‘Morbius’ Is a Dreary Vampire Saga With No Bite
0/5 Man Bats.
What will you do with your one precious, beautiful life? Will you journey across the globe, fall in love, eat a sandwich? Or will you sink an hour and 44 minutes into Morbius, Sony’s latest anemic entry into the MCU-adjacent universe? The choice is yours, but I compel you to do literally anything besides seeing this dreadful excuse for a movie.
***SPOILER ALERT- I will be spoiling every dumb detail of this movie.***
Morbius sees Jared Leto starring as the titular Dr. Michael Morbius, a brilliant physician with a rare blood disease that keeps him in ill health. Morbius’s mission has always been to cure his ailment, which has plagued him since childhood. A hazy flashback to said childhood sees Morbius in a children’s hospital in Greece, where he meets Lucien, a fellow kid afflicted with the same disease. Morbius doesn’t acknowledge Lucien, calling him Milo instead. You see, Milo was the name of the kid before him who died, and the kid before that and the kid before that. Lucien obviously isn’t going to make it, so he’s Milo now. Even the doctors, like kindly Dr. Nicholas (Jared Harris) call him Milo (very professional, very cool). If you think that’s cruel, then you’ll be surprised to find out that Lucien and Morbius are BFFs!
Not only that, but the wealthy Lucien/Milo remains best friends with Morbius well into adulthood, where he is played by Matt Smith, aka the only person who understands he’s in a comic book movie. The obscenely wealthy Milo has bankrolled Morbius’s experiments for years, which is wild considering Morbius still refuses to call him by his given name.
But after years of award-winning research, Morbius has finally zeroed in on a cure, which involves splicing human DNA with vampire bat DNA. He’s assisted by fellow doctor/love interest Martine Bancroft (Adria Arjona) who is given little to do beyond pining for Morbius and warning him of the dangers of experimentation. But Morbius will not be deterred! He is going to squeeze all the bat DNA out of those vampire bats (who are currently chilling in a wind tunnel in his lab) until he is one with the bats! Until he is some sort of bat…man? Hmm, interesting. I wonder if anyone’s done that superhero yet.
Morbius is ready to inject himself full of bat juice, so he makes Milo charter a tanker in international waters complete with a full laboratory and some stock henchmen. Dr. Martine is there to warn him from going batty, while actively helping him achieve full batness. Well, you won’t believe what happens: Morbius injects himself with the bat goo, and he straight up becomes a vampire! Not just any vampire, but a LIVING vampire. What’s a living vampire, you may ask? It’s a person with vampy powers who can’t be killed by garlic or wooden stakes or sunlight. Sidebar: I’ve always thought the whole wooden stake thing was suspect, because if you drive a wooden stake through anyone’s heart (vampire or not), they’re gonna die, right? I don’t know, I’m not a doctor, but Morbius is! We know this because he tells us he’s a doctor at every opportunity.
Morbius’s powers include enhanced strength and speed, echolocation, and the ability to morph his face/body into a vampire-style monster. Remember on Buffy the Vampire Slayer when the vampires would transform and get those head bumps and fangs? It’s kind of like that. Morbius also BAMFs around leaving CGI black mist in his wake, much like Nightcrawler did in X2 (2003). God, this movie would be a million times better with Alan Cumming.
Anyways, once Morbius goes full vamp he terrorizes the anonymous henchman aboard the ship, draining them of their blood. But don’t worry: while Morbius stone-cold murders 7 men, they’re a bunch of no-good criminals. We know this because one of them was sexist to Dr. Martine. We also know this because the FBI agents investigating the massacre straight up tell Morbius that they were criminals who deserved to die. AFBIAAB I guess.
Said agents are Stroud (Tyrese Gibson) and Rodriguez (Al Madrigal), who are hot on Morbius’s heels while seemingly nonplussed that their perp is a vampire. In fact, no one in New York City seems disturbed that vampires are A) sort of real and B) terrorizing the subways. Rodriguez shrugs it off, citing the insanity in San Francisco (i.e. Venom) and everyone is extremely cool with it. I wish I could explain just how bad these agents are at their job, but I’ll say this. While investigating Dr. Martine’s apartment, they notice a litter box. Rodriguez then shakes the litter box while calling “here kitty kitty”, as if cats come running to the sound of their own feces being jiggled about. It’s such a minor moment, but it’s a lowkey metaphor for this movie. People are acting like they have no goddamn sense or logic.
The film’s plot is lackluster, and there’s no humor, no charm, and no warmth to be found. It’s rare to see a film so devoid of style and ambition, that slugs along like a direct-to-video Underworld sequel. The film lacks a pulse, a heart, and a brain. It’s a zombie, but at least zombies are entertaining.
Meanwhile, Morbius refuses to give the cure to Milo, warning him that it’s a curse, but not elaborating beyond that. Milo takes the serum anyway, and begins living his best vampire life, dancing in front of mirrors, dressing snappy, and snacking on everyone he comes across. Once again, Matt Smith is the only person in this film having any fun whatsoever. His performance reminds me of Sharon Stone in Catwoman. Just two villains camping it up, desperately trying to inject life into a dreary comic book movie.
Milo wants Morbius to let loose and join him in traveling the world and eating folks along the way (Eat Prey Love?) which sounds like a way more entertaining film than the one they’re currently in. Morbius refuses, so now he has to kill his best friend before he eats more people. Oh, and Morbius can also fly now. Good for him. There’s lots of filler content while we wait for Morbius to kill Milo, which includes Morbius taking over an underground money counterfeiting ring and turning the money machines into lab equipment. It’s a callback to earlier when, as a child, he fixed a dialysis machine with a ballpoint pen.
Anyway, Morbius and Milo have their big monster fight showdown after Milo mortally wounds Dr. Martine. Luckily for her, Dr. Martine bites Morbius’s lip as she dies, giving her vampire powers and making them a vampire power couple. Good for her. Morbius and Milo have a big old CGI fight, while plenty of black mist and slow-motion freezes and personal anguish. Morbius kills Milo, because the film isn’t called Milo, and scuttles off into the darkness with his bat friends.
But wait, there’s more! There’s not one but TWO credits sequences, which see Adrian Toomes/Vulture (Michael Keaton) materialize into a jail cell, thanks to Doctor Strange’s multiverse shenanigans in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Once there, he passes by Morbius and is like, “Hey Morbius, we should get together. I already have a name for us: the Sinister Two!” and Morbius is like, “Get back to me with four more bad guys and I’ll consider it.” No mention of Venom or Eddie Brock. Now the gateway between the MCU and the Marvel Sony-verse is open. And I’m very tired. Does this mean we have to sit through three more villain origin stories to get a Sinister Six movie? If those films are as lifeless, unoriginal, and devoid of charisma as Morbius is, we are in for a dismal saga.
I urge you to do anything other than see this film. It’s not even “good-bad” in a goofy way. It’s plain “bad-bad”, and you could honestly do anything else with your time and money and still have a better time. To put it simply, Morbius sucks.
(image: Sony)
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