Thank god for AMC A-List, because I would have been an outraged movie critic if I had to pay cash for this film. Morbius is one of the worst comic book films of all time, making the two Venom films, which I do enjoy, look like masterpieces. I’ve always felt that this was a film that didn’t need to exist, and I’m happy that my feelings have been justified.
The film centers around biochemist Michael Morbius who tries to cure himself of a rare blood disease. Still, he inadvertently infects himself with a form of vampirism instead and becomes Morbius, the Living Vampire.
I don’t have many positive things to say about Morbius. Honestly, the one true positive would be Matt Smith, who is miles away from the best thing about this film. He plays Milo, Michael’s best friend, who also suffers from the same blood disease. He is the film’s “villain.” You can tell he had a blast filming this. It’s like he knew he was in a lousy movie and said fuck it, I’m just going to chew all the scenery. As expected, Jared Leto fully commits himself, and he’s alright, given his method-acting background. I like him as an actor, so it sucks that he is continuously given shitty material for his comic book films.
That’s pretty much where any positive ends. This character just never made sense as the focus of a film. While I enjoyed the character’s arc in the 90’s Spider-Man series, it doesn’t scream comic book lead. Instead, you want to put him as the villain in a Spider-Man film. Sure, that could have worked, but sadly this film has made me not want to ever see this character on screen again. The main story is very generic and not engaging, being rather dull. My fiancée fell asleep a handful of times in the film’s relatively short 97-minute run time. Speaking of run time, I was surprised by how fast it was. They completely rushed the film. They had him turn into a vampire like 15 minutes into the film, which I don’t feel was a good choice as I didn’t get to know the character.
Besides lacking character development, the script also had terrible dialogue. The script’s lousy quality doesn’t surprise me, given that it was written by the duo of Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless, who is known for cinematic “masterpieces” such as Gods of Egypt and Dracula Untold. However, the script isn’t the worst thing about the film, as the CGI is horrendous, looking unfinished at times. In addition, the graphics on the vampire design were terrible and just made me roll my eyes and laugh. The film does get dark at times dealing with vampires, but the lack of an R rating hurt the movie in those moments.
It sucks that the Michael Keaton stuff was mainly spoiled in the trailers. It would have been so epic if they kept it as a surprise. Sadly since we already knew it was in the film, it didn’t have the same impact it could have had if it was a surprise role. The film has a solid supporting cast in Jared Harris, Adria Arjona, Tyrese, and Al Madrigal, who are wasted in stereotypical roles.
Unless the trailers caught your attention, you’re better off skipping the theater experience and waiting until Morbius is streaming somewhere.
