By Ben Miller
Too silly to take seriously, but too serious to be any fun, Daniel Espinosa's Morbius suffers from a lack of vision and commitment from its stars and filmmakers. Jared Leto stars as Dr. Michael Morbius, a brilliant scientist suffering from a rare blood disease that has been wrecking his body since childhood. Dr. Morbius is supported by his colleague Dr. Martin Bancroft (Adria Arjona) and his best friend Milo (Matt Smith), who also suffers from the same blood disease.
Morbius attempts to cure himself by using the genetic mapping of vampire bats to compliment his own DNA. You can guess that the experiments go array giving Morbius a form of vampirism...
There must be some juicy behind-the-scenes material for the film, because that is the only explanation for what we get on-screen. Characters like Arjona's Bancroft, Tyrese Gibson's FBI Agent Simon Stroud, and Jared Harris' Nicholas are either wildly underdeveloped or underserved. Some scenes fly by with little explanation, while other drone on for unnecessary amounts of time.
The vampiric traits and abilities have some cool features, but there is either far too little, or far too much explanation. When Morbius discovers his echo-location, for example, there is a clearly explained scene for what he is doing and how he controls it. On the flip side, he learns how to glide on the wind seemingly on a whim by jumping in front of a train.
Don't go in expecting some Venom style insanity even though we're talking about Jared Leto as a human vampire. Unfortunately, the star plays it completely straight and subdued. He isn't bad exactly, but the energy and chaos present in Tom Hardy's Venom performance are sorely needed here to enlive a bland endeavor. Where is the unhinged insanity of Leto's recent performances from House of Gucci or The Little Things, when you actually need it? His genius doctor is just a quiet guy who occasionally turns into a vampire. That isn't interesting, it's dull.
Matt Smith, on the other hand, is having the time of his life. While the other characters carry on about their business, Smith slinks around and displays actual charisma (imagine that). His motivations are a bit murky but it hardly matters because he is almost the only character with a personally. One of the FBI Agents pursuing Morbius (Al Madrigal) also has some fun, injecting much needed comedy into the otherwise humorless film.
Morbius is a rare case when a movie would have been better if it was more actively terrible. There is nothing enjoyable about watching it but also not enough to make fun of aside from the makeup effects on Smith and Leto which might give you a chuckle if you, too, are reminded of the bad guy from The Mask. Outside of that, Morbius is immensely forgettable. The mid-credit scene attempts to connect the Sony/Spider-verse to the greater MCU, but even that is incoherent and unremarkable. One day, maybe we'll get the story about why this film is such a mess. If only it were a fun mess. C-