Morbius
Well, this is something. There is both not much to say, and a lot to talk about, but simply put: it’s not very good.
The titular Morbius is a terminally-ill scientist obsessed with curing his own degenerative disease. He declines a well-known prestigious international prize and visits a remote cave of rare bats, catching some to put in a big tube in his city-centre penthouse lab so he can try to splice vampire bat and human DNA, because somehow this is important to curing his disease. Obviously no one thinks there might be side effects, so Morbius tests it on himself, and—surprise!—he turns into some kind of superhuman vampire.
That’s half the film.
I’m not even joking. It takes half the runtime to get to a point where things start happening. Then a woman shows up dead, drained of blood, and the no-longer-terminally-ill scientist vampire is arrested by two FBI agents for murder.
By the way, the scientist grew up with another boy who is generally referred to as Milo (though that’s not his actual name, but never mind) with the same condition. Milo isn’t a scientist, but he stole the science and is now also a vampire, but not a good one like our hero Morbius who only drinks synthetic blood or blood from blood packs. Instead, Milo drinks real blood from blood vessels inside bloody humans. Bloody hell, no one says as we all predicted exactly this from the lengthy opening montage showing our scientist’s childhood and rise to scientific success.
And so the film moves on to a showdown between the two.
The plot is entirely foreseeable and, frankly, poor, but there is an interesting idea in here. Morbius wanting to undo a cure that will destroy him is in opposition to Milo not wanting to return to his life before the cure, but what should be a central theme is in fact a single brief conversation mid-CGI-fight.
Now I love a bit of trash cinema, and I also quite enjoy relatively mindless superhero fare, but in either case there needs to be a way in—a character to connect with. Here, the most interesting and relatable character by far is Milo. Morbius is a do-gooder with a righteous determination, and is so very boring for it. Milo is conflicted and, if written better, would be a fantastic character to build a narrative around.
Matt Smith puts in some work as Milo, but he is limited by a very poor script. He tries, though, even making a ridiculous scene where he dances around his bedroom looking at himself in the mirror seem not contrived, as he is portraying a sense of empowerment following half a lifetime of deterioration. It is still an awful scene, but there are much worse in this film. Smith needs a lot more to work with, as does Adria Arjona, who plays Morbius’ colleague and confidant. She is given even less than Smith to do. Somehow Jared Harris appears as the mentor of Morbius and Milo, but he seems to be there simply to lend gravitas to exposition and present a moral compass from which the two can pick their alignments. Harris throws himself into it—as he always does—but it’s a thankless role. Tyrese Gibson and Al Madrigal round out the impressive cast as one-dimensional FBI agents, but that again is down to the writing and not their performances, as both do a lot with pretty much nothing. Gibson in particular invests heart and conflict into his performance. All are well-cast in underwritten roles, but unfortunately the lead role is not.
Jared Leto is a lot of things, one of which is a good actor. When he is let loose to explore odd or interesting characters, such as Blade Runner 2049 or The Little Things, he shines. Here he does not. The role is poorly written and he is the wrong person for it.
The film also has an odd tone. The pacing is very much off, and it feels like a lot has been cut from the second half that should have stayed. The opening forty-five minutes could have been done in fifteen, too. Plus, the whole thing is shot in a cold digital gloss which seems to be some kind of Sony superhero trademark, and the occasional slow-motion moment in frantic fight sequences ruins what little tension exists. Daniel Espinosa’s directing is mediocre at best, with nothing interesting worth writing about.
Mainly, Morbius is a moribund mess, more morbid than motivated; a mulling mire of morose mutterings that’s more or less moot.
