Morbius Review

Here’s my Morbius review which is now showing in theaters from Columbia Pictures Philippines starring Jared Leto, Matt Smith, Tyrese Gibson and Adria Arjona. The film is directed by Daniel Espinosa!

Watch the trailer below

Morbius is based on the classic Spider-Man character who is pretty much a “living vampire” and then now we get a live action movie starring Jared Leto (Suicide Squad) and its pretty much an origin movie for Marvel’s very own living vampire.

The movie takes the liberty of introducing Dr. Michael Morbius who sets himself up as a brilliant doctor looking for a cure for his blood disease for him and his friend Lucien/ Milo (Matt Smith) and as he grows up, he’s become more jaded and cynical about the world until he does find the cure for this blood-related disease at the cost of turning into a vampire.

Characters

Morbius (Jared Leto) in Columbia Pictures’ MORBIUS.

Honestly speaking, all the characters were 2-dimensional yes even Morbius himself. Like he’s introduced as this cynical young man but we never got a backstory, not visuals, no exposition dumps, no nothing. We’re just led to believe that this is a guy that cares for a select people in his life but is generally a dick to society and he’s the hero. The same thing with Milo, whos just super rich and the moment he got cured, he’s developed a complex and a taste for blood. I would totally understand it if he has tragic backstory like mom and dad hating on him but nope, we’re just expected to take that info up.

And mind you at some points you really need to strain and pay super close attention to what’s happening to get a bigger picture. Like if I were late for five minutes and missed the scene where we are introduced to Milo’s character, I wouldn’t have put it together that he was rich and the next time we actually go back there, it’s been a good 15 or so minutes already.

Tyrese Gibson’s role here was a good way to kind of bring down his Roman Pearce role from the ‘Fast and the Furious’ franchise but again very flat, like we already know that he’s noble and serious but that’s it. We even get some nice backstory moments here and there but they forgot about developing it further even in a few scenes.

That I think is the inherent problem with Morbius. Super generic and super formulaic.

Dialogue / Screenplay

Morbius’ screenplay and dialogue was a hit or miss. Sometimes they would say utterly weird stuff that really doesn’t improve the mood or the setting; Maybe they were doing that to elicit a laugh or two from the audience. Had they taken the dialogues seriously, this could have been a really good movie but this puts it down a little bit. I did like that reference to Venom somewhere in the film, that was good for a laugh or two.

Visuals

Gotta hand it down for Sony Pictures for taking more time to provide ok to decent action scenes like that subway fight or that final climatic fight between the two former friends which also shows frenetic movement which gets either slowed down or sped up. Can’t say that this is fresh but its nice to look at.

The wind effect they use for Morbius or the echolocation effect is also cool too look at and has a big moment in the film.

One thing I disliked here in Morbius and his use of the bat-douken. Watch the movie to see what I mean.

I’m also creeped out by the makeup and the transformation. Really good. Matt Smith’s was really menacing. Leto’s makeup looked also well but those money shots got a little dampened by his hair. But that’s just me nitpicking.

Post-Credit

There are two post-credit scenes for Morbius. I can’t spoil anything yet but I can safely say that this will make the Sony-Spiderverse an interesting cinematic universe in the next few years.

Verdict: 6.5/10

Its not horrible as other critics pan it out to be but it definitely loses its stride. Plus the mere fact that its a movie that nobody really wanted in the first place makes it an uphill battle. But Sony wants to do their own Spider-Verse right and give them proper introductions as opposed to how they wanted things with their failed Sinister Six movies after The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Now they are listening to Marvel about how to properly develop their cinematic universe and I hope it succeeds.

As for Morbius, its just a fun popcorn-muncher. Marvel fans can enjoy numerous things and even casual moviegoers but I really suggest you lower your expectations to appreciate it.

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