"Morgan" Review

I remember the experience of seeing Morgan more than the movie. Despite a friendly PSA from a not-so-friendly security guard, the phones buzzed, their glow occasionally diverting my eye (I didn't really mind).

An elderly woman climbed the stairs looking for her friend, who was waving at her in the row in front of us. Upon seeing said friend, the woman decided not to walk down the right row, but take a detour through ours.

In the last act, during a particularly quiet scene, a man with the lung capacity of Mickey Mouse was the lone squeaker of "Damn!", much to the crowd's amusement.

Long story short, this movie sucks: a placeholder in Hollywood's BYE week between summer blockbusters and fall award-winners. Morgan cobbles together elements of Ex Machina, The Terminator, and Transcendence and waters it down to an unsalted broth.

Lee Weathers (Kate Mara) is a risk-management consultant for SynTech, a company specializing in artificial intelligence - more specifically, blending human DNA and nanotechnology to make a new kind of life. Their latest prototype is a girl named Morgan (Anya Taylor Joy); after an argument results in Morgan stabbing one of the scientists (Jennifer Jason Leigh) in the eye, Lee is sent to assess Morgan's health and recommend either further study or termination. 

For the most part, Morgan acts like a regular girl. Flashbacks show her frolicking through the woods with her "family," the scientists who've spent six years in the research enclosure overseeing her development. One scientist, Amy (Rose Leslie), is Morgan's best friend, promising her a trip to the lake to see its unfathomable beauty, an event that captures Morgan's blossoming imagination.

Whenever Morgan snaps, we aren't given much information as to why. Is it an error in her wiring? Is it a product of rapid growth: her body is 18 but her emotions are five? These suggestions aren't the movie's, by the way.

What the movie prefers to spend time on is with the scientists, whose characters are shallow at best and annoying at worst. Most of their dialogue consists of praising Morgan blindly; she's such a special girl, they say.

They're not totally wrong. Morgan has the uncanny ability to know everything one can google about a person as soon as she sees them, as well as exhibiting bouts of telekinesis. I don't know how adding nanotechnology to a fetus gives a person psychic powers, but it's okay. I don't think the movie knows either.

I must ask, however, in a movie about AI that features violent outbursts and pseudo-intellectual debates about consciousness, why the writer (Seth W. Owen) feels the need to introduce a subplot where Skip the cook (Boyd Holbrook) goes for a meet-cute with Lee. It has the romantic fire of a middle school kid trying to sit next to their crush at the lunch table.

Most of the acting is bland because the dialogue is hollow, save for a hammy role by Paul Giamatti, who was gracious enough to relieve my boredom for 10 minutes. It seems Kate Mara is trying to pull off an icy intimidation, but it looks and sounds like Vince Vaughn in The Lost World. The movie tries to explain her no-nonsense personality, but the explanation is so dumb and predictable that it feels like a studio note.

Morgan lacks the soul, intelligence, and flavor of a sci-fi thriller. I'd say "Avoid it," but given its opening weekend grossed a whopping $1.9 million, putting the movie in 17th place, it seems like you lot already have. Keep up the good work.  

Thank you all for reading. I'm the Man Without a Plan, signing off.

"Don't Breathe" Review

Most of my disappointment with Don't Breathe stems from its director, Fede Alvarez, who helmed the 2013 remake of Evil Dead.

Evil Dead was a bloodbath, a kick to the balls for stale franchises (Saw) and pointless reboots (Friday the 13th, Quarantine). Alvarez's take was outrageous, with black humor and wince-inducing kills. It brought grindhouse to the 21st Century and we are all better for it.

Alvarez brings that style to Don't Breathe, a story about three robbers (Jane Levy, Daniel Zovatto, Dylan Minnette) who break into a retired blind vet's (Stephen Lang) home, unaware of the danger he poses to them. 

The trailer presented a near-silent movie. Once the robbers were in the house, the tension of not being heard (and subsequently caught) would add to the suspense. Instead, a heavy-handed camera and editor often defuse tension for cheap, booming jumps.

The overwrought style leads to inconsistencies, worst of which being the Blind Man's hearing. The sound of a robber slamming up against the wall or loudly whispering to his partner isn't enough for the vet to catch, but God forbid he lean on a creaky floorboard. The scares become predictable and nonsensical.

A hulking Stephen Lang is this movie's menace. Sniffing for a scent or jerking his head toward a sound, Lang is animalistic and unpredictable. Just the sight of his dead eyes is frightening.

Near the end, the film reveals more of the vet's secrets. The change of pace works and by circumventing some clichés, the movie brings out some chills. Unfortunately, the ending drags and grows so goofy that the movie completely wastes its burst of good will.

The concept of the "inept protagonist" isn't faulty. In Green Room, it's executed correctly and the effect is immersion. How many people know how to efficiently escape a troop of Neo-Nazis armed to the teeth with guns and trained dogs? Exactly. It's not far-fetched for a couple scrawny teens to struggle. It forces the viewer in the character's point of view. 

But here's where it gets tricky: the film can't present a method of escape that the character doesn't try. If an idiot like me sees a window, I'm gonna try to break it. If a man who's tried to kill me within the last 30 seconds is on the ground and I have a gun, I'm taking the shot.

So when in Don't Breathe, the characters are too inept to at least entertain the notion of a simple escape, the immersion is broken.

I feel I've discovered a new truth to the term "painfully mediocre." Don't Breathe isn't bad, but given Alvarez's previous work, this is a step backward into the familiar territory Evil Dead railed against. Go watch Green Room if you haven't already and if you have, watch it again. That film is a punk rock thriller both claustrophobic and gut-wrenching. How do you go wrong with that?

Thank you all for reading. I'm the Man Without a Plan, signing off.