After the being delayed, re-marketing and the constant delays because of the pandemic, Morbius finally saw the light of day by making its shift into theaters. It almost seemed as of that Morbius was set to become The New Mutants scenario, where you had a movie that was made before theaters were forced to shut down and had to face a drastic shift in movie release dates, to the point where Morbius would never be seen by anybody. It was also concerning when Morbius moved from January 28th of this year to April 1st, but having seen how much of a success Spider-Man: No Way Home has had and even seeing Uncharted over perform at the box office, the move seemed to be a smart decision. The unfortunate part about Morbius is when the director of the movie, Daniel Espinosa, openly spoiled the movie within the week of its release and the notion that the initial “fan reactions” were met with negativity. Another dilemma with Morbius is that the full review embargo was set to drop the day before the movie opened. Typically, it’s never a good sign when a studio holds the reviews so close the its debut simply because of it being a sign where the studio doesn’t have faith in the movie. There are a few exceptions, but overall its not a good thing.
What ever side you leaned on, there was good reason to be excited for Morbius for several reasons. It’s a Marvel movie, it’s a comic-book movie and Sony has had a lot of success so far with their comic-book movie properties outside of the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies. Despite what some might say, Jared Leto is a truly underrated talent, even if he has an Academy Award on his mantle. The trailers for the movie have been solid and the potential to dive into a completely differently Marvel character is full of potential, and with The Batman setting such a precedent for comic-book movies this year already, it was already set to be a promising year for the genre. Morbius is probably the most uninspiring comic-book movie ever put to screen. From the weak writing, lousy VFX and the rushed pacing, Morbius fails to live up any expectation that it potentially had. Sony had three years to work and fix this movie, and there’s no excuse for how it turned out to be.
Based on the famous Marvel character, Morbius focuses on Dr. Michael Morbius, a biochemist who attempts to cure himself of a rare blood disease, who has also managed to save others from this disease. When he takes a gamble on saving his life, Dr. Morbius seems to be back up on his feet but what then follows is something more sinister and devious.
We say this all the time but it bares repeating. Obviously, there’s going to be bad movies in every genre and even with the amount of comic-book movies we’re getting every year, this has been one of the most fascinating genres. The comic-book movie genre has evolved to places that no one ever thought it would. Look at something like Ant-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy or even something as recent as James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad. We’ve seen obscure and unknown comic-book properties have success with audiences and critics alike. On the flip side, you’ve got films like Logan, Joker or even the recent The Batman, where the story and characters feel more grounded and taken with serious matter. Morbius wishes it fell on either one of those sides because everything about this movie felt off. Maybe the biggest problem with Morbius is how bland and colorless it feels. The entirety of this movie not only feels dated, but completely uninspiring and uninteresting.
For a movie with a respectful budget of $75 million, Morbius thankless and lousy and special effects come across as visual noise that serves no real narrative purpose what so ever. Despite the one cool scene that was dropped online months ago, involving Dr. Morbius first transformation as the vampire who then goes on a violent rampage by killing guards, the action in this movie is sloppily put together, despite the movie having the pieces in place. With Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless as the films screenwriters, it was a bit of a worry when their work included the films Dracula Untold, The Last Witch Hunter, and Gods of Egypt. They were the writers for the Power Rangers movie from 2017, but even that wasn’t enough as a saving grace. The writing in Morbius comes off as the writing style from a 3rd grader who turned in his first go at writing his first draft for a school play. The writing doesn’t display any emotional convictions, depth or anything compelling.
Say what you will about Jared Leto, but he’s a great performer and there will always been enticement for the roles he plays. That’s starting to fade away because over the last good number of years, Jared Leto hasn’t been selecting the best projects nor are his roles that great. Aside from his role in House of Gucci and the very very BRIEF scene as the Joker in Snyder Cut, Jared Leto either needs to fire his agent or really think about the movies he wants to be a part of because something isn’t working. His performance as Michael Morbius is mulky, dull and mediocre. As far as the rest of the cast goes from Matt Smith, Tyrese Gibson and Adria Arjona, all of them were bland. Even the great Jared Harris was criminally underused. From the lead star and the supporting cast, Morbius doesn’t give anything for its cast to sink its teeth in.
Morbius isn’t just a disappointment. It’s a missed opportunity on doing something cool and different with the comic-book movie genre by really opening another door on a lesser known character who happens to be a vampire. The talent was there, the pieces were there but what we ended up getting is beyond our level of comprehension.
My grade for Morbius: F
Zane's take at the Cinema's 