If there was ever a Marvel movie that proved that Marvel movies are best done by Marvel themselves, Morbius would be it.
Hopes for Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (SSU) were running high lately, especially after the stellar Spider-Man: No Way Home tore open the Multiverse and gave us the possibility of a proper shared universe with Spider-Man in it.
Well, based on this third film in the SSU (coming after two less than stellar Venom movies), it might be best for Tom Holland to stick with Marvel Studios for now.
Jared Leto (who just can’t seem to get a break when it comes to superhero movies) plays Dr Michael Morbius, a genius biochemist stricken with a rare disease that requires him to get constant blood transfusions to survive. Having spent his entire life searching for a cure for himself and his ‘brother’ Milo (Matt Smith), he finally comes up with a ‘cure’ that is made using vampire bat DNA.
But while the serum cures him of his disease, it has some unexpected 'side effects’, namely turning him into a Living Vampire imbued with superhuman strength, reflexes and ultrasonic hearing, but also cursed to drink human blood in order to survive.
In the comics, Morbius is a former Spider-Man rogue turned antihero with a tragic backstory. His over-serious demeanour was a decent foil for Spidey’s lighter antics, plus the comics never really took themselves too seriously anyway.
In this film, however, director Espinosa has decided to focus solely on the ‘tragic’ part of Morbius and dial it up to eleven. The result is an overdose of dark (both literally and figureatively) and tragic scenes featuring Leto moping and wallowing in his own misery, and very little else.
The entire movie seems to be have been drained of its sense of joy – the rare attempt to inject a bit of humour falls so flat you wonder if the line was even meant as a joke at all. Even the action sequences are so full of meaningless actions, quick cuts and messy CGI shots that you’ll struggle to figure out just who is punching who and whether they are actually fighting or just having a fun roll in the hay.
It also doesn’t help that Leto breezes through with his face seemingly set in one pained expression throughout the entire movie. The guy’s a great actor, no doubt, but his performance in Morbius is so dull that you wonder whether the script just consisted of lines like "Morbius does science-y things", "Morbius jumps around the walls", and "Morbius says something vaguely heroic".
Smith tries his best to ham it up and give Milo a bit more character, but is let down by an atrocious vampiric design that looks like a reject from one of the Resident Evil movies.
And don’t even get me started on Tyrese Gibson and Al Madrigal's FBI agents, whose sole purpose in the movie is to show up to crime scenes and state the obvious. They are so utterly pointless and unmemorable that the only reason you’d remember their names is because they say it every time they make an appearance (and even then you’d still struggle to remember them anyway).
It’s not that Morbius is a BAD film. I’s just ... so mind-numbingly by the numbers and bland. It’s a lazy attempt at introducing a character for the sole purpose of ‘building a cinematic universe’, and is so obsessed with ticking all the boxes on its to-do list that it doesn’t even bother to think out of the box.
With so many superhero movies coming out these days, you’d think that someone making a new one would at least try to do something different to stand out. Morbius doesn’t even bother trying. And with plans for Madame Web and Kraven the Hunter coming, things are not looking great for the SSU. Heck, at this point, even having Holland’s Spider-Man appear might not be enough to save Sony’s fledgling superhero universe.
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Summary:
Lazy, mind-numbingly bland attempt at a superhero origin
