed up with a few sleek visuals. If someone had bothered to write a more compelling narrative and given the talented cast something worthwhile to play, the movie might have amounted to something. Instead it becomes another wasted opportunity in the sci-fi horror genre—an efficient-looking film that never figures out how to be smart, scary, or particularly interesting.
2/5
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