I have finally seen Morbius, the latest film in the Sony Spiderverse, and I have to say,
it's one of the worst comic book films I've seen in a long time. It sucked, not in the good way
but in all the bad. It's a film with terrible editing, souless characters apart from that of
Matt Smith and some of the worst CGI in recent years. I'm not gonna waste any time and get
straight into my spoiler free review, but before I get into the reasons why I thought Morbius
was pretty bad, if you want to see future videos on more comic book and movie related
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But without further a do, lets dive into my spoiler free review for Marvel's Morbius.
So Morbius is the latest addition to Sony’s Spider-Man universe, with Jared Leto playing
the titular character and it was a chance to delve deeper into Spidey’s extended world. This was a
chance for a quite unique offering from the studio in bringing us something different from
say the likes of the MCU in their spider-man films. With a genre so loaded on very similar
types of films, Morbius could have been an example of one that takes us into a more violent landscape
with that of Spidey's antihero. And this for sure would have benefitted from a better
depiction of voilence and a higher rating, especially when they've cut out the blood
and made us hear the guggling of it when we cut away instead. It's almost like they are trying
to make it suitable for the group who casually watch Marvel's many films every year. But while
that was a problem, Morbius is also an approach that feels really outdaded in all of the
worst of ways. Originally a Spider-Man villain, who's not really an anti-hero here, the
biochemist’s search to cure his rare blood disease accidentally turns him into the living Vampire.
While the story adresses his aim to stop his condition from being deadly, the film and
primarily it's script doesn't show the humanity in his reactions to dealing with this superhuman
condition. There's little interest from the character when he makes high jumps,
there's barely any worry when he learns he's responsible for killing
and everything just feels very mild. There could have been real emotion engrained
into this story and with the correct writer this may have been a lot better as a separated film.
Where this all goes wrong is in the execution and it comes through a mixture of studio handled
choices and pretty much everything from a pre-production and filmmaking level.
After Morbius connects with vampire bats, we get a flashback that shows the origin of a Kid
with a rare blood disease seeking the cure for himself and his friend, a kid named Lucien who
is renamed Milo. As adults, Morbius is a brilliant scientist with questionable ethics,
and Matt Smith's Milo is his financier. We also get Adria Arjona as Martine, who is both
Morbius’s research partner and love interest. Morbius decides to test the cure to the
blood disease on himself, so he injects the vampire bat DNA and of course, the vampire
drama begins. Most of the other supporting roles in this are quite forgettable and really,
the only one that stands out and brings some sort of character is Matt Smith's Milo, who
you could imagine would be even better if the script and story gave him more to chew on. He
was honestly more compelling than Michael, and I think that you can also tell he's having
much more fun in his role than other performers. But yeah, there's nothing to write home about
with the performances, as Jared Leto, who I think is actually a really good actor, just
isn't given the persona that his character could have. Elsewhere, Michael Keaton is
obviously apart of this, but not as much as the trailers let on. He doesn't even appear in the
actual film and it's not until a post credit scene that we actually get anything of him. And plenty
of people have spoke about those post credit scenes, and yeah they are pretty terrible.
But to be honest, as someone who just wants a good story and filmmaking, I think the post
credit scenes are the least of concerns here. There's so much wrong in the film's production
whether it be scriptwriting, editing, pacing and horribly bad visual effects, that it all
seems like it was completely rushed. I'm sure one day we'll find out more about how everything
went wrong from a production standpoint, similar to that of say the last Fantastic Four film,
but yes, there's not really any way to hide the final product on display.
The script we got is one that briefly touches on him being an anti-hero tragedy
before turning him into a perfect hero. After all, this did come from the writer of Dracula
Untold and some other outdated films that may have been ok 30 years ago, but even that is
stretching it. There's also the bigger potential of entertainment value here too, but even the
hope of that is sucked dry as Morbius ends up feeling like the worst blend of a origin tale
and vampire film. Maybe one or the other fleshed out might have worked better but when
it comes to the basic elements of the plot, this isn't anything we haven't seen plenty of before,
let alone the drenching of exposition with no weight. It's crazy to me that Sony would
even green light such an uneven screenplay for a character that could have had a lot of potential
when it comes to a cinematic film. The dialogue, the characterisation and plot all
possess the simplicity, that even comic book films of the 90s would do better. But even the
tone and type of film we get with Morbius, is one that feels like it was forced into because
the original idea was either too edgy or even worse. I don't know which one it is,
but it's clear that things aren't working here. There's about 40 minutes of a simplistic origin
storyline before we get to all the science, ethics and vampire stuff that only derails
it even more. There’s just a complete lack of coherent storytelling and the moments of horror
and vampire action don't even have the bite that they could.
A lot of this comes from the horrendous editing and it ust confirms that there were heavy changes
also being made in post production. It's so obvious from the final cut that the film
was sliced up and things were thrown out to remove the intial vision. Every scene feels too quick,
cutting from one to another and pair that with souless writing and characters and you
get a film that really had nothing going for it. Again if you want an average 90s movie,
this might be for you, but it feels so out of place in all the wrong ways and there's way too
much flaws for me to defend it for that reason. The human moments don't have time to breathe,
the characters can't express any emotion and everything here feels way too rushed. A lot of
reviews are saying that the MCU references were cut out, but honestly that isn't even important
when scenes of story and character building are cut out too. And maybe Morbius didn't cut
that sort of stuff out. But if that is the case, then what was the point of this story.
I felt that after watching it and to be honest, I think this is the kind of film that will have
a lot of viewers feeling like they wasted their time.
Then there's the bizarre use of visual effects surrounding the vampire action we do see. A
majority of the action scenes have a very blatent blur of CGI, and unfortunately, it is so
shody. Especially when we get to the final fight with Morbius and another character, which just
looks like a complete mess. The cinematography doesn't help with the film's applied shaky
cam, the lighting is way too dim, and when you add these poor production choices onto a
terrible script and story, you may have one of the worst blockbusters to come out in recent years.
It appears more outdated than the traditional superhero film, and while that can be fun in
certain scenes and also provide opportunity for the studio and filmmaker to do something
different from the quite casual MCU fair, it also means that if you don't do it right,
then it looks all the more worse for it. And unfortunately, that's the case with Morbius.
Again, I think Morbius had the chance of being something unique, especially if there were more
approrpriate creative choices involved. It's part horror movie, part vampire movie, and
part superhero origin movie, and in the craziest way, it combines the most standard elements
of those three types of film, rather than going all in on one. Even if this movie had
focussed more on capturing that 90s superhero film in the best way, I think it could have been
way better. There are a few fun scenes and moments where the visual effects
are executed better and that comes in the more restrined moments, rather then the blops
and blurred CGI that situates here more than it should. It's definitely a film that plays into
that question of superhero fatique and I think under another studio it may have resulted a much
more coherent and polished end result. Still, I will say that I enjoyed this more than
Venom: Let There Be Carnage, it's just not really a high bar to reach.
Maybe when Sony does introduce more of their characters, they can make
this work in the future, but right now, it feels like they took a film and story with
potential and rushed it, so that they could bring in more villains to fight Spider-Man.
But that was my spoiler free review for Morbius. On Sony's part, the want to expand the Spider-Man
universe using his villains is understandable, especially from the studio side of
things when you look at how popular the Spider-Man and their Venom films have been. But if I had to
be honest, everything we saw in the early trailers and footage was what we got here,
as Morbius is the big-budget mistep and souless endeavour that most will find forgettable. There
is Matt Smith's energetic performance and Jared Leto is fine, but it all seems like
most people involved here were just going easy. There was no urge to make this the unique film
it could be with a better script. It doesn't even turn out to be the kind of movie that is
so bad, that it has some good qualities in there, like how Venom did to a certain degree.
It's one of the worst of the comic book genre and I'd even rank it amongst that of the last
Fantastic Four film and X-Men Dark Phoenix. Overall, Morbius is one of the most forgettable
films in recent memory and it most certainly doesn't leave it's mark on what has become quite
a stuffed genre of similar looking and feeling films. And even those pictures rank much better
than this. I'm giving Morbius a rating of 4 out of 10. But to those who have already seen
the film, what did you think of the latest entry in the Sony Spiderverse and do you agree that it
was a weak one in this universe. Again, it's all subjective and I appreciate the range
of reactions and reviews, so let me know down below in the comments section what you personally
thought towards the film alongside things that stood out with your first impressions.
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