REVIEW #163 Morbius (2022)

Nobel Prize winning scientist Michael Morbius frantically searches for a cure to his rare blood disease, not only for himself but his best friend Milo too. In the pursuit of this dream Morbius’s experiment goes terrible wrong and he is instead infected with a form of Vampirism instead.

CAST & THE ACTING 

The best way to describe the acting would be pretty average, I don’t think it was bad at all but it certainly wasn’t inspiring enough to have me fully invested in the characters. Jared Leto delivers a good performance, slightly broody at times but nonetheless I do hope we get to see more of him and his portrayal of Michael Morbius. Now Matt Smith’s performance I have mixed feelings on, I can’t put my finger on whether I loved it or hated it, perhaps throughout the film I felt both. I think he started really well, portraying Milo, the lifelong friend of Morbius but as he started his transition into the main Antagonist I was less impressed. I felt like Tyrese Gibson was wasted as FBI agent Simon Stroud, we just didn’t see enough of his character and that’s a shame. Adria Arjona plays Martine Bancroft and similarly I would have loved to have seen more of her. I liked the chemistry between her and Jared Leto but most of their scenes together looked like they had been trimmed down or cut! So I don’t think the acting was anywhere near as bad as some have made out, I mean I want to see most of these actors return to their characters again in future projects so that must mean something right? 

THE STORYLINE

I must admit I wasn’t too familiar with Morbius prior to the films announcement, I have done some research since and the character is super interesting. The internal conflict within him is such a strong plot line, his passion for helping people and now suddenly he has a primal craving for blood. Now that’s a unique direction for a Marvel/Sony film! The antagonist perfectly symbolised how two characters can deal with power differently, despite being incredibly similar at the same time. However I can’t help but feel like the whole film was incredibly rushed, it’s clear a lot of the scenes were cut and the film suffers for it. The final showdown was over in five minutes, I wanted more! The same can be said for the relationship between Morbius and Martine, I loved their chemistry but we simply didn’t see enough of them together and that restricts the impact of some of the scenes in the film. Now that may seem mostly negative but what we did see was pretty damn good, it’s helping set solid foundations for this Sony Spider-verse. The MCU wasn’t built in a day so let’s keep faith! The film did need an extra half an hour to really flesh out those character relationships, that’s all. Considering the run time is only 1hr 44 minutes, an extra half an hour would be perfectly acceptable. Now the inclusion of Vulture at the end, this isn’t a spoiler because he is in the trailer but I would have done things differently when it comes to how they introduced him into this universe, but Michael Keaton is a great Vulture so I’m sure it will be off. I still enjoyed the storyline, it had my attention throughout and I really hope we get to see more of Morbius very soon. 

CINEMATOGRAPHY & SPECIAL EFFECTS 

Here I am having mixed feelings again, this time it’s with the cinematography. The aesthetic of the special effects seemed incredibly unique and unlike anything I have seen in marvel before. The movement of Morbius, whether it’s jumping from buildings or riding air flows and also his sonar radar, it all looked great in my opinion. On the other hand there was one element that looked absolutely terrible and that was the transition from human face to vampire face. So when Morbius was in full vampire mode, the design looked cool and kinda freaky but the problem arose when they tried to blend the two. That transition and half and half approach was executed so poorly, if there’s a sequel this is the one area that they need to make sure they improve on because it was incredibly distracting. I really enjoyed the musical score, it helped add tension to scenes and really gave the film an eerie feeling. Perhaps sometimes they used it a bit too much, a couple of scenes it didn’t really fit but for the most part they utilised it well. There was also a lot of scenery shots that looked great, the jungle at the start and the city landscape in the second and third act, they looked good! So certainly not perfect and there’s room for improvement but still a lot of positives too.

OVERALL (6.5/10)

I beg those of you who haven’t watched it yet to go and see Morbius for yourself and make up your own mind because some of the reviews I’ve seen are laughable. I mean a 13% Rotten Tomatoes score? That’s a joke. Granted the film isn’t perfect and there is a lot of room for improvement but there are also a lot of positives that are being overlooked by many. The main issue is the run time, it needed half an hour more to flesh out the character relationships and to make the film feel less rushed because that’s definitely my main issue. Michael Morbius is a really interesting character and I’m glad we got to see an origins film introducing him into this Sony Spidey world they’re creating. People are comparing it to MCU films which is unfair and if I’m being honest there’s definitely a couple of MCU films that are worse than this. After all everyone is entitled to an opinion but it does seem like people have been overly critical in this instance. 

Thanks for reading.

Callan