Let me start with a spoiler. MORBIUS is not a good film. This grim and grimy excursion into the Marvel Universe has the special effects. It has the clash of superhero and super villain. It has a bustling metropolis (New York City) where the residents, and at least one federal agent, are quick to blame vampires for the rash of exsanguinations plaguing its streets. What it doesn’t have is the outsized sense of fun that makes even the most serious of superhero action flicks a treat. MORBIUS, instead, takes the earnest approach to its tale of a brilliant scientist making a grave error of judgment, and then presents it as a slog fraught with clichéd tropes.
You can’t fault co-executive producer Jared Leto as the title character. He gives a committed performance etched with intensity and desperation as Dr. Michael Morbius struggles to stay alive just long enough to find a cure for the blood disease that afflicts both him and his best friend, Milo (Matt Smith), who suffered with him when they were both abandoned by family to an institution run by the kindly Dr. Emil Nikols (Jared Harris). Morbius’ research, funded by Milo’s endless wealth, takes a macabre turn when he fixates on vampire bats as the key to the cure. This affords the filmmakers the opportunity to send a cadaverous, barely ambulatory Morbius to the Costa Rican jungles, and to give us the unique visual of Morbius bonding with his little friends in the floor-to-ceiling cylinder in his laboratory where they spin in an endless cyclone as they wait their turn to be terminated in the name of science.
Alas, as is wont at the nexus of hubris and that ci-mentioned desperation, the chimera of bat/human DNA that Morbius develops as a cure, and then uses on himself, has the classic results in stories of this ilk. He may have gained a jacked physique and superhuman strength, agility, and hearing (thank you echo-location), but in order to maintain it, and the semblance of a human appearance, he must drink human blood. At first, the artificial kind will do, but eventually it becomes clear that he will shortly require the real stuff, and Morbius draws the line at murder. At least not after taking out a crew of mercenaries on the ship (paid for by Milo) where Morbius performed his ethically questionable experiment.
Fortunately, his shipboard blood lust didn’t include his faithful assistant, Dr. Martine Bancroft (Adria Arjona), who merely sustained a concussion, leaving her to continue to assist Morbius as he searches for a cure for the cure. Not to mention to start acting on those romantic sparks that were dampened while Morbius’ physical capabilities precluded anything developing along those lines. Naturally, Milo doesn’t listen when Michael warns him that the cure is worse than the disease. Naturally, the good Dr. Nikols doesn’t understand just how twisted Milo has become. Naturally, Martine will cut her finger around Morbius at a particularly bad time creating predictable, opportunistic tension.
So much of MORBIUS is predictable, though, to be fair, Smith’s dance of malicious joy while suiting up for a night on the town after taking the cure has its unique pleasures, even if his nocturnal adventures revert to the predictable. He’s a smooth glass of poison after being a suitably poignant rich kid with everything but his health. It is, however, Al Madrigal as Agent Rodriguez, who steals the film from them both. Providing the much-needed comic relief, including toting a bottle of triple-blessed holy water to an interrogation of Morbius, he radiates a droll deadpan that is the sort of fun that is otherwise so sorely lacking. It makes him infinitely more watchable than even the eye candy that is Tyrese Gibson, who plays his partner as an attractive chunk of granite.
Also good is the CGI that lets bits and pieces Morbius and Milo’s faces slip in and out of their bat-like physiognomy that presages feeding. I liked the intricately rilled ears best. The smoke- and wave effects as indicators of echo-locating (and more) are as bombastic as they are vibrant, filling the screen effulgently even if the action they underscore suffers from a tiresome entropy.
So does MORBIUS as a whole. It turns the promise of a sequel courtesy of Michael Keaton’s cameo, more along the lines of a threat. Will Dr. Morbius triumph over the next installment of his saga? If they bring back Al Madrigal, there’s hope.
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