'Morbius' - Merely A Mediocre Movie
Starring Jared Leto, Michael Keaton, Adria Arjona, Jared Harris, Matt Smith, Tyrese Gibson
Rated PG-13
Action, adventure
Run time: 1 hr, 44 min
Directed by Daniel Espinosa
In theaters April 1, 2022
There is a myriad of conflicting things in my mind when I walked into the theater to watch Morbius. I was so intrigued to see a movie that had been delayed an alarming amount of times. I was wary because I cannot fully trust Jared Leto with anything, even a Spider-Man villain I didn’t really care about. I also thought there actually was some potential for this film based solely on the trailer. Then, the Rotten Tomatoes scores came in and they were scathing. That actually made me even more excited, because there are few things I enjoy more than a truly earnest dumpster fire of a film. I love when everyone is so committed to their project that it almost doesn’t matter if the script is trash - they’re in it for the long haul. Unfortunately, only one man is all in with Morbius, and it isn’t the one playing the titular character. That man is Matt Smith. And he is the only reason I’d recommend anyone see this film.
Michael Morbius (Leto) suffers from a relatively rare disease that occurs due to a lack of something in the DNA or blood, I think. It’s never explored much. He meets Milo (Smith), a boy with the same disorder and as they get older, Michael is determined to somehow find a cure for this condition - and, despite them never explaining how or why he got to this conclusion, it involves bats. Specifically, vampire bats. That he gets to via helicopter and traps with what looks like a shoddily crafted harp. And then, the bats are in a round, glass aquarium-style tank (but with a code-locked door, naturally), so Michael can use these unwitting creatures (and some rats) in his clearly-non-FDA-approved medical tests. But I digress. Somehow, a trial “works” and he decides, naturally, that the next step is to try it on himself. And as you can probably guess from the trailer, it goes a bit more vampire-y than anticipated.
It may seem silly to spend so much time and attention on the origin story of Morbius, when that isn’t even touching the last hour of the film, but that was easily the most interesting - albeit bizarre - aspect of his story. I can’t point to any specific part of this movie being truly bad, but it doesn’t add up to a good film either. There are many cringe-worthy lines in the script that go against the idea of “show don’t tell,” and yet there are huge chunks of this story that are never explained. Morbius’ biggest fault is putting the focus in the wrong spots. They never explain how exactly young Michael Morbius ends up in the European very-specific-blood-disease-treating facility. We have no idea why or how his best friend Milo becomes insanely rich to the level that he seems to have mobsters serving as bodyguards. We get zero information about Morbius’ partner (at work but also kind of romantically) other than she exists to make Morbius vulnerable and susceptible to man-pain.
At the risk of seeming spoiler-y - but nothing about the legitimate plot, I promise - I felt betrayed by this movie in a way I wasn’t expecting. On IMDB, in the list of top-billed cast, Michael Keaton is second, only behind Leto. However, he does not show up at any point during the film proper, but rather in the post-credits scenes (there are two, if you want to make sure you linger long enough to get every moment of this film). That was a huge letdown for me and definitely affected my overall impression of the film. While I may not have had lofty expectations about the movie’s quality thanks to early reviews and information, I did believe I was getting more than just an introduction of an already established character. It probably is necessary to watch if you’re a comic book movie fan, since every new release does seem to be building into something bigger since the introduction of the multiverse. However, if you decide to wait until it’s on streaming, you won’t be missing out on much.