Director: Daniel Espinoza
Writers: Matt Sazama, Burk Sharpless
Cast: Jared Leto, Matt Smith, Adria Arjona, Jared Harris, Tyrese Gibson, Al Madrigal
Runtime: 104 mins.
2022
It took Morbius 0.5 seconds to get on my bad side. The film begins with radiating lines in teal, purple, and black. "It's 'M' for 'Morbius,'" I said to my companions. After a further five or so seconds of 'graphics,' we pull back to see that it was indeed 'M' for 'Morbius,' with the embellishment of two vampiric fangs jutting downward. Thus begins the film's visual motif of the letter M. You know. For Morbius.
Morbius introduces the world to the great scientist Michael Morbius, inventor of artificial blood, casual denier of the Nobel prize, haver of a degenerative disease. This disease is never named in the film, which gives the oh so serious Jared Leto and his good friend Milo (Matt Smith) an opportunity to pantomime cerebral palsy with plausible deniability.
With financial backing from Milo, Morbius synthesizes a cure by splicing human DNA together with that of the vampire bat. He is aided in this questionably ethical endeavor by love interest Martine Bancroft (Adria Arjona), who spends her two most important scenes unconscious. We probably won't speak of her again.
Once Morbius uses himself as a test subject on his illicit science barge, the movie really kicks into Morbth Gear. Slaughtering a half dozen mercenaries due to an unquenchable thirst for blood clues Morbius in that he has stumbled into a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Morb type situation. His superpowers, and his very life, are contingent upon bloodlust, which puts him in a real antihero pickle. The pickle elongates when his good friend Milo secretly samples the serum against his wishes, and begins preying indiscriminately on the populace.
Judging by the cinematic language the film is attempting to use, this technically constitutes a spoiler. That's the thing about Morbius-- it's so cliché that you always know what the movie is going for, even as it bricks the set-up and execution. There is absolutely no reason for us to be twisted by the Bat Smith betrayal, and yet the movie treats it like it is indeed a reveal. The least they could have done was position Bat Smith as Morbius's lover to interpolate even the barest crumb of pathos.
When confronted with a steaming pile of script an actor can go two ways: the way of the typically great Jared Harris, who somnambulates through the movie as Morbius's mentor, or the way of Bat Smith, who is the only aspect of the production to bring a bit of verve. Bat Smith grins, glowers, dances like a freak. Possibly the only good shot in the entire film is a profile close-up of him pointing in eerie acknowledgement at another character.
Leto sucks. As if his torturously self-serious line readings weren't enough, word from set is that he held up production with his insipid method acting antics. Pages and aides wheeling him to the bathroom because it took him too long to get there on his crutches. It's Morbius, man. It's not that serious. Sometimes it's Morbin' Time, and sometimes it Morbn't.
Fortunately the film's visual effects wildly disrespect him. You could fixate on the sequences where the world around him becomes streaky such that it's unclear whether the wind is blowing him (?) or whether he's just running really fast. You could fixate on the bullet time speed ramping ripped straight from a PS2 game. You could fixate on the tacky chemtrails that follow him when he does super-leaps, clearly designed to obscure botched blocking and shoddy CGI. But for my money, nothing beats the way his face Morbs out mid-sentence in a simulation of intense emotion that recedes in time for him to finish his sentence. It's one of the funniest, most ill-advised visual choices I've seen since Cats.
That's not to say Morbius is worth watching for the trainwreck entertainment value. It's far too Morbid, Morbibund, and Morbulaic for that. The lighting is too gloomy to perceive the incoherent action, and the unforgivable editing gives you whiplash for daring to follow basic story beats.
The most embarrassing of all is Morbius's sweaty insistence on party crashing other cinematic universes. "You wouldn't like me when I'm hungry," Morbius mormbles, seemingly invoking the Incredible Hulk? "Who are you?" asks a terrified goon. "I..... am Venom. hissss" responds the typically humorless Morbius. What is that?! I am Venom? Does he know about Venom? Does Venom exist in this world? Is he breaking the fourth wall to specifically reference his own standing in the Spider-Man-substrate-Sonyverse? Let us not even broach the dual Michael Keaton cameo stingers, somehow the worst of their kind despite post-credit scenes never being any good.
So beleaguered, so bereft, Morbius must justify itself by bumblingly grasping at other corporate intellectual properties like a bastard child in the works of Jane Austen, desperately seeking social 'connexions' but denied them by a society who refuses to associate. Only difference is, bastards don't deserve such treatment.
0 / 5 BLOBS
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