Lee Weathers (Kate Mara) is a risk assessor for a company who fund projects to create intelligent artificial beings so when their latest experiment, a five year old specimen called Morgan (Anya Taylor Joy) badly injures a member of the team Weathers is sent to investigate if the outburst was a one off or whether the project is no longer viable as they are fearful of a re-occurrence of an incident in Helsinki where most of the team were killed by a previous project.

As she carries out her investigation we find out more about Morgan and her situation, we learn that this was the third attempt by the team and, in their opinion, Morgan is a perfect creation. On the outside this would seem to be the case as, in general, Morgan seems to act just like a human but during an intense psychological evaluation by Dr.Shapiro (Paul Giamatti) things take a turn for the worst and Morgans aggression once again manifests itself with dire consequences so Weathers decides that the project is no longer suitable for continuity and demands that Morgan is terminated but this is in conflict with how most of the scientists feel as they have developed a strong, almost parental bond with Morgan. This leaves the only real defender of the termination as Dr.Cheng (Michelle Yeoh) who was involved in the incident in Helsinki which leaves Weathers  at odds with the team and when she pushes ahead with the cessation of the project the team decide to take affairs into their own hands, subdue Weathers and save Morgan but their faith in the experiment is ill placed as, while Morgan may be physically advanced, emotionally it is not and like most basic living things puts self preservation above all else. Once free it decides that it doesn’t ever want to go back into captivity so Weathers must track down the experiment and terminate it once and for all.

If you have seen the trailer then you may find that the film is not quite what you expected. It’s a slow paced thriller interspersed with action sequences but director Luke Scotts (Son of Ridley) attempts to keeps us on the edge of our seals falls a little flat due to the predictability of the movie and the large plot holes which occur. Although you can see that he has picked up on some of his fathers talent as visually the movie is very good, with some clever camera work building tension by showing us things occurring behind the main focus of the scene. Also both the strong female character and the use of an unseen ‘Corporation’ pulling the strings both harked back to the original Alien movie.

Mara does a good job as the cold hearted investigator, more detective that risk assessor who is all about the job at hand. As she declares very early ‘Morgan is not a she, it is an it!’ but it did not come across as the most taxing of roles in terms of diversity which left it hard to like her character, although this was obviously the way the part was written. Some of the science team felt very under used Dr.Grieff (Jennifer Jason Lee) had little screen time and while, part of the most integral scene of the film, the same can be said of the Giamatti role. The big plus for the film is the performance of Taylor Joy as Morgan, after her great showing is last years The Witch, she once again shows her talent as, beyond the make up effect, she gives a real emotionless, almost robotic performance which gives a great feel for how this being was created and is almost alien like despite the best efforts of the science team to humanise it.

It’s a movie of two halves. The first is a slow paced thriller like introduction to the situation, the people involved and the subject in question. The second half is more of an action movie but is the weaker half of the two so despite the moralistic themes of genetics, tampering with nature and playing God plus the potential controversial link to abortion and the rights to terminate life it just failed to get the movie above the level of mediocre. If you like your science fiction then there enough here to make it worth checking out but if not you are likely to find it all a bit far fetched and end up losing interest. Try the excellent Ex-Machina for a much better film along the same lines.

DJ Speaks Rating: 5 Out Of 10