Das Morgan Projekt

"Morgan" is the name of an android, a piece of artificial intelligence, created in all secrecy by a team of devout scientists, in a lab somewhere hidden in a remote and forestry region. Before you start praising the downright magnificent make-up effects on the girl, bear in mind it's actress Anya Taylor-Joy's real face. She's a really good and talented young actress, but admittedly she has a bit of a weird face, which - luckily for her - helps to obtain interesting roles as the "outcast-girl" (also in "Split"). Anyways, Morgan is only five years old, but she already looks like an adolescent and she behaves like a spoiled teenager. Lately, there have been serious issues with Morgan, and she even stabbed one of her creators in the eye. Corporate headquarters sends out emotionally numb but highly professional risk-manager Lee Weathers to assess if "Project Morgan" should be terminated or not. Needless to say, Morgan's makers grew to love her as if she were a real child, and they will not accept that's she killed based on an evaluation by an outsider. Director Luke Scott (son of Ridley who made the Sci-Fi landmarks "Alien" and "Blade Runner") initially tries hard to make "Morgan" is a very ambitious, existential and emotionally challenging Sci-Fi/thriller, but he can't prevent that it turns into a rather ordinary 'stalk & slash' type of B-horror. There are a handful of terrific sequences, notably the scene with Paul Giamatti as the obnoxious auditor, but it's ultimately too lightweight to be considered a significant genre effort. Scott Jr. managed to gather an impressive cast (including Brian Cox, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Toby Jones, Paul Giamatti) and the special effects are more than adequate, but I doubt anyone will remember "Morgan" in ten years' time.

Before anyone reads this, I am glad to read that some movie goers found the movie great. However, this is just my personal take when I saw this film.

Without going into too much detail about what this film entails, I felt as though there were a few moments in the film which could have been better.

1/ The ending was slightly disappointing... and for those who do not understand why then I am sure it will become clear in the end. I just expected more.

2/ I felt as though more connection was needed between Morgan and the audience. I found the clips of her as a child sweet and warming. I even felt sympathy towards her after she had attacked her first and second victims. However, in the end I felt as though I lacked sympathy for her character, after she became more and more out of hand. This also ties into the first point to do with the ending. I was expecting to be moved, riveted. But instead I felt a mixture of "Really... after all that, that's how it ended?", along with a sense of the lack of what I felt was emotion.

3/ I wanted to understand more about why and how the members of staff loved her so much. OK, she was special - but why did they love her the way they did, even after it became clear that she was starting to become dangerous? Why didn't one of them even question themselves over how out of hand things were getting?

Just a couple of points. Apart from that, the film was good enough to hold the majority of my attention throughout and definitely had the potential to be very, very good indeed. Credit where it is due, the film's intentions did seem surprisingly in the right place, but certainly more spark... more depth was needed.

Morgan is film that failed because it didn't know what it wanted to be. It doesn't have the boldness to justify as a R-rated horror thriller, nor does it have an intelligent screenplay to accompany its themes of an AI psych thriller - both of which it was trying to go for.

In the film, Lee Weathers (Kate Mara), a "risk-management specialist", is called to evaluate whether or not the company she works for, SynSect, is to terminate a humanoid being hosted at a rural site. The project refers to the humanoid as Morgan (Anya Taylor-Joy). And from the trailer, we see that Morgan shows concerning behavioral traits - including an incident wherein she stabs one of her doctors in the eye - which is why "corporate" has to step in. The doctors all seem to love Morgan, referring to her violent actions as honest mistakes. However, Lee Weathers is only there to do a job and doesn't seem to have any interest in humanizing Morgan. She is just there to weigh the risk of keeping the project afloat.

This film is not intelligent, especially considering others films in the same genre such as Ex Machina and the brilliant HBO series Westworld which released around the same time. The characters who all take care of Morgan seem to have developed a love for her, but the direction of the film doesn't lead the viewer to contemplate the relationships between genetically created organisms and humans. This is really just about a kick-ass robot (they don't explain why it can kick ass either). It had a great cast, good action sequences, and a satisfying ending which may have been obvious and predictable to some. Also, Paul Giamatti shows up halfway through the film to do a straight up ask-questions shoot-later psych evaluation. He has an excellent performance, although given the circumstance, his character made some questionable decisions.

I admit one of the primary reasons I watched till the end was Kate Mara (yeah, I have a bit of celeb crush on her not gonna lie). She is great in the film throughout. And Anya Taylor-Joy is excellent in her role as well. She does a fascinating portrayal of a machine displaying human emotions and human misunderstanding of them. I'm thrilled to see her continue on to great lead roles. Kate Mara needs to be in more films. I especially liked her in American Horror Story: Murder House as the crazed ex-lover and homewrecking patient, Hayden.

I like to see that Ridley Scott's kids are doing their thing. I suggest they keep experimenting with the artform. That said, Morgan is an experiment that could have succeeded, but underwhelmingly failed.

Morgan starts with a simple premise of the moral and ethical implications of genetically crafting a biological being from scratch. Even if such a being looks and acts human, is it? Is the being a "she" or an "it"–and does the being have rights or autonomy, or can it be owned like a pet, or an iPhone?

Based on nothing more than the trailers, the movie struck me as a sort of biological / genetic mirror of Ex Machina. That turns out to be true to an extent, but Morgan doesn't do as good a job of exploring the philosophical question or examining the humanity of the being. The question is sort of posed, and then quickly falls aside as Morgan turns into more of a blood and guts action flick.

There is a twist at the end that I actually didn't see coming. My son says it was obvious early on, but the first hint I got was only moments before the truth of the twist was revealed.

I enjoyed the movie–and I recommend you go see it. I just feel like there was much more potential there to really dig into the philosophical issues and ethical debates of creating a genetic hybrid.

I had a chance to speak to director Luke Scott after seeing Morgan, and we dove into those issues a bit further. Scott told me that in his opinion the basic premise of Morgan is entirely plausible. "A lot of the background science–of course it's a fantasy that we made–but a lot of the background science is rooted in truth."

We talked some about the similarities and differences between the premise of Ex Machina and the premise of Morgan–a cybernetic android being versus a genetic hybrid biological being. Scott shared his belief that the technical possibility of creating something as advanced as the android in Ex Machina is far beyond our abilities, but Morgan, and the ability to create a biological being, is within our reach.

"The science is there," explained Scott. "The only thing holding us back is a moral question."

It is a valid and important moral question, too. If a company like Monsanto can create genetically modified seeds to produce healthier or more bountiful crops and own a patent on that seed, would we allow a genetic engineering company to craft healthier or more capable gene pools and own a patent on those genes? Could we create a society where those with the financial resources are able to purchase superior genetics–thereby artificially widening the gap and creating a population of genetic "Haves" and "Have Nots"? Or, would we deem a genetically modified or engineered being to be less than human–a thing or creature that can be owned, rather than a sentient being with rights?

Those are all great questions to explore, but Morgan really just scratches the surface of them.

I asked Luke Scott what's next on his horizon, and he let me know he's working on a project that also comes with a moral and ethical dilemma, but this one is based on a true story. Scott told me he is working on a script based on a book describing the story of the Donner Party–a group of homesteading pioneers that got caught in bad weather and stranded on a glacier and had to resort to cannibalism to survive.

The film MORGAN is one that you'd file under decent attempt. Directed by Ridley's son, Luke Scott, you wonder if the apple doesn't fall far from the tree or the talent gets passed down trough genes, well, don't expect MORGAN to be on the same level as Ridley's "Alien," that's for sure, but again, a decent attempt is what it is, the closest to a compliment I can give the film at this point.

Kate Mara plays a corporate risk management officer, a troubleshooter, and she's sent to a top secret location to investigate and evaluate a recent accident, she's supposed to be there to find out what went wrong and judge the asset in terms of the overall profit. At this top secret location, scientists have successfully created what is perceived to be the perfect human (Anya Taylor-Joy) but turns out, she comes with her own set of unpredictable threats.

What I can appreciate about MORGAN is that it takes familiar concepts from the world of science fiction and makes it its own. Creating life out of nothing or creating a life that's flawless has always been a fascination for ages. The film has its own way of addressing that. It's not perfect but the build up, the intensity, and the way things escalate as soon as situations go sideways, they're all well-paced and shot quite nicely. Definitely the one that stands out the most is young actress Anya Taylor-Joy, she already impressed me in "The Witch" earlier this year, and so her cold, calculating, fearsome performance in MORGAN only solidifies her reputation as the latest incredible force to be reckoned with. Better watch out for that one, she's going to go places. With its ensemble cast and its emphasis on keeping you guessing till the very end while wowing you with fight sequences and a big reveal, MORGAN is just the right dose of horror/sci-fi/thriller for us fans of such films as 1997's "Cube" or "Event Horizon" -- Rama's Screen --