Even though I don’t consider myself one of those who “live on the Internet”, I inhabit it and visit often. Therefore, it was next to impossible to escape this movie morphing into a meme. Why you ask, and why this film specifically? Hell, if I know, if you figure it out, what makes “the Internets” tick, please let me know as soon as possible. But I have tried desperately hard to put everything aside (all the horrible things I read/saw about this film, the memes, and my dislike of Jared Leto) and go into Morbius as open-mindedly as possible. I wanted to see for myself whether the hate was “justified” or whether people were too harsh on this film. After seeing it and almost dying of boredom, the reviews should have been much harsher.
It’s rare to see a movie like Morbius nowadays. And no, I don’t mean it’s rare to see a comic book movie; it seems like at least one is playing in the cinema every day that ends with “y”; we became spoiled by them. Spoiled by the overall MCU quality because even if you don’t enjoy some MCU films and there are genuine discussions to be had about the recent output, they have some standards. You can count on any MCU film to at least meet some level of quality, whether it’s the casting or the story; almost in any MCU film, you can find something decent. I struggled to find it here.
Halfway through watching this film, I realised why I was bored and not interested in it whatsoever. Morbius genuinely felt like a film that got lost in time, like something that was made in the 2004/05 era of superhero films, got postponed by 17/18 years and just got released because they couldn’t hold onto it any longer. Everything from the CGI to the story template screamed the mid-2000s; I was transported back in time, where the peak was the first two Spider-Man films with Tobey Maguire, and we mostly got comic book films like Elektra (2005) or Daredevil (2003) that just couldn’t hack it. And ok, I am being cheeky a bit; Morbius might have slightly better CGI. But I swear, if you were to have a movie marathon of early 2000s comic book films and slapped Morbius in the middle of it, I wouldn’t be surprised if some folks thought that is when the film was released.
And it’s mainly the poor storytelling we need to talk about, as the film offers no surprises. We have a man with a super rare condition, but watch out because he is super duper, ultra mega genius. But, get this, this genius doesn’t play by the rules and is looking for the cure himself, but that backfires. And now, this genius needs to fight the urge to be a bad guy but too late, as his best mate takes the special cure too, and now they need to fight. Literally, you can’t make it up, and what is worse, you don’t need to because you have seen this precise storytelling done approximately 245.329 times by now.
By far, the funniest shit was how the film was trying to convince you it was Marvel. From the opening “kinda” Marvel logo to that bizarre Spider-Man tie-in. I understand why they did it, and I know about the Sony/Marvel fickle truce, but Jesus, Sony, just… stop. Whoever is in charge right now must have the balls to admit despite all its faults, MCU knows what to do with their characters. Give the rights to Spider-Man and all his villains (including Morbo here) to MCU and cash it big or stay as “executive producer/advisor” if that helps you sleep at night. But yet again, you have tried something related to Spider-Man and yet again, it failed. I would love to have the “never say never” attitude many at Sony must have to keep on doing this shit, but it’s wise to stop at some point, touch grass and admit that there are bigger and better players. And giving (or selling) the IP to them would ultimately benefit everybody because then we could get a decent Morbius film!
Also, I feel like I must briefly mention the main star, Jared – if you are a fan of his, good for you. I won’t try to convince you otherwise, I just never liked him, and that is coming from someone who has seen him in many films, meaning he had many chances to prove me wrong. There are a few reasons I don’t like him, but the main one has to be a simple fact that I don’t find him to be a good actor. Every time I watched him on the screen, I could see the wheels turning in his head. It always feels like he has a checklist in his head, and going through the motions, he knows what to do/say to please people. It obviously must be working as he is still getting work, so what do I know, but he always seemed to me like an alien who had infiltrated the human race a long time ago but still hasn’t managed to convincingly portray a person. There is something majorly off about him, and I honestly don’t think he can act well, let alone be Oscar-worthy, so the fact he actually has an Oscar is insane to me. Good for you, you alien thingy. Well played.
My biggest frustration with this movie was that I could see, despite everything (the bad CGI, awful dialogue, questionable casting choices, no memorable characters), how Morbius’ character could be cool. How he could be intriguing, having to be a good guy at times and then the bad guy other times. And how the people who managed to make so many unknown superheroes and villains work on the big screen could make this one work too. I am not saying it would be a piece of cake for Marvel; no. Since we have had so many comic book films, it is becoming trickier to stand out. But this isn’t the way. I know this will (probably) never happen, and the rights will stay with Sony for the foreseeable future – meaning we might see another drama regarding Spider-Man and whether he will remain in the MCU with Sony making more demands. Only time will tell.
The only truly positive thing I can say about this film is that Matt Smith seemed like he was having a blast. Now, does that mean he was any good in this film or that it somehow improved Morbius? No. But it’s always nice to see someone in a bad movie who seems to understand precisely how the film will turn out, so he’s just there for that paycheck and the ride. Well played, Matt Smith.
Overall, Morbius is definitely one of the movies ever made. I really liked the part where he said: “It’s Morbin’ time!” and then he bit off the vampire’s head. Now, if you don’t understand the previous last two sentences, it means you are not up on the memes about this film. Most of the time, it doesn’t matter whether you know anything about a particular movie before you watch it, but with Morbius, you almost need to embrace the meme side to have any fun with it. And if you didn’t laugh reading those two sentences, don’t even waste your time with the movie. Because as unfunny and tedious as those memes have become, I guarantee you, this movie is much worse.
That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!
Until next time,
Luke
Comment on “Morbius (2022) Review – 2005 Called, It Wants its Movie Back”