--Dr. Michael Morbius, Morbius
Far from the best superhero-related film and far from the worst, Morbius at least does not succumb to some of the more asinine trappings of recent Marvel movies in general (near-constant, forced, gratuitous comedy that conflicts with the other aspects of the story) even though it does very little with some of its own components. This is not another Venom: Let There Be Carnage, though merely surpassing Let There Be Carnage is not a high aspiration in itself. Morbius does a better job at not relying on intentional or unintentional comedy to distract general moviegoers from its story and characters. That is not to say that every main character receives sufficient attention to justify their inclusion beyond plot necessity--Morbius' love interest is unfortunately developed to a minimal extent, and the dialogue of some scenes is lackluster if not random.
Production Values
Like the story, the effects are mid-tier more often than they are excellent or terrible. The most unique contribution of the effects is the slow-motion shots that highlight just how swiftly Morbius can launch himself at opponents, something unique in the MCU and "MCU-adjacent" movies because stylized slow-motion is not a common characteristic of them--even Makkari's extreme speed in Eternals is shown without slowing down the perceived speed of events. Morbius himself is actually less of an antihero than Venom or Deadpool and struggles between genuinely losing control of himself and desperately attempting to keep others safe. Jared Leto, for all of his past acting and behavioral controversies, is right at home as a reserved, tormented, and conflicted victim of disease who tries his best to handle an unexpected doorway to power.
Matt Smith is the one who gets to outwardly relish his role as Lucian, a childhood friend of Morbius, in a very expressive manner, yet even his most over the top scenes do not have the weaknesses of the truly idiotic and gratuitous tone issues of the Venom movies. The final fight between Morbius and Lucian is unusually short despite this and scarcely involves any actual fighting, a great rarity in comic-based films. Matt Smith's character could have of course been developed better, but even with this abbreviated fight, he makes the most of his screentime. Also worth mentioning are Tyrese Gibson and Al Madrigal, who, for reasons I focus on later below, play some of the more competent FBI agents in cinema despite their more limited appearances. Lastly, Morbius fails Adria Arjona's Martine Bancroft, an actress who does well with her role but whose role needed far more attention in the story to make her more than a plot device of sorts. Perhaps she will be given more to do next time given where her character ends up.
Story
Some spoilers are below.
Michael Morbius, having lived with an abnormal blood disease his entire life, resorts to combining human and bat genetic material in hopes of replicating a bat function that could cure him and everyone else who shares his condition. While the attempt to use the created mixture is successful, Morbius unexpectedly develops vampire characteristics in a very short timeframe. The synthetic blood that he previously created has diminishing returns in its ability to sate his new desire to drink human blood--and his lifelong friend Lucian, who also suffers from his same blood disease, begs him to let him also take the experimental new treatment. When Lucian disregards the warnings of Morbius, the two friends approach their new powers with vastly different worldviews.
Intellectual Content
For once, Morbius features police investigators who immediately acknowledge what the evidence points to without spending an hour of the runtime pretending like vampires are logically impossible (even if none exist, it is logically possible for them to have existed, as there is no conceptual contradiction in such a thing like there is in axioms being false). From the start, the duo seems to understand that the evidence genuinely points to Morbius becoming or affiliating himself with some sort of vampiric creature. They do not have as much as a single scene of bickering or philosophical dismissal over this, which is by far the most clever and unique thing about the film, ultimately. Not everyone is stubborn or stupid about actually realizing that something strange can be or seem to be true.
Conclusion
Sony manages to fall short of creating something to rival the likes of The Winter Soldier, Logan, Wonder Woman, and other top examples of the genre here, but compared to fellow Sony shared universe films Venom and its utterly abysmal sequel, Morbius does have a more stable tone by not having its protagonist try to make jokes throughout the more serious moments. This alone elevates Morbius in some ways far above the Venom movies that at best, in the case of the first one, rise only to mediocrity. Undeveloped side characters, a very cliche narrative, and several seemingly edited dialogue scenes hold Morbius back from reaching its actual potential as the first contemporary Marvel movie about vampires. As one might expect, it has connections to both Venom and the broader MCU, and hopefully it will serve as a stepping stone towards another project featuring Morbius that is more intense, unique, and thematically rich.
Content:
1. Violence: For a movie about vampires, there is little blood seen outside of that in medical bags, some of which are not even red. There is occasionally some blood seen on a body.
2. Profanity: Periodic uses of profanity like "shit" are heard.
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