{"id":2320,"date":"2022-03-31T09:25:25","date_gmt":"2022-03-30T22:25:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/?p=2320"},"modified":"2022-07-21T13:21:23","modified_gmt":"2022-07-21T03:21:23","slug":"movie-review-morbius","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/?p=2320","title":{"rendered":"Movie Review: Morbius"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Despite what Sony keeps trying to tell you, there is no such thing as the \u201cSony\u2019s Spider-Man Universe\u201d. Tom Holland\u2019s Spider-Man was clearly part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe the whole time, even with the up in the air nature of No Way Home<\/em>\u2019s conclusion, and Tom Hardy\u2019s Venomhasn\u2019t had much to do yet. But Morbius<\/em>, one of the most deserving victims of the multiple COVID-19 influenced delays, has finally been born. It adds nothing to the cinematic canon, the comic book movie canon, or the Marvel cinematic canon. It can\u2019t add nothing to the Sony\u2019s Spider-Man Universe, because that does not exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Michael Morbius (Jared Leto, House of Gucci<\/em>), the world\u2019s foremost expert on blood-borne diseases, has been trying for years to cure his own debilitating illness. After synthesising the DNA of Costa Rican vampire bats, Morbius manages to temporarily cure himself, at the expense of a permanent lust for blood. While Morbius tries to fight his urges, he also has to dissuade his childhood friend Milo (Matt Smith, Last Night in Soho<\/em>) from taking the cure himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s not a lot to Morbius<\/em>. At 104 minutes it\u2019s practically compact for the genre, but it feels longer because it stretches its material near breaking point without ever fleshing it out. Morbius is a non-character, and a lot of the movie comes down to your tolerance for Jared Leto. His vanilla Morbius gives shades of his dying swan in Dallas Buyer\u2019s Club<\/em>, and then his superhuman form is just shirtless. There\u2019s an extended segment of just Leto talking himself through his experiments, which is neither cool nor interesting, unless you want to watch an inexplicable Academy Award winner close his eyes and catch a ball.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Director Daniel Espinosa (Life<\/em>) has managed to sneak in a couple of arresting visual sequences: a suspense scene in a darkened corridor has a real sense of tension, and there\u2019s a chase in a train tunnel that twists at an alarming angle. These are two moments in a sea of little else: much of Morbius <\/em>reads like a watered down Venom<\/em>, which itself often read as a watered down Spider-Man<\/em>, and has nothing more to recommend it. The Morbius effects are workable, but strangely the production team didn\u2019t seem to settle on an aesthetic for Milo\u2019s descent, leaving Smith \u2014 who is easily working the hardest, method be damned \u2014 at a massive disadvantage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever Morbius <\/em>has going for it is unintentional: Smith brings a degree of homoeroticism to his Eurotrash Milo, his inexplicable fortune and garish wardrobe. You keep expecting Milo and Morbius to kiss, but they never do. The actual relationship that made it to the screen isn\u2019t any more or less deep than any of the others (with the exception of Jared Harris\u2019 [TV\u2019s Foundation<\/em>]walk on role), and that\u2019s the problem: the entire movie is barely even surface level, and everything slips off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The script, supplied by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless (TV\u2019s Lost in Space<\/em>) is proof that you only need to have sold a script before to be able to put your name to a $75 million blockbuster. It\u2019s not that Mobius <\/em>is incoherent, but rather that parts of its script are missing without logical edits to cover the holes. The majority of Milo\u2019s actions are uninformed, and one action does not follow the next. The sole blessing is that the FBI agents investigating Morbius, led by Tyrese Gibson (Dangerous)<\/em>, accept from the beginning that they\u2019re pursuing a vampire. It\u2019s the only economy the entire movie affords itself, so of course it\u2019s the only one that works. The other liberty it tries to take is by featuring the worst non-ending a tentpole movie has had in years, and that goes down far, far worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Morbius<\/em> threatens to be the start of something new. Where Venom: Let There Be Carnage\u2019s<\/em> most engaging element was its mid-credits scene that was ultimately undone almost immediately, Morbius has mid-credits elements that both instil a sense of dread and feature material that was prominently featured in the trailers. Morbius doesn\u2019t have anywhere near the good will, name recognition or cast to make a hit, and if it does strike big it will feel like a miracle. The industry is long overdue for a sequel cull, as the great YA massacre of the \u201810s was so long ago. Morbius has probably given rise to The Sinister Six, but that doesn\u2019t mean you have to like or watch it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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