March Movie Reviews Round 2 (Luther: The Fallen Sun, Morgan, Boston Strangler)
As we enter the latter half of March, let’s take a look at another round of movies I watched this month, two newer movies available on different streaming services, along with a mid-2010s sci-fi thriller that went largely overlooked.
Luther: The Fallen Sun (2023)
Netflix, 128 minutes
Take an average James Bond movie, combine it with a film that features a more sadistic antagonist like Se7en, add every anti-hero detective movie cliché you can think of, and finally turn the “quality meter” all the way down to zero, and you’ve got Luther: The Fallen Sun. This latest Netflix disaster of a project is based off a British TV series that (somehow) ran for five seasons.
The story here is as unoriginal as they come for this type of crime drama, but also manages to make little sense both in terms of how characters jump to certain conclusions, as well as how they act towards one another. There are some movies where if you can simply get past one or two inconsistencies or plot holes, then you can enjoy them for what they are – I’d argue that Luther is not such a movie. You can take any scene in this mess individually, watch it, and I can pretty much guarantee that it will be a bad scene, that if you think about it logically won’t make sense for one reason or another.
Idris Elba plays the titular Luther. While I’m sure he’s a nice fellow, he mumbles his way through this dumpster fire while offering little in terms of personality or any originality in the overdone disgraced detective character trope.
Luther: The Fallen Sun isn’t as fun and exciting as something like the John Wick series of movies or even an early-2000s Jason Statham action flick. It’s also not as gritty and brutal as a film like the aforementioned Se7en. At times though, it appears to be trying to have elements of both types of films, something that it fails at miserably.
I don’t recommend just skipping Luther: The Fallen Sun, but also calling into question the movie opinions of anyone who suggests watching it.
Grade: 2/10
Morgan (2016)
20th Century Fox, 98 minutes
Morgan received mostly negative reviews when it was released seven years ago, but they’re definitely way too harsh for a movie that’s actually pretty good overall.
Plot-wise, Morgan doesn’t bring much new to the table, as we follow a corporate risk consultant who must determine whether a bioengineered artificial human needs to be terminated after acting out violently. Sci-fi rogue technology/AI gone wrong movies are definitely not hard to come by, but Morgan is well-done, with a quality cast, and a sizeable amount of action. It’s not the most original, but that doesn’t mean it’s not entertaining.
Morgan also boasts a cast that’s really impressive when viewed by 2023 standards. Anya Taylor-Joy, who’s been in hits like The Menu, The Northman, and The Queen’s Gambit since this movie was released, stars as the title character opposite Kate Mara, who plays the stoic risk consultant. Boyd Holbrook, Michelle Yeoh, and Brian Cox are among the rest of the cast and have also seen their stardom grow since 2016.
It's also sort of refreshing to have a movie to watch that’s not over two hours, with Morgan clocking in at just over an hour and a half. This is an all-around solid sci-fi film, that might not be fantastic or supremely memorable, but is worth checking out for fans of the genre.
Grade: 7.5/10
Boston Strangler (2023)
Hulu, 112 minutes
Boston Strangler is a mostly boring movie that feels much longer than its runtime. Inspired by a true story, the film follows reporter Loretta McLaughlin, played by Keira Knightley, who breaks the story of the Boston Strangler in the 1960s.
Loretta eventually teams up with another female reporter to work on the story, but we never really concentrate on the sexism the women endure, or the problems they face in their home lives as working women with children in the 1960s. Sure, we’re shown brief scenes of both occurring, but instead the movie choses to concentrate on the investigation of the murders by the two women.
This ends up being a really bad choice since the murder investigation doesn’t really end up having a fulfilling conclusion. I think this would’ve been a (potentially) better film had it been a character study focusing on the women. That’s not what we get though, as instead we get a “follow the clues”-type newspaper investigation movie that ends up going nowhere.
The acting here is totally fine, but nothing really stands out. This is still a watchable movie – it’s not awful, but I don’t know why you’d really choose to watch it.
Grade: 5/10