So on my flight to Houston Morbius was one of the movies I could watch on the screen at my seat because this is a thing you can do on flights these days. It was not a good selection of movies, so I figured I'd watch this as it wasn't going to cost me anything to do so. And while the Morbin meme was hilarious, I think the film itself still deserves a fair shake.
Note: As I watched the film on a flight, I don't have any screenshots, so images were taken from IMDB.
Morbius is about a scientist trying to cure a rare blood disease he and his childhood friend suffer from. And you know, it's not that bad if you just ignore any of Morbius's actual origins from the comics. The first thing I want to point out is that Jerad Leto does a fantastic job in this movie. If there is something that holds the whole film together, it's him. He seems to genuinely care about finding a cure for himself and his friend, he comes across as a scientist the whole movie, and I like the slightly morbid sense of humor he has about his predicament. And when he finally turns into the monster due to his experiment having unintended effects, he does a great job portraying the torment not only of his blood lust but knowing he can't give the cure to his friend because of it. It set's up a great conflict between him and his friend who ends up stealing the serum and just embraces the monster as it's the first time he truly feels alive. This is the core of the movie, and it works.
The thing is though, that's the only thing that works in this movie. Don't get me wrong, it does a great job carrying it, as I did enjoy it by the end. But it's not enough to make the movie anything more than okay. You have a lot of other stuff to get around, a big one being how no one in the world seems to react to this guy just running around and wrecking everything. In a world where there are no signs of any kind of grand or supernatural power, these guys fighting just... doesn't seem to register with anyone. Throw in the cartoonishly evil bullies you see when our main characters are just children and you end up with a world that doesn't feel real. Beyond the main characters, there is just nothing to latch onto.
The fights are okay, but also nothing to write home about. You have a mix of cool and bad scenes. That said, it gets a little silly with the weird smokey effect around Morbius when he fights. It would be fine if that was just how the show was visualizing his sonar ability, but since it shows up on footage too it starts to get a bit goofy.
Were it not for people quickly starting to not care about anything Marvel does, I don't think people would have avoided this movie like the plague. It's a fine and serviceable movie, and I'd be interested in seeing what he does with his newfound powers and growing blood-lust. That said, I don't know if under better circumstances this movie would ever get a sequel anyway. As I said, it's an okay film, and films like that don't often get sequels. And they certainly won't get a sequel given the abysmal failure it was at the box office.
