"Morbius" dopey, hurried, and hurt by junky f/x

Morbius (2022)

Now it’s time for the “other” Batman story. After being kicked around the release schedule for two years and now finally seeing the light of day, “Morbius” actually exists, and it’s still barely a fully realized movie. Perhaps Sony held on to a glimmer of hope that this macabre-tinged, Marvel-associated origin story may continue its shared universe with other Spider-Man villains and anti-heroes (i.e. Venom), but now they’re going to wish they kept it buried. “Morbius” is that blah and perfunctory, failing to leave one satiated or even craving more. 

Since he was a boy, Dr. Michael Morbius (Jared Leto) has suffered from a crippling rare blood disease. He devotes his life to developing synthetic blood and finding a cure for both himself and his lifelong surrogate brother, Milo (Matt Smith), who battles the same ailment and funds Michael’s research. After winning and turning down a Nobel Prize for his work, Michael conducts an illegal experiment, crossing human blood with vampire bat DNA he’s extracted from Costa Rica. Aided by colleague Dr. Martine Bancroft (Adria Arjona) on a mercenary vessel in international waters, he tests the treatment on himself, turning into a violent, bloodthirsty vampire but also improving his health and giving him abs and echolocation abilities. That damn appetite for human blood, though. It’s too bad Milo ingests the new serum, only to become a cocky arch enemy. 

In the case of dopey mediocrity like “Morbius,” one can’t really imagine what ended up on screen being what anyone involved wanted to create — not the cast, not director Daniel Espinosa (2017’s grippingly crafted “Life”), and not even screenwriters Matt Sazama & Burk Sharpless (2016’s “Gods of Egypt”). Based on the opening scene that gives the uninitiated no context and then walks back in time and then back to the present, the script has a skeletal, underbaked feel, or it was edited within an inch of its life. It’s dramatically anemic and barely two-dimensional, seemingly content with rushing through story beats and keeping its characters paper-thin. In doing so, there’s no sense of tragedy and not much to grab onto emotionally. Every choice a character makes just needs to be taken as read because the script says so. 

On paper, Jared Leto is well-cast as a vampire, and he’s fine if unchallenged in the titular role. Playing a character who is being introduced for the first time (and it shouldn’t matter if one has prepped by reading the comics by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane), there is nothing terribly compelling about Dr. Michael Morbius. Unfortunately, too, Leto is directed to be glum and sleepy, until the digital work takes over his face and a sub-Bruce Banner quip comes out (you guessed it, “You won’t like me when I’m hungry!”). Oh, now you want to be cheeky?

Matt Smith is at least having the biggest ball of all, not afraid to play and ham it up a bit once Milo gets a taste of revenge after years of ableism. In fact, Smith is actually fun to watch when he’s being bad, compared to Morbius, who’s a bit of a drag. Meanwhile, Tyrese Gibson and an especially offbeat Al Madrigal come out of some other movie as detective partners, and their odd-couple chemistry just never clicks. Adria Arjona gives more than the barely-there part of Martine deserves (she’s a doctor, not a nurse, with a pet cat), but eventually just becomes Morbius’ love interest. Jared Harris is always great to see, but he’s not given much to do and doesn’t seem to have aged from the 25-years-later flashbacks to the present as Michael and Milo’s longtime doctor.

Tenuously connected to other Spider-Man villains for now, “Morbius” references “that thing that happened in San Francisco,” and there’s an introductory “Venom” joke that lands with a thud. Even on its own terms as a horror-forward anti-hero story about a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde-esque “living vampire,” it should not be this flavorless. Aside from some establishing shots of the New York City skyline, the scope is extremely small. Even when taking place in the open air, the action sequences are poorly staged, losing all possible excitement in a garish cacophony of junky CG effects, speed-ramping, and vapor trails. In fact, the ghoulish faces Leto and Smith are given are so cartoonish and shoddy that even TV’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” circa 1997, did it better with the practical magic of make-up effects. Holding tight to a sanitized PG-13 rating with a lot of brown blood, it’s as if Sony wanted to put out the most indifferent, generic-looking product.

While many will be quick to judge it as the worst comic-book movie ever made, being that bad would actually make it entertaining. As is, “Morbius” isn’t terribly creepy or weird enough to be fun, and it’s not stylishly directed or well-made enough to be any good. Besides the sleek, geometric-shaped design of the opening and closing credits, the film proper has a dreary, cool-blue filter over it that’s not even aesthetically pleasing. A more interesting version of this character and his origin story could crawl itself out, but alas, it never does. Engineered to only do the bare minimum for itself and make a desperate attempt to set up the future of a cinematic universe with head-scratching, underwhelming mid-credit scenes, “Morbius” just feels like it’s in a hurry to get it over with. If this nothing-burger of a movie does anything right, it makes you want to go home and watch the “Blade” movies. Even “Blade: Trinity.”

Grade: D +

Sony released “Morbius” (104 min.) in theaters on April 1, 2021.