FILM REVIEW: Morbius – you’re not you when you’re hungry

Daniel Espinosa’s Morbius is the latest installment of the cultural juggernaut that is the Jared Leto-verse. While largely disconnected from other Marvel films, Morbius does enough to prove it’s titular character is interesting, without leaving me wanting more. It’s a film full of dull creative choices, the most puzzling being why it wasn’t a straight up horror.

That’s not to say Morbius is a bad film, its not a dumpster fire by any means, however it feels like a pot of missed potential. Jared Leto plays Dr. Michael Morbius, a biochemist, who was made famous for developing artificial blood. In trying to find a cure to his own rare blood disease, he ends up injecting himself with the DNA of a vampire bat. Soon the artificial blood isn’t satiating his hunger and he is plagued by the conflict of having to eat humans.

Leto is joined by Doctor Who alum, Matt Smith, who plays Morbius’ childhood friend and Patrick-Bateman-vampire, Milo. Smith puts his heart into creating an interesting foil to Leto, yet is given an impossible script to work with. The film also stars Adria Arjona, who is twenty years Leto’s junior, yet plays his love interest Martine. Jared Harris also briefly appears as a confusing paternal medical figure and Tyrese Gibson is heavily under utilised as a police detective. While a smaller cast than what we are use to in recent super hero outings, Morbius’ breakneck pacing ensures we don’t really get the chance to connect with anyone.

It is safe to say that Leto’s performance is one of the least questionable part of this film. Never approaching the absurd heights of either the Joker or Paolo Gucci, Leto plays it straight. However, both Smith and Leto are compromised by the CGI which obscures large parts of their performances. It’s truly a shame that the filmmakers decided to show so much of the Vampires, rather than building tension through their ominous presence. The vampires fly around shooting out janky particles like cricket balls in big bash commercials, suddenly slow into Matrix style bullet time and morph into monsters straight out of cheap video games. I can only imagine how much better of a film it would have been if it had tried to be more Alien or even the Fly and less Amazing Spiderman.

That’s not to say there aren’t a few interesting ideas within this film. The way the vampires ears morph to echo locate is a pretty unique effect that stood out from the rest of the film. There is also one well crafted but uncomfortable moment where CGI mayhem is forgone to show the disturbing act of violence and violation that is a vampire draining a victim.

There is a more interesting film hiding somewhere beneath the surface here. I could go on critiquing how the film needlessly jumps around at the beginning or doesn’t offer any strong emotional arcs, yet that doesn’t remove my disappointment in what might have been. Morbius is a relatively unknown villain who could have been built into a character that is complex and potentially truly frightening. This movie’s greatest crime is that it doesn’t take the opportunity to be something more than just another superhuman origin story. Also, the post credits scene is terribly out of place.