Morgan (2016)

Finally, it's summer!  And it's about 67 degrees as the wind and rain come bearing down on my house.  Whee, glad it's finally...  here?  You got to love the summer solstice, and the way the news people report the beginning of the season.  My one calendar says the summer solstice was on Tuesday, but the news on one channel reported the first full day of summer on Wednesday, and another channel reported Thursday as the first day of summer.  I don't know, maybe we could all get together and agree on the date at some point, instead of throwing darts at a calendar while blindfolded?  Just an idea.  Throwing darts IS more fun, I guess.

Seems like every film is billed as the best film to come out in forever and a day, and then, 2 minutes after it hits theaters, you never hear about it again.  That's how you know you got a bad film.  If you keep hearing good things about a movie, even after it's been released, then go see the damn thing, because you know it's decent.  Take Wonder Woman.  I haven't seen it yet, but it's doing good at the box office, and everyone is saying good things about it.  I haven't seen it yet, but if it is that good, then DC might finally have a winner on their hands, instead of playing poor cousin to Marvel.

Morgan (2016) was one of those films you hear a lot about at first, then it drops off the radar.  Kate Mara stars as a Risk-Assessment Investigator or some shit, basically a troubleshooter sent in to find out wtf happened at a remote research facility.  If you've ever seen a horror movie in your life, you know remote research facilities are always bad places to end up.  Strange and creepy shit happens in these places all the time.  In this particular case, the research is an artificially-made being, and I'm not giving anything away by telling you that, because that was the whole point of all the teaser trailers and movie promos.  "Morgan" is the name of the artificial being.

I'm not going to say anymore about the film so I don't give anything away, except to mention that Toby Jones, Paul Giamatti and Michelle Yeoh all pop up in various supporting roles.  I like Paul Giamatti in everything he does, and Kate Mara played this part pretty well.  Sadly, I figured out the "twist" ending about 5 minutes into the film, and that's not an exaggeration.  Kate Mara pulls up to the research facility in a car at the beginning of the movie, is welcomed into the place, and I began to suspect the "twist ending" by the time she had set her bag down on the bed int he guest room.  It kinda sucks that I saw it coming that far away, but I guess it was on purpose.  It doesn't take anything away from the enjoyment of the film, really.

I will say this much, that everyone seemed to rave about the performance of the young girl who played Morgan, and I guess she did fine, but I don't think the movie should have focused so much on Morgan's, ah, interest in nature, I guess you'd call it?  Morgan is all going on about some natural wonder at some point, maybe waxing philosophical, I don't know.  I think my eyes glazed over and I fell asleep, because a horror movie shouldn't be waxing philosophical in the middle of the damn action.  Just a personal opinion, because it seemed to ruin the flow of the film, and detracted from the overall enjoyment.

Would I watch Morgan again?  No, but it wasn't horrible the first time.  As I said, having figured out the supposed plot twist in the first few moments, I was even more interested in seeing what happened next, so it wasn't entirely bad that I figured it out.  No nudity, a fair bit of action, not a whole lot of suspense or surprises, but hey, Paul Giamatti!  I think I caught Morgan on one of the premium channels.  Cinemax, maybe?  Can't recall.

House of Cards (Netflix) just ran it's 5th season.  I finished watching it last week, but I can't really say I enjoyed it.  It was one thing when Frank was going around killing co-eds (like Kate Mara) in the second season or whatever, but now that's he got to be president, it's all hushed whispers and intrigue and blah de blah blah.  Politics as usual, I guess.  I like action, goddammit, and House of Cards has been having less and less of it lately.

Look, I may catch hell for having this opinion, but I'm going to put it out there, because that's what this review is.  My opinion.  I am all for Women's lib, and I think women (and men) in Hollywood should get paid their worth in relation to the movie.  We all know the big stars get paid more than the little ones, and the lead roles get more moolah than the extras.  This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, and nobody expects some yokel they hired to play a mud wrestler in a ten-second bar scene to get paid as much as Patrick Swayze in Roadhouse (for example), so I'm just going to come right out and say it.  Robin Wright is no Kevin Spacey.

Look I'm not saying she's a bad actress, and I'm not saying she isn't integral to the series.  But I watch House of Cards to see Kevin Spacey be the evil little gremlin who will kill to stay in power, and seeing him hand over his chair to his wife, well, it just didn't seem to be in character.  Another thing, I could stand Kevin Spacey talking to the camera every so often because I figured he was kind of a narrator.  Normally I hate it when actors break the 4th wall (Deadpool included), but if it's a narrator who happens to be part of the story, it's barely tolerable.  Then Mrs. Underwood is just walking past the camera and starts talking to it this past season, and now I've got two people breaking the 4th wall.  At this point, you're not talking about a narrator, you're talking about a fake documentary, and I hate real documentaries, let alone fake ones.

Suffice it to say, the profound lack of action, the narrative breaking mold, the characters switching roles, I don't know.  I just don't think I'll be watching House of Cards anymore.  Course, the next season probably won't be out til 2019, and I could be dead by then, so who knows.  (shrug)

I managed to barely catch the series premiere of The Mist (SpikeTV) the other night.  I literally happened to turn on my TV and that channel was on and I saw it coming up next.  I was like WHEW! because I literally had no idea there was a Mist series coming out until I saw it coming up on TV.  As it turns out, the series looks decent, but I hope at some point that they explain where the Mist came from.  Neither the novel by Stephen King, nor the movie a few years back, went into detail about that.  Maybe the series will give a brief rundown from a surviving soldier, I don't know.  It's just got me really curious to figure out where the bloody hell this mist came from.  I can only imagine (from the sudden appearance of a military guy) that some army research base accidentally opened a portal to another world, but there's no real indication of anything about that except for all the atmosphere and strange wildlife that seems to be flowing out from somewhere.  I hope the series isn't just another damn "scared people trapped in a store" bullshit like the movie.  I want to know about the monsters, dammit!  If I wanted to see scared people trapped in a store, I'd go visit Wal-Mart after midnight.

That's all I got for tonight, people!  If I don't see any good movies before the 4th of July, enjoy Independence Day, and the beginning of summer.  I will probably be back in July to post again, as soon as I find some good movies to watch.  Until then, enjoy the beers and BBQ!