5.9 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.8 |
A corporate risk-management consultant has to decide and determine whether or not to terminate an artificial being's life that was made in a laboratory environment.
Starring: Rose Leslie, Kate Mara, Anya Taylor-Joy, Paul Giamatti, Boyd HolbrookSci-Fi | 100% |
Thriller | 57% |
Horror | 31% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
French: Dolby Digital 5.1
Czech: Dolby Digital 5.1
Hindi: Dolby Digital 5.1
Urdu: Dolby Digital 5.1
Hungarian: Dolby Digital 5.1
Thai: Dolby Digital 5.1
Turkish: Dolby Digital 5.1
English SDH, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Bulgarian, Cantonese, Croatian, Czech SDH, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Korean, Malay, Mandarin (Simplified), Romanian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
UV digital copy
DVD copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region free
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
It’s pretty much impossible to view Morgan without comparing it, either subliminally or overtly, to last year’s Ex Machina. Both films dabble in the exigencies of artificial intelligence, and both feature a “manufactured” humanoid in the form of a female, one who is apparently sick and tired of being kept in what amounts to captivity. Add in an isolated location that features both an improbable house and a labyrinthine lair where the AI individual is being kept, not to mention at least one scientist with a perhaps too close for comfort relationship with the created being (who turns off video recording equipment in order to hobnob privately with the creation), and the comparisons are probably inevitable. Unfortunately all of those comparisons redound to the favor of Ex Machina, not this film, one which offers Ridley Scott’s son Luke his first opportunity to helm a feature film (Dad is on hand as a producer). Some wags might allege that there’s a genetic predisposition in the Scott clan to craft visually arresting films that nonetheless have their fair share of narrative deficiencies, for while Morgan often looks appealing if not especially high tech (something Luke Scott states in the included commentary track was done intentionally), its story becomes increasingly ludicrous and hackneyed as it progresses, leading to a supposed mind blowing “twist” at the end that any armchair prognosticator is probably going to see coming from the opening scenes, especially with a none too subtle “reveal” in a (again according to Scott, intentional) weirdly on the nose (in more ways than one) image featuring a superimposition that involves AI Morgan (Anya Taylor-Joy).
Morgan is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. While the IMDb is once again dataless on technical information, Panavision's site states the film was shot with Arri Alexa XT cameras. The look of Morgan is quite interesting, featuring a number of different gradings that provide a fairly wide gamut of tones and even elements like contrast over the running time of the film. A lot of the lab scenes are pretty dim looking, often cast in cool blues and slate grays. Conversely, several outdoor sequences are bathed in buttery yellows, or in flashback scenes detailing a little incident in the woods, in almost reddish or sepia tones. While this gives the imagery a somewhat heterogeneous appearance at times, detail levels are typically very good to excellent, at least when lighting conditions allow. The film doesn't really exploit a high tech, futuristic look (by design), and so science fiction lovers who come to Morgan expecting a knockout physical production and resultant video presentation may be a bit disappointed that the film's visual aesthetic is a bit tamped down at times.
Morgan's DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 offers some great immersive moment both outdoors, where swarms of bees buzz through the soundfield, to the lab environment, where an almost oppressive low frequency hum emanates at times. There's very smart differentiation in the ambiences of the indoor and outdoor environments, and good discrete channelization of specific sound effects. Dialogue is presented cleanly and clearly on this problem free track.
Anyone wanting a deep rumination on self actualization might do better than this film's bland "just be yourself" (an actual quote), with Polonius' famous speech from Hamlet springing to mind as a probably obvious (and obviously more profound) alternative. And this fact simply highlights another problem Morgan has to overcome, aside and apart from any comparisons to the superior Ex Machina — it's simply surface deep a lot of the time, content to give lip service to a few supposedly challenging existential issues without daring to really explore them very deeply. Fans of the cast might find enough here to enjoy, and technical merits are generally strong for those considering a purchase.
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