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Morgan (2016 film)

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Morgan
Theatrical release poster
Directed byLuke Scott
Written bySeth Owen
Starring
CinematographyMark Patten
Edited byLaura Jennings
Music byMax Richter
Production
company
Distributed by20th Century Fox
Release date
  • September 2, 2016 (2016-09-02)
Running time
92 minutes[1]
Countries
  • United Kingdom
  • United States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$8 million[2][3]
Box office$8.6 million[3]

Morgan is a 2016 British-American science fiction horror film directed by Luke Scott in his directorial debut and written by Seth Owen.[4][5] The film features an ensemble cast, including Kate Mara, Anya Taylor-Joy, Toby Jones, Rose Leslie, Boyd Holbrook, Michelle Yeoh, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Paul Giamatti.

Filming began on May 26, 2015 in Northern Ireland. The film was released on September 2, 2016 by 20th Century Fox.[6]

Plot

Lee Weathers (Kate Mara), a stern and self-contained young woman, is a risk-assessment specialist from a company that funds research projects devoted to creating artificial human beings. She is called in to investigate an incident involving one of their experiments. The company dispatches her to a remote location where one of the company's most promising projects, a human hybrid called Morgan (Anya Taylor-Joy), has violently lashed out at one of the scientists, Dr. Kathy Grieff (Jennifer Jason Leigh), after having a "tantrum", in which she stabbed her in the eye with a pen. Over dinner with the scientists, Lee (who is revealed to be fluent in Chinese) discusses a previous incident at Helsinki with the lead scientists Dr. Lui Cheng (Michelle Yeoh) and Dr. Simon Ziegler (Toby Jones), in which most of the team of scientists were killed.

After Morgan violently kills a psychologist, Dr. Alan Shapiro (Paul Giamatti), who taunted and provoked her in an interview, Lee realizes that Morgan is too unpredictable, especially given her enhanced intelligence and strength, and must be terminated. The scientists, who have raised Morgan from birth (five years ago, owing to her enhanced growth rate) have grown attached to her and cannot bring themselves to kill her. As Lee is about to do so, the scientists inject her with sedative and imprison her in the glass cell in which Morgan had been held. They plan to escape with Morgan, who instead kills them and kidnaps her favorite handler, Dr. Amy Menser (Rose Leslie). In the scientists' house, Cheng is recording an apology for the failure of the experiment, in which she hints that they were attempting to develop a creation with more human emotions, only to find that the result was harder to control. After she has finished, Morgan enters the room and suffocates her.

Lee escapes from her cell and enters the house to confront Morgan. Morgan attacks her and, after a fall from an upstairs window which should have disabled both of them, Morgan flees in a vehicle with Dr. Menser into the woods. Lee pursues the pair, and Morgan runs Lee's car into a tree. Skip Vronsky (Boyd Holbrook), the cook for the team, uses his vehicle to pick Lee up and continue chasing Morgan and Menser. Lee locates the vehicle they were using and instructs Skip to wait for her by their car, continuing alone. Morgan and Lee have a final showdown, seemingly matched in strength and speed. Finally, Morgan overpowers Lee and impales her on the branch of a fallen tree, seriously injuring her. Morgan leaves her to bleed out, only for Lee to miraculously survive, catch up to Morgan, and drown her in a nearby lake. Lee shoots the surviving handlers, Menser and Vronsky, getting rid of any witnesses to what happened.

The executives at the company that is responsible for funding Morgan's creation are sitting in a conference room while calmly discussing what happened. It's then revealed that Lee is actually an earlier prototype of the human hybrid, and has been the "perfect" artificial human all this time. Lee is shown making a submissive gesture with her hands, the same way that Morgan had when Dr. Shapiro asked her how she felt about injuring Dr. Grieff.

Cast

Production

Morgan, a sci-fi thriller scripted by Seth W. Owen, was placed on the 2014 Black List of Best Unproduced Screenplays. With 20th Century Fox attached as financier and distributor, Ridley Scott's Scott Free Productions was set to produce.[7] On March 10, 2015, Kate Mara was announced as having been cast in the lead role, corporate risk-management consultant Lee Weathers, while Luke Scott, son of Ridley, was set to make his directing debut, with Ridley Scott producing, along with Michael Schaefer and Elishia Holmes. Anya Taylor-Joy was also added to the cast in the title role of a genetically-engineered being.[8] On April 29, 2015, Paul Giamatti and Toby Jones were cast as a psychologist and chief scientist in charge of the lab facility, respectively.[9] Boyd Holbrook was also set to play a nutritionist at the facility,[9] and Jennifer Jason Leigh and Michelle Yeoh were later cast in supporting roles.[10]

Filming

Principal photography on the film began on May 26, 2015 in Northern Ireland.[11][12]

Music

The film's score was composed by Max Richter.[13]

Reception

Box office

As of September 11, 2016, Morgan has grossed $3.9 million in North America and $4.6 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $8.5 million, against a production budget of $8 million.[3]

In the United States, Morgan was released on September 2, 2016, alongside The Light Between Oceans, and was originally projected to gross around $6 million from 2,020 theaters in its opening weekend.[2][14] However, after grossing just $615,000 on its first day, weekend projections were lowered to $2 million. It went on to open to $2 million, finishing 18th at the box office.[15] In its second weekend it grossed just $495,000, finishing 21st at the box office.[16]

Critical response

Morgan has received mixed reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 40%, based on 123 reviews, with a weighted average score of 5.1/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Morgan neglects to develop its decent premise, opting instead to settle for a garden-variety sci-fi thriller with more action than ideas."[17] On Metacritic the film has a score of 48 out of 100, based on 31 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[18] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale.[19]

Keith Phipps of Uproxx praised the film's setup but criticized its execution, writing, "It floats a few interesting ideas it can’t develop and it doesn’t know how to ratchet up the tension or fold those ideas into thrills. And it’s not like that can’t be done with this premise, as Ex Machina already demonstrated."[20]

David Palmer of The Reel Deal gave the film 3/10, saying "Morgan isn’t interesting or engaging and is actually quite boring ... The entire time I sat in my reclining chair the only thought that continued to race through my head was 'ugh…this is really making me want to watch Ex Machina again…'"[21] Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film one out of four stars, calling the film one of the worst of 2016 and saying: "The only thing worse than the first three-quarters of Morgan is the supposed payoff, which veers from the dumb to the really dumb to the so-dumb-you’ll-hardly-believe it".[22]

References

  1. ^ "MORGAN (15)". British Board of Film Classification. Retrieved August 25, 2016.
  2. ^ a b "'Don't Breathe' likely to beat 'Light Between Oceans' and 'Morgan' in Labor Day box office". Los Angeles Times.
  3. ^ a b c "Morgan (2016)". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved October 8, 2016.
  4. ^ Mendelson, Scott (August 30, 2016). "'Morgan' Review: Another Great Horror Movie In A Year Of Great Horror Movies". Forbes. Retrieved September 10, 2016.
  5. ^ Moore, Trent (May 25, 2016). "First trailer for Morgan, the new sci-fi horror film from Ridley Scott's son". Blastr. Retrieved September 10, 2016.
  6. ^ Getell, Oliver (May 24, 2016). "First look at Kate Mara in Luke Scott's sci-fi thriller Morgan". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved May 24, 2016.
  7. ^ Bloom, David; Yamato, Jen (December 15, 2014). "'Catherine The Great' Leads The Blacklist 2014: Full List — Update". deadline.com. Retrieved March 11, 2015.
  8. ^ Kit, Borys (March 10, 2015). "Kate Mara to Star in Ridley Scott-Produced Sci-Fi Thriller 'Morgan' (Exclusive)". hollywoodreporter.com. Retrieved March 11, 2015.
  9. ^ a b Kit, Borys (April 29, 2015). "Paul Giamatti, Toby Jones, Boyd Holbrook Joining Sci-Fi Thriller 'Morgan' (Exclusive)". hollywoodreporter.com. Retrieved April 30, 2015.
  10. ^ Raup, Jordan (May 25, 2016). "First Trailer For Sci-Fi Feature 'Morgan' Starring Kate Mara, Paul Giamatti, and Anya Taylor-Joy". Retrieved May 25, 2016.
  11. ^ "On the Set for 6/1/15: James Gunn Starts Shooting 'The Belko Experiment', Michael Keaton Begins Mcdonald's Biopic 'The Founder' & More". ssninsider.com. June 1, 2015. Retrieved June 1, 2015.
  12. ^ McCurry, Cate (May 11, 2015). "Movie stars jet in as Luke Scott sci-fi thriller starts filming". belfasttelegraph.co.uk. Retrieved May 12, 2015.
  13. ^ "Max Richter to score Luke Scott's 'Morgan'". FilmMusicReporter. November 9, 2015. Retrieved November 24, 2016.
  14. ^ "Labor Day Box Office Offers Few Options With 'Morgan', 'Light Between Oceans'". deadline.com.
  15. ^ "Don't Breathe' Still Has Oxygen, 'Suicide Squad' Seizes $300M+, 'Morgan' D.O.A. : Labor Day Weekend B.O. – Saturday Update". deadline.com.
  16. ^ Anthony D'Alessandro (September 11, 2016). "'Sully' Soaring, 'Bough' Breaks To Mid-Teen, 'Wild Life' Snoozing, 'Disappointments' DOA". Deadline.com. Retrieved September 11, 2016. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |work= (help)
  17. ^ "Morgan (2016)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango. Retrieved November 24, 2016.
  18. ^ "Morgan Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved September 5, 2016.
  19. ^ "CinemaScore". cinemascore.com.
  20. ^ Phipps, Keith (August 30, 2016). "The Too-Familiar 'Morgan' Uses A Dangerous Creation To Explore The Line Between Humans And Machines". Uproxx. Retrieved September 2, 2016.
  21. ^ "'Morgan' Uneventful, Recycled Mess". The Reel Deal.
  22. ^ Roeper, Richard (September 1, 2016). "'Morgan' review: To err is human, but this girl sure isn't". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved September 2, 2016.
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