Morbius Review: A Comic Book Vampire Film With No Bite

Morbius marks the latest entry in what is being labeled as the Sony's Spider-Man Universe (despite none of these films actually featuring a Spider-Man), following the previous two Tom Hardy Venom films. The vampire Michael Morbius has traditionally been a Spider-Man villain, but like with the Venom films Sony has taken another villain and turn him into an anti-hero for his own origin film. It's no secret this film has been sitting on the shelf for at least a good two years now as the very first trailer for this released all the way back in January 2020. Despite of the numerous of release delays, I've remained at least cautiously interested in this film since that first trailer dropped. However once director Daniel Espinosa decided to spoil his own movie all over social media and the brutal critical reviews for this released, my expectations could not have possibly any lower when I walked into the theater yesterday afternoon.

Those tampered expectations helped me in concluding that Morbius is not the colossal disaster on every level that some others are proclaiming it as. That sounds like a raging endorsement, right? It is however still very much a hot mess with very few redeeming qualities to it. After a tolerable beginning for the film, any momentum is immediately derailed by rushed story developments, tame action sequences, and a cast of boring supporting characters. I'm not one to complain about a PG-13 rating, but you can very easily tell the numerous of times this film had to cut away from the bloodshed in order to maintain that rating. As a result, both the action and horror elements felt very toothless. Even the VFX work leave a lot more to be desired and look ripped out of a comic book movie from the late 90s/early 00s era. Even worse than the uneventful action is the lack of any real charm. Those Venom films might not be high art by any stretch, but at least they have a resemblance of a personality. This one feels empty and lifeless.

I can't even entirely blame all of these issues on the performers tho. Jared Leto is certainly a polarizing person, but he's also I think a gifted actor and even proves to be a fitting choice for the role of Michael Morbius. The issue is that Morbius himself isn't particularly the most interesting character in this film, but Leto does what he can to bring some life to the role. The best scenes are between him & Matt Smith who hams it up as Morbius's adoptive brother Milo. But even this relationship isn't fleshed out as well it needed to be, and the emotional core still felt lacking. Smith is clearly having a ball though and is fun in the role, but even Milo's villain turn feels way too quick and unsatisfying. The great Jared Harris is also criminally wasted in a pointless father figure role. The romance between Leto & Adria Arijona also falls completely flat. And as much as I like both Tyrese Gibson & Al Madrigal, the FBI characters offer no real service to this film. If you've seen the trailers, you would know that Michael Keaton makes an appearance as Adrian Toomes/Vulture (very same villain he portrayed in Tom Holland's Spider-Man: Homecoming). All I'll say about his role in this is that the film could've used more of Keaton, but I can say that about all movies. The cast isn't the issue here, more so the problem is screenwriters Matt Sazama & Burk Sharpless forgetting about real character development.

Despite the best efforts of its cast members, Morbius is a misfire. The titular character and Leto in this role certainly have some cool potential, but this is a vampire film with little bite or spark. For a comic book film that is under 2 hours, it manages to somehow feel both overstuffed and rushed with a baffling abrupt ending that just left me more confused than exhilarated. There's a decent B-movie from Daniel Espinosa somewhere hidden inside here, but it feels very abundantly clear that Espinosa's original vision for this film suffered to a great extent from heavy studio interference. It would be nice if one day we get to see or at least learn what that original vision consisted of, but as of today that cut that is currently playing at your local theater is a surprisingly lame film about a vampire.

It shouldn't be surprising that this film also features two post credits scenes. And both scenes are to put it lightly mind bogglingly dumb. They may have been cool in theory, but they really make zero logical sense in what has already been previously established in Marvel-Sony films and I also just really do not gel with the direction they appear to be taking with the major beloved character that is heavily featured in both scenes. The dialogue exchanges in both scenes alone are awful. Watching both of these scenes also tell me that those in charge over at Sony have not learned their lesson from the failures of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 where they tried to just cram in way too many sequel set up. Marvel Studios may be far from perfect, but watching those moments I continue to worry about the creative direction this Sony-Verse is heading without the guidance of somebody like Kevin Feige. Maybe Feige did have some level of input with this film, but only time will tell. It already concerns me that these same writers are the ones penning the screenplay for a Madame Web film starring two of our most exciting young actresses in Dakota Johnson & Sydney Sweeney.

Final Grade: C-