The Mosley Review: Morbius
We live in an interesting time ladies and gentleman. We have 2 major comic book film studios with 4 different banners when counted together. DC has the DCEU and the Berlanti Verse, then Marvel has Marvel Studios and films "In Association with Marvel". The ladder took over in the early 2000's and then became Marvel Studios under Paramount and then Disney purchased it all. Ever since then there has been this yearning to have all the Marvel properties under one banner and this film is another example of why that won't be happening anytime soon. Sony owns a massive portion of the characters associated with Spider-Man and this films’ titular character has a long history with him. So here we are with another film like Venom, that is not connected to the MCU, but in the Sony-verse and dear God was this absolutely abysmal. I went into this film with the lowest of expectations and even then I was so bored. I felt as if this film was poking at the audiences intelligence and just throwing whatever looks cool at the screen. The tone was completely one note the entire way and I felt like I needed an anti-depressant after. I get that there was a horror / goth vibe, but why was everything delivered so dry. I wanted this film to be smart and yet there's so much stupidity in the characters that I just stopped caring halfway through the film.
Jared Leto as Michael Morbius was.....well....Jared Leto. We've all seen him commit to a role and be absolutely amazing, but this was not really anything special. At times he carries the scenes with enough care to somewhat emote when he isn't constantly snarling from his transformations. He does nail the stoic nature of the character, but that’s about it. Adria Arjona was good as his fellow hematologist Martine Bancroft. I felt their friendship, but there really wasn't any form of romantic chemistry whatsoever. It is one of the most forced romances I've ever seen in comic book film history. Matt Smith swings for the fences as Morbius' childhood friend Lucien "Milo". He is the only person in the film that actually had a character arc and personality albeit the extremely stereotypical motivation you've seen a billion times over. Jared Harris is a class act and he was good as Dr. Emil Nicholas. He was the perfect example of an actor that really doesn't care for the material and is collecting a pay check. Tyrese Gibson and Al Madrigal play the 2 FBI agents Simon Stroud and Alberto Rodriguez and they do nothing for this movie. They are complete throwaway characters that could've been great, but are just there.
The score by Jon Ekstrand was serviceable and drives home the horror vibe of the film. Visually the film looked good and once the action begins, sometimes it was amazing and the other times it was too chaotic to understand what's happening. The boat massacre and the “single take” fight leading into the subway station were the best moments of the film. The film is PG-13, but it was dying to be rated R. There is a scene where a nurse is walking down a horribly designed hallway and it was the dumbest thing I've ever seen. It didn't build tension, it just made me wonder who thought this was a good idea. I can go on and on why this film was so choppy and bland, but I won't. If you have a strong curiosity to see this film, then just wait for it to come to streaming somewhere. There are 2 end credit scenes that lead to possibilities but even then, don't waste your money folks. Let me know what you thought of the film or my review in the comments below. Thanks for reading!
