Biochemist Michael Morbius (Jared Leto) has spent his entire life searching for a cure to a rare blood disease that he and many others are dying from. When he finally believes he’s reached a breakthrough he soon realises that he has actually infected himself with a form of vampirism instead. Whoops. Now with a primal need to feed on human blood he desperately tries to cure himself before the blood cravings take over. And cue the bats.
Morbius could have been so close to greatness it’s actually frustrating to see it fail. I wanted this to be so much better. It doesn’t really feel like it knows what kind of film it wants to be, a superhero movie or a horror. And although the first act is very promising and sets the film up nicely the rest is a bit of a mess. There are scenes that feel like they’re paying homage to old school vampire movies, but there’s no chance to build tension as every scene is completely rushed. It wants to get to the CGI vampire stuff right away and it certainly does that. Though it’s not violent or atmospheric enough to be a good horror and it’s all over the place with the rest of it you don’t end up with a great origin/antihero film either. Having said that, it’s better than both Venom movies put together. I’d put that down to Jared Leto as Dr. Michael Morbius. He’s doing his best with what he was given. The idea for Morbius is good but it wasn’t executed well at all.
I’m always one to favour practical effects and makeup over CGI and Morbius definitely made a huge mistake with all the CGI because at times it looks awful. Old style vampire makeup like Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) or even Buffy would have worked far better here. It’s all red eyes and growly vampire faces in order to try and creep you out. The fight scenes are absolutely horrendous. All this shadowy flying through the air with slow motion every five seconds so you can actually see what’s happening is laughably bad. It’s boring to watch and ends up feeling like a video game. There’s also a strong sense of a disjointed story, honestly it felt like scenes were either missing or cut far too short. There may have been a lot of scenes removed or reshot and whatever the reasons for that the result is a film that doesn’t know what genre it wants to be, a severely disorganised story with dodgy CGI, messy fight scenes and an over the top Matt Smith. I normally like Matt Smith but for this he felt completely miscast, and his excessive pantomime performance just went from annoying to more annoying.
Nowhere near the standard it should have been and considering the hype they’ve been trying to whip up for Morbius for so long now it was never going to live up to that. For all you die hard Sony/Marvel fans, yes there are two post credit scenes. If you’ve made it through the film then it’s worth sticking around for the first scene but the second is probably the worst post credits scene in a superhero movie and clearly a case of setting up more feckin’ franchises and seriously can we just have some stand alone comic book films for a change. Is anyone else getting tired of these connected movies where you need to have seen 10 other films and a TV show to understand everything that’s going on. Not every single superhero film needs to be all connected, it’s getting tiring now give it a rest lads. Sony is clearly trying very hard to get some excitement going on some future franchises, and in the process of laying the foundations for future movies they forgot to make an actual good one here. Sony/Marvel would want to get their act together because if they’re planning on making more of this standard then I think I’ll pass.
Morbius could have been it’s own thing, set apart from other comic book movies. Considering the subject, it should have given the whole thing a higher age rating and gone down the horror route instead. Disappointing, and only recommended for comic book movie fans but I’d suggest you go into Morbius with very low expectations.
★★★☆☆
Mad For Movie Reviews 