Anyone has their own definition of what constitutes as a bad movie. Some says it’s a movie that fails to live up to their own personal expectations for it despite how high or low they were. Others says it’s a movie that basically is unable to meet any sort of standards of what’s required for good filmmaking through their perspective. There’s even some that find entertainment in a bad movie but is still unable to call it good because it didn’t entertain them in a way that the movie itself intended to.
When it comes to superhero/comic book movies (and I’ve certainly talked a LOT about them already), there’s three definitions of what I would consider to be a bad movie. There’s the kind of bad movie that is so bad that it’s completely watchable (ex., Batman and Robin). There’s the kind of bad movie that is so bad that it’s completely unwatchable (ex., Fant4stic). Then you get a movie like Morbius. The one that seems like a very slim version of both of those definitions. One that is so straight down of the middle in it’s badness that doesn’t meet either end of the rope of being watchable bad or unwatchable bad. Morbius is the exact definition of a superhero movie that is uninterestingly bad.
I’m almost kinda want to stop there because I’m not sure what else needs to be said that could at least make for a somewhat interesting review. It’s the kind of movie that I claimed I didn’t want to watch Fantastic Beasts 3 for because I didn’t think I would be able to come up with anything that I didn’t already complain about in the first two movies of that series. However, since I’ve already stated I would review this movie and already got started with this. I will do my best to go more in depth.
No spoilers but then again, I’m not entirely sure what to spoil because so little actually happens in this movie. The only thing to potentially spoil is the laughably terrible post credit scene that even director Daniel Espinosa already spoiled in an interview about a week before the movie even came out worldwide. Still, no big spoilers here.
Morbius is the third movie that takes place in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (I guess that’s what we’re calling it now). The movie sees scientist Michael Morbius (Jared Leto), who has throughout a good portion of his life has looked for a cure to a rare blood disease that he has had forever. With the help of Doctor Martine Bancroft (Adria Arjona), he believes he has found a cure in the form of bats but when the experiment goes wrong, he ends up turning himself into a form of a vampire. When his brother, Loxias Crown (Matt Smith) finds out about this same cure, he wants to take it for himself regardless of the consequences that may come of it. Michael warns him not to but Mio takes it anyway. The two then end up causing chaos all over town as the blood thirsty vampires.
The overall plot and structure is about as generic and conventional as it gets for a superhero movie. With the exact same story beats that has been done in plenty of other better superhero movies or even other better films in general, Morbius never once tries to deviate itself among the subgenre it claims to be a part of. Heck, the overall structure of the movie feel so hacked to the bone that I’m not even sure the movie itself has an actual middle act.
Once we get to see Morbius fully form into his vampire self (and this is after seeing a couple of scenes of bats swarming around him with an hilariously bad attempt at trying to mimic Batman Begins), the movie basically goes on autopilot. It’s only after about thirty minutes of the police trying to chase down Morbius after being accused of murder along with the scriptwriters desperately trying to find a way to make Matt Smith’s Milo the main villain of the movie, where we basically get to the film’s third act about over an hour before the movie is suppose to end. Somehow, it manages to be both long and drawn out as well as being completely abrupt and rushed. It’s hard to explain but I don’t even know what was suppose to be the central conflict between Michael and Milo by the tail end of the picture because the movie itself barely took anytime whatsoever to established that. The two have a difference with how they want to present their vampire forms and that’s basically it. However, once their confrontation is resolved, the movie then constitutes of what might be the most rushed ending I’ve seen in a big movie since 2018’s The Predator. Making everything that has come up to this point feel rather pointless. Almost as if the movie was just marketing time until the next movie and when Sony figures out what Spider-Man they are actually allowed to use for their so-called supervillain universe.
Granted, Venom had similar flaws as well but even that was able to be carried by the charismatic and clearly passionate Tom Hardy. It started off as yet another painfully dull origin sandbox but eventually found it’s footing by transporting itself into a buddy cop/bromance comedy that would later carry into the sequel. Morbius never inspires to be at least as watchable or enjoyably bad as Venom. A big part of that has to do with Jared Leto particularly sleep walking through the role and almost looks as if he just wants to be the Joker again. Then again, he also doesn’t have the advantage of actually having another self of himself to banter upon like Hardy’s Venom did or an interesting character to play so he’s not 100% to blame for this.
The main problem here is that there’s no arc or journey that Michael goes through the course of the movie. There’s basically no difference between Michael Morbius as a human being and him as a vampire. It’s hard to be engaged in the eternal conflict that Michael states repeatedly that he feels within himself because we’re not so sure what differs between the two sides of himself or even Milo. It’s never made clear if Michael wants a bigger goal than finding a cure for himself or if he even cares that other see his vampire self as a threat to society. It’s almost like the writers were too afraid to split his personality traits because they don’t want Mobius to accidentally come across as a hero in his own story, something that most recent “villain” origin stories (Maleficent, Suicide Squad, Venom, Cruella, etc.) including this fall into the same trap off. I guess Joker and Brightburn remain the gold standard in that regard of actually having the guts to make their center villains not the heroes of their own stories but the protagonists of it. There’s a difference.
The only time the movie finds any sort of light is when Matt Smith enters the picture. While his character is also terribly uninteresting and underwritten, Smith seems like the only person that is having fun in the movie. He doesn’t quite capture that same level of cheesy, enjoyable over-the-top ness that Hardy brought with the two Venom movies and really only has one scene to himself where he’s able to capture that same lightning in a bottle but he’s definitely fun to watch and makes you wonder why didn’t he play Morbius in the first place. At least then, you might be able to have an actor that has the charisma to be able to carry a picture with hardly any material to work with which could at least give the movie it’s own sort of value that it might perhaps leave a good impression on some folks.
Many of these flaws could at least be somewhat forgivable if there was some effective filmmaking on display but there’s barely anything to write home about here. The editing is choppy as hell and absolutely reeks of obvious reshoots and cuts. The direction is all over the place with it not knowing what character should be the main focus off each individual scene. The lightning is so incredibly dark that even Gareth Edwards would ask for a bit of brightness. The CGI looks like it came from a 2009 Playstation 3 game. The action scenes are poorly shot and nonsensical that it’s hard to feel any sort of stake or investment in them. Also, I’m pretty sure that Warner Bros should look into this movie because I’m pretty sure there are musical tracks ripped straight out of The Dark Knight trilogy.
Morbius is not the worst superhero or even Marvel movie I’ve ever seen. Especially when there exists the likes of Steel, Howard the Duck, Elektra, Catwoman, The Spirit, Fant4stic, and Suicide Squad. Even then, I could at least recommend those movies if you want a crash course on how NOT to make a movie. Morbius is just not bad or interesting enough to be part of that discussion because the movie itself doesn’t think it’s worth the time or effort. I can’t recall the last time that I was so unengaged with what is happening on the big screen and the supposed emotional moments made me go “meh”. It’s on par with the likes of the theater cut of Justice League and The New Mutants as comic book movies that have so little substance and engagement to it that it’s hard to stay anger at it or even bother putting your mind on it just a few days after you’ve seen it because it’s just not worth it. And if that atrociously awful mid credit scenes is anything to go back (and don’t worry, I will write my own piece about that a few days after the movie has been released), there doesn’t seem to have that much of an interesting (or even logical) endgame in mind either to where all of this is suppose to be going or not going.
Save us, Across the Spider-Verse! Save us all!
Other comments:
- I forgot to mention that Tyrese Gibson and Al Madirgal are also in here too as the FBI agents. The fact I forgot to mention them should say something about the bare minimum roles they play in the movie. I sure hope Tyrese was able to earn that paycheck though.
- I’m pretty sure that no one working on this movie has ever had a cat before. Apparently, they think that shaking a kitty’s litter box will get their attention. I’m not even joking about that.
- For a universe of supervillains, none of the supervillains have acted much like supervillains so far.
- What movie did Jared Leto even win an Oscar for again?
- No offense to Naomi Harris but Adria Arjon would have made a good Shriek.
- I’m starting to think about how much better this movie could have been if Leto and Smith swapped roles. Or if Leto just wasn’t cast in the movie at all. Either way, big miss opportunity.
- This was probably the first movie I’ve ever saw in theaters that had full English language throughout which included subtitles. Not sure why, but even then I was mostly able to understand everything that the characters were saying even if I didn’t care about what was going on.
- Happy April Fools Day, indeed Sony!
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