This is one of the most annoying and nonsensical films I’ve come across in some time.
Yes I watched it. Ninety-seven minutes later…I really wish I hadn’t.
Michael Morbius suffers from a rare disease that essentially means he has to have his blood…cleaned…every few hours. Since childhood, he has dedicated his life in finding a cure, in part motivated by his friend Milo (whose real name is Lucius, but everyone calls him Milo even as adults, which is just odd). The film tries far too hard in making Morbius come off as impossibly gifted, with praise being showered upon him (and he gracefully turns down a Nobel prize for creating artificial blood…for reasons not adequately explained).
He dissects a bat for its DNA so it can be used to replace the missing parts of his DNA his condition causes. One trip into International Waters later, and the serum he creates is injected into him, and it all goes wrong. Morbius, now a vampiric human-bat person, then proceeds to kill eight mercenaries travelling along with them and then flee the crime scene.
I’d explain more, but it just gets worse, so i’ll summarise heavily; Milo Lucius really wants this cure, Morbius tells him it’s not worth the costs, Milo Lucius takes it anyway from his lab which is oddly unguarded…despite being under police investigation. Milo Lucius wants to be evil and kill people if it means he can walk… (quick one-eighty there…). Milo Lucius kills a bunch of innocent people, the two of them fight and it all eventually culminates in a sewer battle where Morbius uses his power to control bats (No, really) to pin Milo Lucius to a wall to inject a poison into him.
And then it just kind of…ends. A new anti-hero arrives…hope you’ll like Morbius II: Morbin’ Good time!
Part of the issue with this film is that scenes just…happen, oftentimes with no build-up. The cinematography is also quite basic, and a good two thirds of the film takes place at night, making it come off as very bland colors-wise. There’s been some ADR put into post production to fill in the cracks to make the editing less erratic. Speaking of which, the CGI, while honestly not the worst I’ve seen, is sometimes misused to make slow-motion action shots that have no rhyme or reason to be there (In the subway fight, one slo-mo shot is inserted for…no reason. There’s not even any music, and it lasts less than two seconds).
Matt Smith, bless him, is the best part of this movie, giving a solid performance, all things considered. This film wasted him, and i’ll be fair to Jared here, even his acting isn’t too bad. The script just doesn’t do either of them any favours.
And, finally, we get to the Stinger, those end-credits that Marvel love doing. This pissed me off for a whole other host of reasons. For those who don’t know, this film tries to tie itself to the MCU as some miltiversal-cross-promotion, something Venom: Let There Be Carnage did with Spiderman: No Way Home, and did that a lot better, might I add.
The issue here is that the act of transporting and displacing Adrian Toomes (The Vulture from Homecoming) from the MCU to Morbius and Venoms’ universe contradicts what No Way Home establishes. The film frames the displacement of Toomes as a result of the spell Doctor Strange puts out to make everyone forget about who Spiderman is, and Strange sends people to other universes. Except…that’s not how the spell works! Anyone displaced to the MCU gets transported back to their home universe, not the reverse, so Toomes shouldn’t have been affected.
Making things worse, is that the second stinger shows the Vulture in full costume getup, as if he was ripped straight from Homecoming, which doesn’t make a lick of sense as the suit he built was made from technology salvaged from the Chitauri invasion in The Avengers (and it wasn’t just made by him either!). Vulture calls Morbius out to a field to try and team up with him to take down Spiderman (who doesn’t exist in their universe) and blames them for the sudden transportation (despite having no reason to think this!). The takes are so disjointed between Morbo and Vulto, and the ADR on Vulture so fake, that it’s distracting.
Do not watch this film. Not out of curiosity, not as a meme. Just let it die. There is a way to do cheesy films well, but Morbius just takes way too many illogical leaps of thought and never tries to give consistent characterisation to anyone but Morbius.
I’ll post a review of something else on Netflix that I watched recently that I really enjoyed (Hint: It’s currently in Netflix’s Top 10 films right now), but that comes later.
)
