Movies
Associated Press
This image released by Twentieth Century Fox shows Kate Mara, right, in a scene from "Morgan."
"Morgan" cool but predictable By SANDY COHEN Associated Press Even if you guess the twist in "Morgan" early on, the title character is still an interesting one. Played by relative newcomer Anya TaylorJoy, Morgan is enigmatic and otherworldly, at once childlike and wise. She's also an expensive, top-secret experiment, and she appears to be malfunctioning. This debut feature from Luke Scott — produced by his Oscar-nominated dad, Ridley Scott — is a sci-fi tale about artificial intelligence. Morgan is a bioengineered being made from synthetic DNA, a lab-grown creature that looks like a delicate teenage girl. Movies have long been interested in genetically or mechanically enhanced humanoids, whether
as killers ("The Terminator") or companions ("Her," ''Ex-Machina"). Morgan is something in between. With whitened eyebrows and a non-human sheen to her skin, Taylor-Joy brings the character convincingly to life with a mix of gentle innocence and robotic indifference. She is the most compelling aspect of the film. Unfortunately, the screenplay by Seth Owen follows a predictable and action-packed path rather than one that explores what is ostensibly its central question: Can technology replicate human emotions? The story starts with Morgan unexpectedly attacking one of her handlers. The violent misbehavior draws corporate fixer Lee Weathers (Kate Mara) to the secret lab where Morgan was made — an underground bunker
in the middle of nowhere — to assess the experiment's ongoing viability. Weathers is strictly business, emotionless and humorless in a slim-fitting black suit. She's coolly distant as she interviews the team of scientists who've been living at the isolated lab for years monitoring Morgan's every move. The group is like family, to Morgan and to each other. Jennifer Jason Leigh plays the attacked caretaker, who insists Morgan "has joy in her heart." Weathers is unsympathetic and corporateminded. To her, Morgan "is not a she. It's an it." Weathers is so detached and job-focused, she's like a different species. Though Michelle Yeoh and Toby Jones co-star as Morgan's creators, and Paul Giamatti makes a memorable if brief appearance
as a psychiatrist who examines the "hybrid biological organism," Taylor-Joy steals her every scene. Whether limited by screenplay or execution, Mara doesn't manage the depth with Weathers that Taylor-Joy brings to Morgan. Both actresses deliver, though, in their spectacular fight scenes. Weathers and Morgan are much stronger than their tiny frames would suggest, and it's exciting to see two petite women executing the kind of fight choreography usually reserved for big male superheroes. Still, the predictable twist hampers the story's suspense, and the film doesn't dip beyond the superficial. It hints at the cost of denying emotions and suggests some redemptive magic in nature but never finishes the thought.
"The Light Between Oceans" a bit lacking By ROBERT GRUBAUGH For The Edge Michael Fassbender has got to feel like a lottery winner every day when he wakes up. The goodlooking German actor was Oscar nominated last year for playing Steve Jobs. He anchors the current iteration of the “X-Men” franchise as Magneto and is about to launch one for “Assassin’s Creed”. Now he’s starring in “The Light Between Oceans” this weekend with is real-life girlfriend, the It Girl, Alicia Vikander. That’s the trifecta as far as I’m concerned. No slouch herself, the duo make for an interesting film that is very emotionally affecting, but leaves little trace once you leave the dark of the auditorium. Fassbender’s Tom Sherbourne is a damaged man who saw too many
of the atrocities in World War I. Upon his deployment, he gladly accepts the position of lighthouse keeper on an isolated island in the north of Britain where he won’t have to deal with others as he re-finds his sanity. That the former occupant of the job has recently committed suicide notably bothers him, but it is not an important plot point. Instead, the movie turns on a dime to become a love story once Tom is introduced to the daughter of his benefactors in the mainland community where he visits infrequently. Her name is Isabel Graysmark (Vikander) and she’s even more smitten with him than he is with her. That the two have only seemingly met on a pair of brief occasions when she proposes that he propose marriage is of little concern to anyone other than this viewer. Instead, they make off for
life together, alone, on an island for two. Life for the Sherbournes is hard work, but rewarding and warm. Isabel builds a home for the two while he protects the shippers that sustain their village. Another turn comes after she suffers an early miscarriage and then another late in term. The tide responds just when she’s filled most with despair and a rowboat beaches after a bad storm that contains a dead man and his infant daughter who is very much alive and in need of a family to help her. Torn between her grief and his sense of responsibility, Isabel and Tom agree to care for the child until she’s able to journey back to from wherever it is she came from. They, of course, fall for her and the girl is dubbed Lucy and raised to be their own. Actress Florence Clearly, who
plays the small child, may just be the cutest little girl that I’m not personally related to. She mugs for her parents’ affections and charms the dickens out of anyone who comes along. When a visit to the vicar for her christening turns up the possibility that she is the actual daughter of a surviving and aggrieved Hannah (Rachel Weisz), Tom’s sense morality shifts so violently within him that it is visible to the naked eye of any casual moviegoer. He sends at first an anonymous note, and then later, proof that the child lives to her mother, unbeknownst to Isabel. Hannah’s pursuit of the truth leaves no stone unturned and the conclusion of the film is cutting in its depiction of fairness, ethical shortcomings, and justice. It plays out over about five years and features threats, betrayals,
September 15, 2016
and more than just the tears I shed while taking in this excellent example of the “weepy” genre. There are a few scenes in this movie that are very well created, even if the sum of the parts isn’t any special whole. Tom speaking i n f ro n t o f t h e t o w n a t t h e lighthouse’s centennial celebration is brief, but moving. Isabel’s silent shrieking as she stands over two rough graves marking the unborn children she lost is haunting. This isn’t a movie that teaches you anything. It’s one that simply exists to manipulate your feelings. And isn’t that what the game of life is all about? “The Light Between Oceans” runs 133 minutes and is rated PG-13 for thematic material and some sexual content. I give this film one and a half stars out of four.
On the Edge of the Weekend
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