Sony and Marvel’s latest collaboration is none other than the film “Morbius.” In the movie, terminally ill doctor Michael Morbius, played by Jared Leto, turns himself into a vampire in an attempt to cure himself, and now must fight his urges to consume human blood.
It’s a blanket statement of a summary, because that’s all this movie is: a series of blanket statements. So much in this movie was implied on a story and character level, but never fully explored. Its one hour and 44 minute runtime led to a rushed movie with little development. By the end of the movie, I was wondering what exactly had been accomplished.
There were a lot of good concepts in this movie. Leto’s character Morbius struggles with the duality of being man and monster, and that’s one of two storylines that actually get nicely fleshed out. The other is a romance between Morbius and his co-worker Martine Bancroft, played by Adria Arjona. Their playfully flirtatious dialogue brought some romantic tension to the film without hitting us over the head with it.
Also noteworthy were the action sequences. As one would expect from a movie with a blood-sucking vampire in it, the fight scenes veered more into the horror genre. Other times, however, it was as if Sony felt the need to remind us that Morbius is a supervillain, so they resorted to CGI fights, which were less effective.
Essentially, when “Morbius” treated its main character like a vampire, it worked pretty well. The display of his powers was decent, the horror elements were fun and I actually jumped at one scene.
When Morbius is treated like a superhero, however, the movie suffers.
And that’s where this movie goes wrong. It feels like it doesn’t know if it wants to be a monster movie that’s also a deep dive into humanity, or a generic superhero movie. The result? A mess.
The conflicting genres and styles definitely affected every part of the movie. While Leto, Arjona and Matt Smith of “Doctor Who” fame are talented actors, sometimes it felt as if I was watching them in two different movies entirely. They acted based upon what the script required of them, leading to everything being half-baked. When playing a vampire, Leto’s acting was outright cheesy, but as Dr. Michael Morbius, we saw his charm shine through.
But because we get these varying performances from everyone, each actor falls into their own stereotype. Smith’s villain is a rather intriguing one, but when the script goes full-blown comic book, he just becomes another corny, maniacal character. Tyrese Gibson and Al Madrigal are the same old good cop/bad cop types we see in every movie there’s a murder. Leto’s vampire body language is borderline cartoonish, while some of the deaths could have been acted better by a high school theater troupe.
Yes, there are deaths. It’s a movie with vampires in it! Know what there isn’t, though? Blood. There is hardly any blood in this vampire-comic-book movie. I’m not sure why. PG-13 ratings allow blood.
Of course, I can understand not having excessive gore, but there are times where Morbius will slash someone in the throat, and the person will put their hands over their neck. You see no blood gushing or anything, just someone pretending to choke. It doesn’t look good.
I’ll leave it on this note: there are times where “Morbius” feels like with an extra 15 to 20 minutes, Sony could have made something truly special. Flesh out the characters. Make the actions and words have an equally strong impact. Progress the story more naturally. Had they done that, “Morbius” would have been a hit.
But they didn’t do that, and what we got instead was an uninspired mess that I could have written with my eyes closed. It was so predictable and bland that not only was I mouthing the lines with the actors, but matching the way their bodies moved. I did it so much that the married couple sitting next to me asked me to stop “ruining the move.”
There was a lot of potential with “Morbius,” and it was wasted. It looked and felt creative and original at times, but ultimately fell into the safe option for the majority of the movie. Would I go as far as to say it’s the worst comic book movie ever? Not even close.
But it was still bad. Overall rating- 5/10.
“Morbius” is in theaters now. Watch it if you have absolutely nothing to do and can pay for a ticket at matinee price.
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