Morbius

If you've been reading my blog for any amount of time, you know that I'm a huge fan of the MCU. I continuously think it's one of the most significant achievements in film (and now television) with how invested we've all become in various characters, the overall narrative, and the gripping pull of "what's next?"

So it's always somewhat dramatic watching a Sony-verse "Spidey" film because, outside of the utterly fantastic Into the Spider-Verse, the others have been almost purposefully derivative and average.

Early reviews would have you believe that Morbius is the worst of them yet and I'd be lying if I said I was surprised by that, but I'm also confident that Morbius is no better or worse than anything Venom gives us (outside of Tom Hardy's fun performance) and I walked away not hating my time with it, but never really needing to see this wholly unnecessary Sinister Six build up again. 

And let's be real...we've all seen a bad comic book film *cough* Fantastic Four *cough cough*

I'll re-emphasize the phrase "wholly unnecessary" because that's really the prime thought I have when I think of Morbius both before and after my viewing. Beforehand, I was struggling to find much to care about outside of the obligation to see a comic book movie. Jared Leto is not a butts-in-seats movie star by himself, the villain/anti-hero of Morbius is rather obscure and not interesting (basically a vampire?), and the trailers themselves were "meh". The movie itself does nothing to reverse that sentiment. Its first half is a passable, fine segment that sets the "I'm going to be average as possible tone". As we get into the back half, the core conflict of the film - and many character decisions for that matter - get really messy and just kind of dumb. Not only does Morbius (Leto) not feel like a villain ever - or even really an anti-hero - it pits him against his best friend thanks to some loose logic about how he views his new powers. The entire story leads me to question the purpose of not only these "villain" films, but also how they'll transition to hardcore villains rather than the thinly veiled "good guy in a bad circumstance" scenarios they're painting them in. I'm all for giving villains more backstory in an eventual Sinister Six film, but then these should be much more riveting. Give us the Breaking Bad of someone's descent into evilness! 

Among things that are arguably "good" in Morbius:
the special effects (outside of the awful finale)

This dance battle got really out of hand!

Otherwise, the rest of Morbius is similarly just average. Our group of characters is forgettable, despite many of their best efforts. Leto is fine in the role, but it could have been played by anyone while there's been some praise for Matt Smith (as his friend, Milo), I found him just as "meh". Sure, he's having fun in the role, but his character's decisions are so random and drive the crux of the film that I appreciated the performance less because of it. Adria Arjona plays a potentially interesting doctor who then become the out-of-nowhere love interest so again...fine. 

If anything, the best part about Morbius is most of the action. It's actually good, when its not overedited, and there are some pretty cool ultra-slow-motion moments that are impressive visually. And in a lot of places, the special effects are pretty neat - with trailing smoke and colors played off as part of the bat echolocation. It's not going to set your world on fire, but it all looked a hell of a lot better than anything in Venom. Annoyingly then, it's a shame the finale is such a s**tshow when it comes to both action, visuals, and nailing any emotional stakes. It's dark and grey and characters/buildings/movements are muddied to the point where you legitimately have no f**king idea what's going on at all. It bummed me out because it took my favorite aspect of Morbius and told me: "we're churning this out so detached from reality that we're not even going to double down on the one thing we've done well."

Morbius isn't the worst comic book film you'll ever see, but it may be one of the most forgettable. And while Sony continues to build toward a very obvious Sinister Six film, I really hope they begin to enlist the help of MCU producers, writers, and storytellers. Unlike the DCEU, Sony has a plan, they're just not very good at executing on it and it's obvious they need the help to push their films past feeling like a regurgitated comic book movie over and over. 

CONS

• The story - particularly after the first half - is nonsense and has lots of dumb character decisions
• Forgettable characters and cast. No one really stands out
• Seems perfectly content with being as average as possible
• Awful finale that spits on the somewhat impressive action that came before it. You cannot tell what's going on at all
• I'm not seeing the path toward making a lot of these "villains" truly evil

PROS

• Most of the action is neat, if not slightly overedited. Morbius' effects are visually impressive and the ultra slow motion bits are awesome (I'm also a sucker for slow motion)
• Not as disastrous as you've heard (if that's a "Pro") and I was fine with seeing it once
• Realizes it doesn't need to be much longer than 90 minutes. One of those rare instances lately where I didn't feel like it was too long

Rath's Review Score | 4.5/10