Morbius Review – Jared Leto’s Vampire Movie Lacks Bite

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TOLERABLE

FINALLY! Jared Leto’s Morbius has been released in cinemas after being delayed multiple times, but was it worth the rather long wait? Here’s our review of Morbius.

What I need to start off by saying is that I don’t think Morbius is as bad as some of the other reviews have suggested it is.

What I will say about this new Jared Leto superhero (or maybe more anti-hero) movie is that it’s not great.

The best way to describe it would be as a superhero movie that we used to get before the Marvel Cinematic Universe revolutionized the comic book movie genre.

This movie really feels like it was made in the late 90s and early 2000s.

The first starts off by giving us a backstory of how Dr. Michael Morbius ended up turning himself into Morbius, the Living Vampire.

It’s got all to do with bats and Morbius’ research into trying to cure himself and his mate, Milo (or Lionel) from an incurable blood disease.

The first half of Morbius was OK

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Credit: Sony Pictures

Read more: Spider-Man’s Cameo In Jared Leto’s Morbius Film Revealed In Leaked Photos

The thing is, when Michael decides to start testing his research on himself, things go wrong and he starts to change and has a thirst for blood.

Morbius conducts the experiment on himself on a ship, and then he proceeds to kill everyone on the ship apart from his lab partner, Martine Bancroft (played by Adria Arjona).

That’s about as much of the plot as I’m willing to give you because I don’t want to ‘spoil’ too much.

That said, I’m going to have to talk about the film’s ending, because it’s utterly bonkers.

But, more on that later.

Jared Leto’s Morbius had potential

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Credit: Sony Pictures

Read more: Jared Leto Is Now Rumoured To Be In Talks To Cameo As Morbius In Spider-Man 3

What I will say is that when I was watching the first part of the movie, I actually thought that there’s potential to Jared Leto’s Morbius.

I do not think for one second that his performance is the issue here.

I actually think that he’s good in the movie and suits the role quite well.

The real issue with this film is the story and the way it looks.

There are so many scenes in this movie that are just all very janky CGI, which is odd considering how long they must have spent on this film.

It almost feels as though Morbius was spliced together at the very last second – a bit like how Morbius was trying to splice human DNA with vampire bats’.

Morbius feels like a lazily made movie

Morbius Movie Blade Jared Leto

Credit: Sony Pictures

Read more: Watch Epic Final Morbius Trailer Ahead Of Release

It’s a very lazily made movie, and this seems to be the trend with these Sony Pictures Marvel movies.

They’ve all felt very rushed, poorly structured and badly put together.

There’s an overuse of CGI, which I think is there mainly to paper over the cracks and extend the film’s runtime a little bit.

This was also the case with Venom: Let There Be Carnage, which I think might be on par with this movie.

Maybe the first Venom movie is slightly better, but to be honest, I think they’re all pretty poor.

What Morbius and all these other Sony Pictures Spider-Man adjacent movies make abundantly clear is that the comic book movie genre has come a really long way.

Sony has stayed very much behind and is just making the same early 2000s comic book movie over and over again.

We need to talk about that ending!

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Credit: Sony Pictures

Read more: Morbius’ First Trailer Release Date And Time Revealed

It’s a real shame because the performances in the movie are good.

I liked Matt Smith as Milo (or Lionel), and I liked Leto as Morbius.

I would have liked to have seen more of Jared Harris as Emil Nikols.

And both Adria Arjona and Tyrese Gibson deliver perfectly solid performances in their respective roles.

Where this movie really loses the plot is in its final act and its two post-credits scenes, which are all just bonkers and totally redundant.

The movie’s final sequence is ugly, slow, boring, tedious, predictable and makes you think that you’ve just wasted almost two hours of your life watching this movie.

What was up with those post-credits scenes?

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Credit: Sony Pictures

Read more: Morbius’ First Trailer Could Be Arriving As Early As Next Week

Then the post-credits start, and the whole thing just becomes utterly incomprehensible.

I won’t say what happens in them, but I will say that if you’ve watched Morbius’ trailers, then you would have seen a lot of what’s in these post-credits scenes already.

I was left there scratching my head and thinking, “Really, Sony?! Really!”.

What they’ve done is clearly an attempt to set up about three other movies after this one.

I would usually think that’s fine.

Marvel movies do that all the time and those post-credits scenes have been exciting.

However, these post-credits scenes make no sense and Leto’s Morbius feels completely different from the character we’ve just spent under two hours with.

Overall, Morbius is OK, but it’s a shame because it could have been so much better.

That said, if you’re going to hire a director like Daniel Espinosa, then what else could you expect.

This is the man that’s given us such classics (I’m being ironic) as Child 44, Safe House and Life.

What do you make of this review?

Have you watched Morbius at the cinema yet?

If so, let us know your thoughts on the movie in the comments below.


 

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