Sep 23, 20229 min read

Morbius - Film Review

Updated: Mar 19, 2023

By Sam Wolstenholm

Rotten Tomatoes: 16% (Tomatometer) | 71% (Audience Score)

Metacritic: 35% (Metascore) | 6.8/10 (User Score)

(SPOILERS)

Morbius was released in theaters on April Fool's day of 2022 (seriously), and was directed by Daniel Espinosa (bless his heart). You've likely heard about this movie. It's about a man that turns himself into a vampire. Technically, this guy is part of Spiderman's rogues gallery. Spidey doesn't make an appearance in this film, but it doesn't matter. This is just supposed to be the origin story of Morbius. I hadn't seen this movie until it was recently added to Netflix. I decided to review it as my first film review. I figured that it'd be good note-taking practice at worst. Well, I ended up having too many thoughts to not do a full review, so here it is.

Plot

Alright, so the film starts out with adult Michael Morbius bringing a team to a jungle so that he can capture a bunch of bats. He isn't afraid of them, even though everyone else is. Then it goes to him as a kid in a hospital or something. Another kid comes in and his name is Luxias, but Michael calls him Milo (because there was another kid named Milo that died before him, so he's "the new Milo"...pretty messed up actually). Well that's pretty much it. It's a pretty dumb start to the film. All it's supposed to do is establish the friendship between Michael and Milo, but it doesn't do that very well at all. We're just supposed to assume these kids both grew up together, without dying, and became best friends. Okay sure.

We then go back to modern day where Michael is now Dr. Morbius (apparently a really good doctor). He goes into this secret lab thing in the hospital that doesn't seem very secret at all. His...assistant? Another doctor, Martine (I don't know why everyone's name in this movie starts with an 'M'), is with him and they talk about the bats (that he somehow snuck into the hospital). Morbius has them in a big ass tank just flying around LOL. He also tells Martine she has "plausible deniability" about his bat experiment, but then he tells her all about it and even starts working on it with her there. Those two then go on a walk for some reason (even though Morbius can barely walk) to talk about what's about to happen in the next scene. They could've just talked about it in the secret lab. The next scene is them on a boat in international waters (How did they get there? The world may never know) where Morbius decides to mix his blood with the bat blood. Naturally, he becomes a vampire and kills everybody on the boat except for Martine (ya know, cuz she's the only woman so far and is obviously the required love interest). Detectives show up and they seem pretty competent, but I'll talk more about them later. Basically, after that, Milo wants to do the same experiment (to like save his life right) but Morbius says no.

There really is no plot to the movie thus far. Anything set up so far has been resolved. Morbius can walk and shit now, which was the only reason he was doing the experiments. Milo ends up doing the same experiment, so he becomes a vampire and can walk now. We're like halfway through the movie at this point and nothing is happening. We get a vampire fight for no reason and Milo starts feeling himself. He's liking the power. Then, Milo kills some people and he battles Morbius. Morbius kills Milo then flies off into the night with a bunch of bats (seriously).

As you probably noticed, I started putting less effort into this section as I went on (partly because I have a whole section dedicated to the ending). This is pretty much how I felt as I watched this movie too. There was nothing that kept me interested. I pretty much knew what was going to happen the whole time. The pacing was way too fast. There's no time to get to know any character (I'll get to that next). There are unnecessary transitions and scenes. Like, the same two characters will be talking in one scene just for the film to transition to the same two character still talking in a completely different place. So yea, the plot just sucked on its own. There wasn't a whole lot that made sense. Anything that did make sense was ruined by pacing issues (or one of the many other flaws of this film).

Characters

There is no nuance or depth to a single character in this film. Every single person is one-dimensional. The only one that even might have a case is Martine, so let me begin with her. She seems to fluxuate between following the rules and breaking them. Also, she kind of just follows along when it comes to Michael's plan. We learn later that they are love interests, but they have no chemistry whatsoever. She was supportive of him the entire movie, but he had done nothing for her the entire time until saving her life by turning her into a vampire (that changed nothing for the plot either). Honestly, she was a dully-written character that didn't really stand a chance, so I don't blame the actress, Adria Arjona. Matt Smith, the actor for Luxias/Milo, did have a chance though. In fact, he did what he could in my opinion. I think he knew the character was written like shit, so he had fun with it. He was way over the top. It was bad, but at least it was something. Milo was just an asshole for no reason too. I guess that he was bullied and stuff as a kid, but that doesn't mean he had to go around 20-30 years later killing everybody that cared for or about him. He had no remorse for it at all. Plus, the actor already looks like a vampire, so they didn't need to overdo it with the effects like they did. Jared Leto already kind of looks like a vampire too. I think he just cashed in this performance. He didn't have a lot of inflection in his voice or expression on his face. His character didn't really seem to have much motivation to do anything besides cure his disease. Once he did that, he just had to not kill people. He never solved the issue of artificial vs real blood, and the film just ends before we learn what he decides to do about that. At least he doesn't enjoy killing people like Milo.

Oh yea, I want to quickly mention the detectives too. They seemed like competent detectives, but they didn't advance the plot at all. All they did was show up to figure out stuff that we already knew as an audience. The film would've been the same without them in it. The one guy, Rodriguez (played by Al Madrigal), is probably the best character in the movie. He's funny and smart. That alone already makes him more dynamic than anyone else. I especialy enjoyed that he brought holy water to the interrogation with Morbius.

Visuals

The main thing to mention for this section is probably the vampire effects. You can see it in the trailer. When Morbius goes into vampire mode (which doesn't seem to have much rhyme or reason by the way), there are a bunch of colors and fluttery-looking things in the air. When he moves, there's a smoke-like effect that follows him around. It doesn't make much sense and it looks stupid to be honest. There were quite a few slow-mo moments. My favorite one (laughably favorite, it wasn't actually good) was when Morbius literally dodged a bullet in slow-mo exactly like The Matrix. There was also a single POV shot of Morbius that occurs right after he turns into a vampire, but that camera technique never returns. The actual vampire faces looked pretty dumb too. Milo looked like a vampire anyway, but his actual vampire form was just horrendous. I also can't get by without mentioning the scene where Morbius started flying in front of the train. That was ridiculous, but it was one of the most exciting things that happened in the entire film. So I guess I could say I enjoyed it? Maybe?

Sound

This section is pretty much the only spot where I have anything good to say. The sound design itself is actually decent. The sounds of the jungle are clear and distinct. Same goes for the hospital sounds. They change the sounds a bit too when Morbius goes into vampire mode. It didn't look good, but it sounded good. Besides that though, there were some bad lines (or good ones?) of dialogue. I laughed at loud at two different lines: "I'm starting to get hungry, and you don't want to see me when I'm hungry" and "I am Venom". These were the only moments in the movie I found so bad they were enjoyable. Everything else was just bad. Even the music was sub-par, just very generic and not fitting for certain parts of the film. For example, when Milo dies at the end, sad music plays as if he had a redemption arc and we're supposed to give a shit. We don't.

Themes

What am I supposed to take away from this? What was I supposed to learn? It doesn't comment on really any personal or societal issues. I've sat for days trying to figure it out. Way too long. The only real message I came up with is the idea of power and ableism. Morbius became more physically powerful after he cured his disease. Same with Milo. Milo let it get to his head though. With ability came power for him, and he couldn't get enough of it. Morbius, on the other hand, was doing alright before curing himself. He was a well-respected and successful doctor. He was never shown to seriously struggle with his disease (besides the fact that he walked with a cane). All he got was ability, and he kind of lost his (social) power. Sure, he was able to talk to bats and fly in front of trains, but what for? He recognized that, but never really rejected it either.

The film paints their disability as an obstacle to overcome physically, but didn't go into the mental or emotional aspect of it at all. Both Michael and Milo were simply trying to solve that problem. This isn't exactly a good message, especially when you consider the repeated phrase, "We are the few, against the many." Well, that kind of sets up sides. "We," in this case, being the disabled, and "the many" being literally everybody else. It doesn't tell me as an able person to be any different. If anything, it's giving the message to the disabled that they are less powerful. It's insulting and done in very poor taste. I hate this movie even more as I write about it.

Ending

Wow that ending sucked. The end credit scenes were even worse somehow. I have no idea where Morbius stands as a character. Is he good or bad? I know his need for blood is getting stronger and he can't survive on artificial blood much longer, so is he going to start killing people? If that's the case, then why did he kill Milo? There is no solution to anything. People died, and they died inconsequently. Except for Martine, who comes back to life I guess as a vampire now too (because....I guess Morbius can do that?). The final battle between Morbius and Milo was barely a battle at all. Like, seriously nothing happened. A ton of bats came in and lifted Morbius up. Then he stabbed Milo in the heart. That's it. That's about how fast it happened too. Oh, then Morbius rode the stream of bats out of the ground into the sky right past the detectives. I don't know where he is going or what he wants to do. There are too many questions that are not only unanswered by this conclusion, but new ones that arise. It doesn't feel satisfying either as the film just kind of seems to stop. Don't get me wrong, I was glad it was over, but I wasn't expecting it to end right then and there.

The mid and end credit scenes were stupid too. The Vulture from Spider-Man: Homecoming just popped into an empty cell (I'm assuming as a result of Spider-Man: No Way Home, but that doesn't make sense either because he would have just stayed in that universe). He seemed quite content with it all happening too as he is not rattled whatsoever. I feel like there'd be a little more freaking out in that situation, even for a Spider-Man villain. The second scene is him just meeting up with Morbius in some random place for no reason just to propose the idea of getting a team together. He doesn't even give a reason, but Morbius is interested. Again, I have no idea if Morbius is good or bad at this point. He doesn't seem conflicted as a character, but I am definitely conflicted as a spectator.

Overall

Awful film. If you've spared yourself the hour and a half of watching this, please continue to do so. I saw all the reviews of this and thought to myself, "it really can't be that bad." It was. It was worse. I'm telling you, DO NOT WATCH THIS. I usually think that even bad films can have something to teach an audience or at least a fun aesthetic to look at. This one has neither. Anything positive (and I definitely exhausted all the examples of that in this review) is completely trumped by all the bad. And that's pretty much everything. I didn't care about a single character. The pacing was terrible. It didn't look good. I didn't learn anything. It didn't even have a decent soundtrack. I can't wait to be done with this review so I never have to think about Morbius again.

0.9/10

Have you seen Morbius ? I want to hear what you think. What'd I miss? Did I hate your favorite part? Or love something you thought was stupid? Any questions or comments? I'd love to respond. Feel free to drop review requests too! I will strongly consider them.