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The horror-thriller "Morgan" is fast, efficient and lethal, but it's also depressingly familiar.
Lee Weathers (Kate Mara), a hyper-sleek corporate "risk-analysis consultant," is sent by her employers to their genetics testing lab, deep in the New England woods. She's there to check on a lab-grown human, 5 years old but with the body of a teenager, whom the lab doctors call Morgan (Anya Taylor-Joy). Morgan recently stabbed a counselor, Kathy (Jennifer Jason Leigh), in the eyeball, and the rest of the staff (including Michelle Yeoh, Toby Jones and "Game of Thrones' " Rose Leslie) are trying to contain the damage.
First-time director Luke Scott (son of Ridley Scott, who co-produced) knows how to pace a thriller, and some of his moves compare well to his old man's work on "Alien." The script, by Seth W. Owen, isn't up to the same standards, though; it's a plodding, predictable mess in which cast members are dispatched at regular intervals and the one "twist" is telegraphed well in advance.
'Morgan'
Opens Friday, Sept. 2, at theaters everywhere; rated R for brutal violence, and some language; 92 minutes.