Inside a scientific facility, Dr. Kathy Grieff is seated at a table to interview a strange hooded girl. As they discuss free outings, the girl attacks the woman, striking her eye with several cuts from a sharp weapon. Following the incident, Lee Weaters, an expert in risk assessment, is sent to the scene to check the situation and the status of the experiments on behalf of the company funding the work. Morgan, in fact, is not an ordinary girl. As her 'scientific father,' Dr. Ziegler explains, she was created from synthetic DNA and was not designed to experience any emotions or feelings. When a psychologist provokes her during an evaluation interview, Morgan awakens her dormant nervous and emotional system, and from that moment on, she begins to carry out a fierce revenge that results in a long series of murders and a tight struggle with Lee Weaters herself, who, in reality, shows unsuspected skills given her appearance.
The history of cinema is filled with artists' children who try to follow, in any capacity, the footsteps of their fathers with sometimes excellent, if not superior, results and other times less encouraging, if not poor. This long list includes Luke Scott, son of the more famous Ridley, who, after a career that is not very rich with only a short film and an episode of the now dated television series 'The Hunger,' decides to make his directorial debut with a feature film, tackling the genre dearest to his father: science fiction.
His 'Morgan,' in fact, is a science fiction film that, however, is contaminated with some shades of horror and even action at certain points. What emerges, however, is an authentic mess, a very patchy film, with slow and soporific rhythms and little engaging not only for genre enthusiasts but also for occasional viewers who usually settle for little to have fun and enjoy some lowbrow spectacle.
The words novelty and daring do not seem to be present in Scott's vocabulary, who chooses to take safe paths and move within that long tradition that, since 'Frankenstein,' sees as its protagonist a creature created from nothing in a laboratory and then rebels against its master, sowing death and destruction. The monster in question is a girl whose appearance, it must be said, is certainly disturbing thanks to a hood that only allows the evil and the desire for revenge that lurk within her icy gaze, typical of someone incapable of experiencing emotions.
The big problem is that the entire first half of the film, played entirely on the expectation that Morgan unleashes hell, rather than becoming an accumulation of tension and suspense, turns out to be a tedious and unnecessary presentation of the characters, the interior environments (even the kitchen is shown with care) and unclear and superficial scientific explanations.
This rather disappointing first half is followed by a second half that is only partially more lively thanks to a horror vein present mainly in the sequence of the conversation between Morgan and the psychologist. In this scene, in fact, the sense of anxiety transmitted by the man's threatening tones and the girl's aggressive demeanor scares the viewer and makes them a participant in the story up to the consequent attack, which represents perhaps one of the most successful moments of Scott's film. It remains a flash in the pan, however, because as the minutes pass, the plot flattens again, aligning itself with tracks more similar to action movies, proposing a collection of things already seen and culminating in a predictable and unbelievable ending.
Among the few bright spots, we can include the cast choice, especially Kate Mara, who is excellent in portraying a surprising and ambiguous character like Lee Weathers, and Anya Taylor-Joy, already seen in 'The Witch,' who confirms herself as a young actress of whom we will hear a lot about in the future.
In short, at least for this time, the saying 'the apple doesn't fall far from the tree' cannot be applied to Scott junior.
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