It Came From The Cineplex: Morgan

Morgan was written by Seth Owen and directed by Luke Scott.

Owen previously wrote Seriously Weird and Peepers, whatever the hell those are. This is Scott's first time in the director's chair (theatrically, at least).

Luke Scott is also the son of Ridley Scott, the famed director of ALIEN, Blade Runner, Gladiator and The Martian, among many, many others. Yeah, that Ridley Scott. Gosh, I wonder how his son got this gig?

Actually I'm fine with that. I've never quite understood why the general public frowns on nepotism in the entertainment field. If Will Smith was a plumber and pulled some strings to get his kid a job fixing leaky sinks, no one would bat an eye. But he uses his influence to get his son an acting job, and suddenly the whole world clucks their tongues in disapproval. Why? Why shouldn't a celebrity help out their kid if they have the means?

Morgan is yet another entry in the already crowded "A.I. Goes Wrong" genre.

The problem is every A.I. movie I've ever seen has had the exact same plot. Scientists invent an artificial intelligence, it starts learning at an exponential rate, it becomes smarter than those who created it and instantly decides to kill them. It's like the Frankenstein story for the computer age.

Plot-wise, Morgan is somewhat similar to 2015's Ex Machina, which was a thoughtful and intelligent look at artificial intelligence and what it means to be human. Morgan desperately wants to follow that same path, but unfortunately it trips and falls flat on its face. There just aren't any ideas or substance present in Morgan, leaving it as hollow as the title character's blank-eyed stare. Heck, it even devolves into a standard action film in the third act!

There's a big plot twist near the end of the film that you'll likely see coming a mile off. Once you know the twist, you'll see the clues were there all along, and were pretty darned obvious. I'm ashamed of myself for not figuring it out earlier than I did. Like in the first reel.

So far the movie's tanking at the box office, managing to scrape up just a measly $2.5 million in its opening weekend. I can't say I'm surprised. I go to the cineplex every weekend, and I didn't see a single trailer or even a poster for the film before it came out. In fact I had no idea it even existed until the day I went to see it! If the movie ends up being a huge bomb, Fox has no one to blame but themselves. If you want people to see your movie, you've got to spend some cash to let them know about it!

ARTIFICIALLY INTELLIGENT SPOILERS AHEAD, INCLUDING A THIRD ACT PLOT TWIST YOU'LL LIKELY SEE COMING!

The Plot:
Deep in an underground lab, Dr. Kathy Grieff (played by Jennifer Jason Leigh) enters a secured glass cell housing Morgan (played by Anna Taylor-Joy), a young girl who's some sort of artificial human. They chat for a bit about how the artificial life form is feeling. Suddenly Morgan lashes out, violently stabbing Dr. Grieff in the eye before being sedated.

The next day Lee Weathers (played by Kate Mara of Fant4Stic fame) arrives at the lab. Lee is a stoic, Vulcan-like (Hmmm…) risk-assessment specialist, who works for the shadowy Corporation funding the Morgan experiment. She's basically an insurance adjuster, there to determine whether the Morgan project should be shut down or salvaged.

Lee meets the various scientists working on the project. Among them is Amy Menser (played by Rose Leslie of Game Of Thrones), who's been placed in a time out from the project for taking Morgan on an unauthorized trip to the woods. She also meets Skip, the lab's nutritionist, who takes an unrequited shine to Lee.

Dr. Simon Ziegler (played by Toby Jones) speaks with Lee and explains the genesis of the "L-9" project and how Morgan was created. Morgan is a synthetic human, who grew to adolescence in the space of only six months. Lee cuts him off, saying she's familiar with the process (Hmmm...). She also says the scientists shouldn't refer to Morgan as "she," but rather "It."

Dr. Grieff tells Lee that the attack was her fault, as she accidentally "provoked" Morgan. In fact all the scientists in the facility seem to bend over backward trying to excuse and justify Morgan's behavior. Are they genuinely concerned for her welfare, or just trying to protect their meal ticket project?

Lee demands to meet Morgan, and is taken to her glass cell. Morgan already knows who Lee is, as she seems to have mild telepathic powers. Morgan seems upset by her recent behavior, and says she knows what she did was wrong.

That night at dinner, Lee meets Dr. Lui Cheng (played by Michelle Yeoh). Lee speaks to Cheng in fluent Mandarin, which the others don't understand. She brings up a similar experiment in Helsinki, involving both Dr. Cheng and Dr. Ziegler, in which most of the science team was killed. Cheng excuses herself and leaves.

After dinner Skip tries to put the moves on Lee, who shows no reaction whatsoever (Hmmm...). He awkwardly apologizes and leaves. Amy goes down to Morgan's cell and turns off the cameras so they can chat without being recorded. Cut to a flashback of Amy taking Morgan into the woods. Morgan's amazed at everything she sees. She then spots a wounded deer and calmly breaks its neck, putting it out of its misery. Holy crap!

The next day Lee brings in psychiatrist Dr. Alan Shapiro (briefly played by Paul Giamatti) to evaluate Morgan. Shapiro insists he needs to be inside the cell with Morgan with her to properly do his job, in what may be the most blatant and obvious plot contrivance I've ever seen in a film. The scientists reluctantly unlock the door and let him in. He begins grilling Morgan, deliberately trying to push her buttons to see how she reacts. He even asks her what she'd do if he recommended she be terminated. To absolutely no one's surprise, she leaps across the table and rips out his throat with her teeth.

The scientists are horrified, and rush in to sedate Morgan and try to save Shapiro. Naturally Morgan escapes the second they open the door to her cell. Lee grabs a tranquilizer gun and follows. Morgan runs outside and sees Amy, which distracts her long enough for Lee to shoot her. Morgan's then strapped to a table as Lee orders her to be terminated. Morgan comes to and tearfully pleads with Dr. Cheng, who she calls "Mother." Cheng coldly says she's not her mother, and orders the scientists to give Morgan a lethal injection. Cheng then leaves the lab and goes to her room (another plot contrivance!) instead of watching the procedure.

The other scientists are too attached to Morgan, and refuse to kill her. Lee says, "Oh for f*ck's sake!" and enters the cell to do it herself. One of the scientists shoots her with a tranq gun to stop her, and Lee beats the living crap out of him, which seems beyond the job requirements for an insurance adjuster (Hmmm....). Lee passes out from the tranq dart and is locked in Morgan's cell.

The other scientists try to take Morgan to safety, but she escapes her restraints and kills them all (natch!). She then goes to Dr. Grieff's room and finishes her off, hangs Dr. Ziegler in his closet (?) and kills her "mother," Dr. Cheng. Morgan tells Amy, who she considers her friend, to get in an SUV, and the two drive off.

Lee wakes up and breaks out of the cell. She runs into Skip, who Morgan apparently overlooked. He tells Lee he knows where Morgan's going— to the lake where Amy promised to take her some day. Lee tells Skip to stay there and drives off after Morgan and Amy. Lee catches up and tries to run them off the road, but Morgan forces her into a tree. Skip drives up, and Lee shakes off the impact (Hmmm...), takes the car and speeds off yet again..

Lee finds Morgan's abandoned car and heads into the woods after her. Morgan attacks and the two engage in an epic battle, full of powerful punches and impressive back flips. Seriously, are all insurance agents trained in hand-to-hand combat like this? Morgan finally ends the fight by shoving Lee onto a sharp, jagged tree root that impales her in the gut. Lee grimaces a bit, but otherwise seems unaffected (Hmmm...). 

Morgan leaves Lee for dead, which is another plot contrivance, and joins Amy at the lake. Morgan gazes at the scenery in wonder. Just then the Terminator Lee suddenly appears, and throws Morgan into the lake and holds her underwater until she drowns. Lee climbs out of the water and casually shoots Amy in the head. She heads back to the car and Skip runs up, asking what the heck's going on. She shoots him as well. I guess that's that then! Everyone in the movie's dead except for Lee!

Cut to the Corporate boardroom, in which an executive pronounces the L-9 project a failure. Another executive asks, "What about Lee Weathers?" The first executive says, "What about her? She's perfect."

We then see Lee sitting in a diner, staring at her hands just like Morgan did. Gasp! Get it? Eh, did you get it yet? Hey, did you get the shocking twist ending?

Thoughts:
• One of the film's biggest problems is we're never quite sure just what Morgan is, or why she goes nutty and starts killing. 

She's definitely not a simple robot like Ava in Ex Machina, because we're told she grew from infant to tween in the space of six months. One of the scientists calls Morgan a synthetic life form, but then Dr. Ziegler claims they created her by fusing nanites with human embryos or some such. I guess she's like a test tube baby or a lab-grown, enhanced human? But then wouldn't she have her own consciousness? Why do they talk about her "programming" and artificial intelligence. It's all very vague and confusing.

We definitely needed some clarification here as to just what the hell she's supposed to be.

We also never find out just why she likes to kill so much. Is there something wrong with her programming? Does she kill because she doesn't have a soul? Is it because she grew up too fast and hasn't had time to learn morality and the rules of society? Your guess is as good as mine.

• "Don't Let It Out" may be one of the worst tag lines I've seen on a poster. Every time I see it I think of someone trying to hold in a fart. Or worse yet, it's a warning to the studio— "Don't let this movie out to theaters!"

• Kate Mara was the perfect choice to play an artificial human killing machine. With her mask-like, immobile face and emotionless demeanor, it's the role she was born to play. Zing!

• The short-haired, superpowered, lab-grown Morgan is incredibly similar to the short-haired, superpowered, lab-grown Eleven from Netflix's Stranger Things series. About the only thing missing from Morgan is Eggos!

Stranger Things came out just a month or two before Morgan premiered. That means they were probably both in production at the same time, so I doubt either would have been able to copy from the other. But man, that is one huge coincidence.

• Speaking of Stranger Things and coincidences:

Chris Sullivan plays Dr. Darren Finch in the film, and despite the fact that he considers Morgan his friend, she ruthlessly kills him.

Oddly enough, Sullivan (very briefly) played diner-owner Benny in Stranger Things, befriending the enigmatic Eleven right before meeting a similar fate.

This Sullivan guy definitely needs to stay away from doe-eyed little supergirls.

• Poor Jennifer Jason-Leigh. She tries to be Morgan's friend, and gets beaten up, stabbed in the eye and later on has her head crushed for her trouble.

Earlier this year she played Daisy Domergue in Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight, and spent the majority of the run time being severely beaten by Kurt Russell.

Apparently Jason-Leigh's agent has it in for her, and only casts her in films which call for her to be violently brutalized. I don't know what she did to piss him off, but she needs to apologize to him, stat.

• It's always nice to see Michelle Yeoh onscreen. Too bad she's not in more films here in the States.

• As I said earlier, the big plot twist is telegraphed well in advance. One of the biggest and most obvious clues comes when Lee first meets Morgan. As Lee stands outside her cell, Morgan's face is perfectly reflected in the glass over her own, visually indicating their secret kinship.

It's not exactly subtle, but I thought it was pretty well done. The film could have used more cool little touches like that.

Oddly enough, later on this scene is duplicated almost exactly, as Morgan's face is reflected over Amy's. Is that supposed to be another clue? Is Amy another synthetic human, just like Morgan? Amy never shows any signs that she's anything more than human, so I honestly don't know what that little scene meant.

• After Lee is locked in Morgan's underground holding area, she notices a skylight at the top of a tall shaft. She then shinnys up the shaft, smashes the skylight and climbs to the surface.

I guess in all the time Morgan was held in the cell, it never occurred to her that she could have escaped the exact same way.

• Once Morgan escapes, Lee springs into action, becoming a female Terminator as she relentlessly tracks her down. As she kicked multiple asses I was thinking, "Damn, this is one tough insurance investigator! Do NOT attempt insurance fraud when she's around!"

When she was impaled by the tree root and just shook it off, it finally hit me that she was much more than just a pencil pusher.

• All through the movie I was convinced that the filmmakers used CGI to subtly alter Anna Taylor-Joy's eyes. They seemed a little too far apart, and something about them just seemed... off somehow.

Welp, apparently they didn't, and that's just the way she looks! Earlier this year Taylor-Joy starred in The V V Itch, and she had the same wide-set, otherworldly eyes there as well.

Morgan would love nothing more than to be a thinking man's sci-fi film, but it's far too vapid and empty to qualify. It degenerates into a standard action movie in the third act, and you'll likely see the big twist coming a mile off. Skip it and re-watch Ex Machina again to get your A.I. fix. I give it a C.

It Came From The Cineplex: Ex Machina

Ex-Machina was written and directed by Alex Garland.

Garland previously wrote the screenplays for 28 Days Later, Sunshine (both of which were directed by Danny Boyle) and the underrated Dredd. Ex Machina is his directorial debut.

And what a debut it is! Ex Machina is a slow burning character study that takes its time as it examines the nature of humanity and consciousness and springs its various traps when you least expect it.

Finally, an intelligent and thoughtful sci-fi film. This is the kind of movie the similarly-themed Chappie should have been, but sadly wasn't. Unfortunately it's going to be buried at the box office by the one-two punch of Furious 7 and Avengers: Age Of Ultron. Hopefully it'll find a larger audience on home video.

Ex Machina is very similar to 2013's The Machine, another film about a female robot with artificial intelligence. The Machine even featured a character named Ava! Ex Machina is definitely the better film, but that's still a hell of a coincidence.

SPOILERS!

The Plot:

Caleb Smith (played by Domhnall Gleeson) is a young programmer working at Bluebook, the most popular online search engine in the world, which absolutely isn't meant to remind us of Google. He wins an in-house contest to spend a week with the company's reclusive CEO Nathan Bateman (played by Oscar Isaac) at his secluded mountain home.

Caleb is flown to Bateman's remote Alaskan complex by helicopter. Caleb's initial meeting with the eccentric genius isn't what he expected, as Nathan is brash, overbearing and a borderline alcoholic, who absolutely isn't meant to remind us of Willy Wonka, Tony Stark and Steve Jobs all rolled into one. Nathan says he's developed a new artificial intelligence, and wants an objective outsider to administer a Turing Test to determine its validity.

Caleb is then introduced to the A.I.— a highly advanced humanoid robot named Ava (played by Alicia Vikander).  Although Ava has a human face, her body is clearly robotic, with transparent sections revealing the machinery and circuitry within. During their initial meeting, Caleb is impressed by Ava's grasp of language and seeming intelligence. She tells Caleb she dreams of someday visiting a large city and people-watching near a busy intersection.

Nathan records all the tests with multiple surveillance cameras. Suddenly the power goes out, and Ava leans forward and says they can now speak in secret, and gravely warns Caleb that Nathan isn't to be trusted. When the power is restored, Ava goes back to normal conversation mode, leaving Caleb puzzled and more than a little terrified.

That night at dinner, Nathan expresses annoyance at the power outages, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Ava is causing them. He drinks too much and becomes angry when his beautiful Japanese servant Kyoko spills wine on the table. Caleb is appalled by the way Nathan treats her.

The next day, Ava puts on a dress, sweater and wig and notes that Caleb is now physically attracted to her. Later Caleb accuses Nathan of programming Ava to be attracted to him in order to skew the Turing Test. Nathan denies this, saying he simply programmed sexuality into her in an effort to make her more human. Caleb also figures out that he wasn't chosen to visit at random, and Nathan admits he's right. He was chosen based on his intelligence and knowledge of A.I.

Caleb and Ava continue to meet and converse. Ava worries what will happen to her if she fails the Turing Test. Later Caleb asks Nathan about this, and he says if she doesn't pass the test, she'll be reformatted— which will in effect kill her.

That night Nathan then gets so drunk he passes out. Caleb steals his key card and accesses his computer. He sees video files of Nathan's previous A.I. models, all of which look like beautiful women, and who all beg to leave the facility. He then enters Nathan's bedroom and finds the deactivated models hanging in his closet. Kyoko appears and reveals she too is an android. Caleb begins to fear he may be an android as well, and slices open his arm with a razor to prove he's human.

During Caleb's final interview with Ava, she cuts the power and they plot their escape. Caleb will get Nathan drunk again, and reprogram the security doors to allow them to leave. Caleb offers Nathan a drink, but he refuses, claiming to be on the wagon. Caleb realizes he's been played by both Nathan and Ava all along. Nathan says the real test was to see if Ava was capable of tricking Caleb into helping her escape, which proves she's "human" and means she's passed the Turing Test.

But Caleb is a sneaky bastard as well, and has already reprogrammed the doors. Ava is then able to escape her sealed room. Nathan tries to stop her, but she attacks him. He hits her with an iron bar, knocking her arm off. Kyoko then stabs Nathan in the back with a large knife. Nathan crushes her head, and Ava takes the knife and stabs him again, killing him.

Ava then goes to Nathan's closet and uses parts from the older prototypes to repair her body and covers herself in synthetic skin and a wig. Now looking fully human, she exits the building, leaving Caleb locked inside Nathan's office with no way out. She's picked up by the waiting helicopter and whisked away.

We then see her standing at a busy intersection, people-watching.

Thoughts:

• Kudos to Alex Garland for setting the movie slightly in the future, but not in any specific year. As readers of my blog are all tired of hearing by now, one of my pet peeves is when a sci-fi movie is full of futuristic technology but set in the far off year of 2018.

• The title is of course derived from "deux ex machina," meaning "god from the machine." And by the way, it's pronounced "MACK-ih-na," not "Masheen-ah."

• Oddly enough, actors Domhnall Gleeson and Oscar Isaac are both starring in the upcoming Star Wars: The Force Awakens film.

• The Turing Test is a real thing, designed to determine a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equal to or indistinguishable from a human. It was invented in 1950 by Alan Turing, the famous mathematician, cryptographer and computer science pioneer.

I freely admit I'm much dumber than Turing, so I don't understand the value of the test. Supposedly you converse with two subjects, one human and one a machine. If you can't tell which is which, then the machine passes and is considered intelligent.

But how can you ever know if a machine is actually thinking, or just simulating thought and saying what you want to hear? Is simulated thinking the same as real thought?

• The Ava effects are absolutely brilliant, and look completely real. There are tons of details visible inside her transparent body, including flashing lights and slowly whirring gears and fans.

Supposedly no green screen was used, as her human parts were painstakingly rotoscoped out and replaced with robotic versions. Complicating matters were the reflections she cast in the numerous glass walls, which also had to be "roboticized."

The effects are even more amazing when you consider the budget for the entire film was a scant $16 million! Heck, most films spend more than that on their craft service these days!

• I don't get why Nathan came up with the "win a week at his complex" contest ruse. Why go through all the publicity-generating pretense of a contest? Why not just discreetly invite Caleb for a visit?

• Is Nathan the only person inhabiting his complex? It sure seems that way (well, until Caleb arrives of course). If so, he really is quite the genius. He's not only a brilliant computer programmer, but also a talented engineer and gifted roboticist as well, somehow constructing a life-like humanoid robot all by himself.

Realistically there should have been a team of hundreds working on such a project. I guess they were going for a Dr. Frankenstein, mad scientist kind of vibe here, that wouldn't have been possible unless Nathan was the only one involved.

• Apparently Nathan's never heard of Isaac Asimov's Three Laws Of Robotics. You know, the ones that say "a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm," etc and so on. He'd have avoided a whole lot of trouble (and would still be alive) if he'd built those into his bots.

You'd also think someone as smart as him would have built some kind of kill switch into Ava, to prevent her from leaving the complex (or even her room, for that matter).

• There's a lot of full frontal female nudity on display here, which is something you don't see a lot in movies these days. I wonder... did the studio consider the nudity acceptable because none of the women in the film are real? Robot nudity is OK, real nudity not so much?

• I'm very impressed that Nathan's complex doesn't blow up at the end of the film, which is how 99.9% of most sci-fi films end.

• At the end of the film, Ava walks into the landing field, boards the waiting helicopter and flies away to her new life. Shouldn't the pilot have questioned her? Wouldn't he have been expecting Caleb, not some woman he's never seen before? Shouldn't he have tried to check in with Nathan to make sure everything was kosher? I half expected her to kill the pilot and fly the copter herself. Maybe she used her manipulative female ways on him to allay his suspicions.

Ex Machina is a rarity at the theater these days— a simple, thoughtful and intelligent sci-fi film that demands your attention and actually makes you think. I'm hoping against hope it'll do well, so we'll see more films like it. I give it an A-.