Morbius has a similar problem to the Venom films. How can you make a film about a Spider-Man villain without Spider-Man? It is a question that everyone had on their minds when the first Venom film came out. It turns out, pretty easily. All you need is an A-List actor, follow the source material and a dash of foreboding for a potential web-crawling showdown at some point in the future. This is the same logic that the filmmakers behind Morbius applied to when making this film.
Morbius stars Jared Leto as Dr. Michael Morbius, a scientist who specialises in blood disorders, which he himself suffers from. This leads Dr. Morbius to experiment with bats which eventually leads him to develop abilities that mimic that of vampirism. In the role of the antagonist is Matt Smith’s character, Milo, which isn’t exactly a villainous name but Smith does a good job at playing against type. The two clash in the film over whether the abilities of vampirism should be used as a gift or if it is more of a curse. So the plot is standard good versus evil superhero story.
The one thing that Morbius does very well is with the visual effects. The film did suffer a few delays during the global pandemic and because of this I imagine the filmmakers had more time to fine-tune the visual effects for the final film, and it shows. The echolocation and the battle scenes are distinctive enough to stand out from other superhero films. The only downside to this is that they could’ve encouraged more creative freedom by having Morbius use these abilities in different scenarios.
The characters and the effects are good but the story and script do let the film down. Dr. Morbius is an interesting character because he is a good guy who is clearly suffering and he questions his sanity and mental state after his first incident with powers. After that though instead of pursuing his inner demons he is forced to confront and battle his friend turned adversary, Milo. The film could have done something a bit more different with their conflict of ideals, but instead they go down a path which allows them to battle it out until one of them wins.
There aren’t many other characters apart from the cliché female scientist turned love interest Dr. Bancroft, and Nicholas, a father figure who has to carry the burden of Michael’s and Milo’s actions. These characters are not fleshed out and feel very two-dimensional. They service the story but not the characters. The ending is also deliberately left open, as many superhero films are these days, meaning Morbius will more than likely show up again in the future.
★★★☆☆
3/5
Morbius sets itself up as an interesting take on the vampire genre and the superhero genre. The film is unbalanced with ideas and unfortunately, this shows in the latter half of the film. Sony is attempting to recreate the magic that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has and this film is proof of that. What should have been a self-contained story with a focus on Morbius is instead a story with seeds planted ready to move on to the next story. Luckily it stands out above the crowd, but it isn’t enough to make the film feel complete.
Thanks for reading today’s blog!
Alex Murray, the Head of Eyesight Productions
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