Morgan is another one of those films where you have to temporarily suspend your logical mind for two hours to buy into the premise that the world of science is capable of creating what they call a “synthetic person” from a Petrie dish. Of course, biological science is many years from being able to do something like this, much less having any world Government allowing cloning a human person in the first place. What would fix this biological science inaccuracy would be to have a blurb that says that this story happens in the future at the beginning of the movie, but there is no mention of this as the movie starts so the assumption is that this far-fetched story happens in the present day.

Relative newcomer Anya Taylor-Joy plays the synthetic creature and she is made up to look somewhat like an alien, mostly because of her skin which has a different look to it than normal human skin. Her actions in this movie consisted of some minor dialogue that proves she is highly intelligent even though she is chronologically only 5 years old and killing people rather violently about 7 times. Kate Mara plays an insurance risk adjuster of all things who is sent to a run-down mansion where this biological experiment is taking place to determine whether the risk of an experiment like this is worth the potential profit. The first stupid thing that made no sense was at the start of this film. One of the scientists conducting this experiment​, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh is stabbed in the eye unexpectedly​​ during an interview by Morgan. After this, any scientist​, lab technician​ or idiot with the lowest IQ would make sure that if anyone else is with this unstable​ creature again, she would​ be in restraints so she cannot hurt or kill anyone else, but that is not what happens​ here, which is ridiculous. ​Sure enough, Morgan attacks a psychiatrist played by Paul Giamatte later in the film. For me, I was surprised​ that actors of the caliber of Kate Mara and Paul Giamatti​ are in this film in the first place because overall it is just a small cut above B-movie​ status.

For reasons not explained anywhere in this film, this synthetic creature, despite the fact that she is extremely intelligent becomes very violent and kills people several times during this film in the hopes of escaping to some area in the woods with another lab technician who she thinks loves her. There are several impressive fight scenes between Kate Mara and Morgan later in the movie and a trick unexpected ending that doesn’t​ hold water as the film concludes. This movie has too many implausible ideas​ and for that reason I do not recommend​ it.

The Light Between Oceans is a great novel written some years ago by M. L. Steadman. This story is brilliant and so is this movie which will probably receive the Oscar for best-adapted screenplay. I do not recommend this movie for any woman who has ever had a miscarriage or who has ever lost a baby because many scenes deal with this subject are as difficult to watch and heart wrenching, as any movie I have ever seen. This movie has a roller coaster of more human emotions than I have ever seen before in one film, including love, hate, betrayal, extreme sadness, depression, happiness and fear.

What makes this movie so great is that it points out the human motivations and decisions we make in life that we decide because of extreme emotions caused by temporary circumstances. To create a great story, emotional decisions like the ones in this film have to make sense and have some logic behind them and this movie delivers this perfectly throughout. Fundamentally, short-term relief of a decision may give you long-term grief for the rest of your life and cause you more agony than the original problem ever caused you in the first place. This movie also tries to answer a very fundamental question. Can two wrongs make a right? For the complex and well told story behind this great movie, the answer to that question is yes. The point is, after a certain period of time, it can just be too late to undo a huge mistake that you make due to extreme emotions because then it might hurt other people, in this case a 4 year old girl.

Everything about this movie, the story, the dialogue, the scenery, the twists and turns are all outstanding making this a must see flim. Alicia Vikander is the lead actress in this movie and Michael Fassbender plays her husband. Alicia has a career in movies right now that is exploding, especially after winning an Academy Award for best supporting actor for the Danish Girl and this movie could give her another Oscar nomination. Fassbender and Vikander are now in a relationship after working together in this movie, which is understandable because of the powerful love story in this film. Due to the highly emotional scenes in this film, some parts are very difficult to watch, but this potential downside comes with movies like this one that are this emotional and so well done. This movie along with Indignation, also reviewed in this blog are two of the best films of the year. The Light Between Oceans gets my highest recommendation.

The Light Between Oceans

The year 2000 was a bad year for most everybody. The stock market internet bubble burst in March, and then in November we all found out that because Flordia used 1950’s card reader technology in elections, the United States was incapable of electing a new President in November. We all remember the “hanging chads” stupidity and watching people, one in particular in Florida that looked cross-eyed holding up cards and trying to read the votes of people in Florida. It turned out that Al Gore really won the election, definitely the popular vote and in the end the supreme court assigned George W. Bush to be the new President in January 2001, a full two months after the election. During these two months as it had for the entire year of 2000, the stock market continued to go down just about every single day. For me, the year 2000 was one of the worst I have ever had, with financial loss and some very bad jobs, so going to a great movie like Remember the Titans, which is easily the greatest movie about Football ever made, gave me a lift, at least for a few days. For me, this is mostly what movies are all about, a temporary escape from reality and a chance to think about something else than your own problems.

The movie Remember the Titans is a true story of a High School Football team in Virginia that was extremely racially divided. This problem was made even worse when a black coach, played by Denzel Washington replaced the long-standing white coach, played by Will Patton and after that everything went from bad to worse. Now the new black coach; had a far more difficult task of not only having to mold a Football team but also deal with the racial problems that came up on a daily basis within the team and in the small Virginia town they played in. The two central Football players in this movie Gerry Bertier played by Ryan Hurst who is white and Julius Campbell, played by Wood Harris who is black are at the beginning of this movie bitter enemies, mostly because of race. At the end of this movie, they are as close as brothers and the transition from enemies to close friends is what makes this movie so great. The other thing that is great about this movie is Denzel​ Washington, in arguably his greatest role as the Football coach. His speeches about “perfection” and relating Football to the civil war and reminding all of his players just how hard it is to be the best Football team, with drill after drill getting his players in supreme​ shape so they are in better shape than all the other players they will face in the season was inspirational. Football is hard and there is only one way to be the best, hard work and this message comes through the many scenes of practice and training during this film. The actress who almost stole the movie was Hayden Panetteire, who at the time this movie was shot, was only 10 years old. She played a young girl who was obsessed and very knowledgeable​ about Football and her performance was very memorable in this film. One could argue that Hayden never got a movie role this good ever again in her career, which could also be said for most of the other actors who played Football players. Ryan Gossling and Kate Bosworth are also in this film which came out in 2000 in the early stages of their careers. Both of them went on to make many more quality movies.

I highly recommend this movie, which is in my opinion, one of the best sports movies ever produced.