‘Morbius’ Review – Contender for the World’s Blandest Vampire Movie
Marvel’s living has arrived in theaters and he’s got problems. We suggest reading this Morbius review before you buy a ticket.
One of Spider-Man’s lesser-known foes is coming to the big screen this weekend. Doctor Michael Morbius is a Nobel award-winning physician who succumbed to a rare blood disease. To fight it, he turned himself into a blood-sucking monster in search of a cure. If it’s one thing the movie and its lead character have in common, it’s that they both suck.
Before I dive in, the basics. The cast is led by Jared Leto as Dr. Michael Morbius and includes Matt Smith, Jared Harris, Adria Arjona, Tyrese Gibson, and Corey Johnson. The movie is directed by Daniel Espinosa (Life) from a script by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless (The Last Witch Hunter).
Morbius Review – Spoiler Free
Morbius in one word: “meh.” It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just not good.
There are some fun and horror filled elements, but they’re lost in a sea of formulaic blandness. Morbius is an origin story that checks all the boxes and not much else. It’s the classic – a tragic genius makes a major mistake and he must make things right (and save the girl). There’s no deviation from that, which (at this point in the comic book movie take over) is a must. Morbius doesn’t even try to build in some laughs, it’s a pure melodrama. There’s no relief from the meh.
via Columbia Pictures
Michael Morbius has always been a sensitive vampire and that fact is not ignored. It’s amplified in ways that don’t help the story. Leto’s flat performance doesn’t help. He’s not the only one with that problem – the acting setting is on TV drama. I’m blaming Espinosa’s direction for that rather than the actors.
The movie has top-notch effects and CG, par for the course for Sony. The monster design for Michael Morbius and how it shifts from human to vampire is perfect. His echolocation and super speed have unique visual shape and texture that gets the point across. It fails at times, some of the fights end up consumed by the environments they’re in and visual vampire powers so you can’t see anything.
It does keep moving. There are no real slow points but it becomes a blur of scenes. That’s its main failure: it’s too formulaic. From the story to the acting to the visual style. At least it’s only an hour and forty-four minutes long.
Morbius Review – Spoilers & Post Credit Scenes
Beyond the above. The ending is totally anti-climatic. The story is a build-up of how dangerous and powerful Milo and Michael are. While there are scenes of the two violently taking out people while in vampire form, they can’t manage to actually fight each other. It ends with a cloud of superspeed trails and bats, a stake through the heart, and some apologies.
The “romance” between Michael and Martine is half-assed and her character development is bad. It just shouldn’t have been a thing. Have her be a co-conspirator and leave it at that. And the ending rolled it into something more ridiculous. To goad Michael into a fight (that was already coming anyway), Milo kills Martine. She encourages Michael to use her for fuel because she’s going to die. And now she’s a vampire sidekick. Ugh.
We’ve known for a bit that Vulture is moving to this universe. One of the trailer dropped the bombshell by inserting him into the movie, even though he isn’t. It seems he zapped into the Sony Spiderverse when the multiverse broke in No Way Home. Venom got a Mexican vacation in the MCU and in exchange, the Spiderverse gets Adrian Toomes and his flying machine (I love Keaton, I just don’t like this).
The meet-up in the second scene was especially bad. Morbius jumps from being an anti-hero that feels bad about killing his friend and dozens of people for over two hours to a bad guy rather quickly. He swaps between the two in the comics rather regularly, but the emo, conflicted setup they spent over ninety minutes on becomes worthless with this single post-credit scene.
Also: Why did they not age Jared Harris!? 20 some odd years, boys become men… and the man does not age.
via Columbia Pictures
Should You See Morbius in Theaters?
No. You’ll walk out disappointed and feeling cheated. Morbius wasn’t the best character to choose out of the list of baddies Sony has rights to, and he wasn’t handled well at all. It doesn’t live up to its horror roots or its comic book backstory. It doesn’t even enter “so bad it’s good” territory. It’s a boring drama with a bunch of special effects. Wait till it hits a streaming service you already have if you must see it.
Morbius is in theaters now.
