The last time a studio built a film franchise out of a vampire from the comic book world was in 1998 with Blade. This year's long-awaited Morbius feels more like a stake through Sony Pictures.
There are contents.
A lot can change over time.
The movie Morbius was directed by Daniel Espinosa and starred Oscar winnerJared Leto. One experiment seems to deliver that cure along with a host of other abilities, but also gives him an appetite for blood. His attempts to cure himself of those deadly urges are complicated by the emergence of a villain who is happy to indulge his brutal instincts.
In theory, Morbius has all the ingredients for a fun, entertaining film. It has an accomplished, quirky actor in the lead role who is more than willing to dive into the characters he plays, and it surrounds him with a similarly talented supporting cast. The Crown and Doctor Who actor Matt Smith plays Morbius, his best friend who suffers from the same blood disease. They are joined by two-time Emmy nominee and father figure and caretakers,Jared Harris.
Along with that impressive cast,Morbius arrives with plenty of ties to established Marvel franchises, existing in the same universe as the Venom films while also adjacent to the (outrageously successful) MCU proper. There are references to elements of the Venom and the MCU films in the film.
Morbius never manages to take advantage of any of that potential.
Morbius offers plenty of opportunities for its main character to strike an emotional chord with audiences, but it never ventures below the surface with its title character or any of the supporting cast. The stakes feel low and the characters feel detached from anything familiar, because you are given little reason to care about Morbius or forge any kind of connection with the feelings that drive him.
Leto seemingly does the best he can with the material he has, but there isn't much dramatic meat on the bone in Morbius. Smith leans into his arcs with a wild abandon that often overshadows Leto's brooding performance. Smith is always fun to watch, and that is especially true in Morbius, where he is the bright light in a dull environment.
Morbius didn't need to be dull. There are plenty of precedents for embracing the bloodier side of superhero stories. A film about a superhero vampire would be better suited for that kind of treatment.
Morbius is bloodless in the film about a character obsessed with blood. The action is bland, the scares are tame, and the characters are uninteresting for most of the story. The film doesn't try to make Morbius stand out in a crowded genre by leaning into any of the elements that could have made it stand out.
Even as Morbius seems intent on wasting its potential, the film comes across as shamefully desperate to prove its worth in the larger movie-verse shared by Sony and Marvel Studios. The Spider-Man universe is interwoven into the story in ways that make the movies seem subtle in comparison. The mid-credits sequence that culminated in these heavy call outs seemed completely disconnected from the film's story, intended to remind people that the Spider-Man films and Sony's superhero universe are indeed connected.
It seems silly to call a film about a vampire "lifeless", but that might be the most accurate label you can apply to "Morbius", which is boring and pointless.
The movie Morbius will premiere April 1 in theaters.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
