Warning: This article contains spoilers for Marvel’s Morbius. Reader discretion is advised.
This weekend, Marvel’s newest film, Morbius, hit theaters, and mostly everyone agrees that it’s not good. MCU fans have the bar set pretty high after films like Avengers: Endgame and the incredible shows that hit Disney+, like WandaVision and Loki. The question begs to be asked: did Morbius deserve its bad reviews, or are us Marvel fans simply spoiled? Disclaimer: This article will include details about the plot and end-credit scenes of Morbius, so proceed with caution if you don’t like spoilers.
Being pretty serious Marvel fans, my boyfriend and I went to the movie theater this weekend to see Morbius. I wasn’t too excited going into it, because I have faith in what Rotten Tomatoes has to say, and they’ve given Morbius an alarming 16% rating (which is pretty bad, given Marvel’s track record). I was mainly there to order an ice-cold Dr. Pepper and, admittedly, also for Jared Leto. Remembering his role as Joker in Suicide Squad, I was curious to see how he would perform in DC’s rival production company.
Truthfully, I think Jared Leto is the main appeal of the film. His performance as Michael Morbius was just the right amount of attractive and frightening. Morbius isn’t a typical superhero — although he has a tragic backstory and unfortunate beginning, as most Marvel heroes do, he feels more like a Deadpool-esque antihero, which I believe Leto played incredibly well. In my opinion, if Marvel had cast anybody else as Morbius, this movie would be an utter flop.
Why was the rest of the movie so subpar? For starters, the plot seemed entirely rushed (and honestly, pretty basic). To summarize: Michael Morbius and Lucien/Milo have a blood disease that’s incurable, so they become best friends. Morbius becomes an incredibly successful doctor and finds the cure to this disease, which turns him into “The Living Vampire” — a title he believes is “a curse” and so he won’t share the cure with Lucien, but Lucien takes it for himself anyway, and the two brothers turn against each other because they have severely different ideas on right and wrong. If this sounds familiar to you, that’s probably because it’s almost the exact same plot as The Amazing Spider-Man 2, except this time it feels forced and awkward and we’re missing Andrew Garfield.
To add to the laziness of the plot, Lucien has a backstory that doesn’t really add up to the amount of evil he portrays in the second half of the movie. It’s understandable that he has a lot of trauma from his incurable lifelong disease, but they also tried to throw in a “you always liked Michael more than me” moment with Lucien and his adoptive father. If it sounds messy, that’s because it is. On a personal note, I don’t like when movies create villains who unnecessarily kill a bunch of people, and have no repercussions for those villains. In other words, Lucien dies (a very anticlimactic death) in the final few minutes of the movie, and he leaves a multitude of deaths behind him, simply because he had a hard life. Don’t we all, Lucien.
There are definitely some moments of redemption in the movie. They give us a few laughs here and there, along with some moments of suspense. All in all, the fight scenes were pretty corny. But we got some incredible Adria Arjona content as Morbius’ love interest, Martine. Arjona admitted she was inspired by AOC for the role, which likely inspired the few scenes in which Martine was a badass woman. But, again, even these feminist moments were lacking.
If you didn’t like Morbius, you’re likely going to have to hang in there a little longer. Going off of the end-credit scenes, it looks like Leto’s superhero is gonna stick around. With Michael Keaton reprising his role as Vulture, the end credits scene teases a potential Sinister Six movie.
This review may give Morbius an even worse reputation than it already had, but I don’t regret seeing it. I thoroughly enjoyed watching it, even though from an objective standpoint, it wasn’t a great movie. Truthfully, no Marvel movie will ever measure up to Endgame for me. If you’re a Marvel fanatic and you’ve been debating seeing their newest film, I’m here to tell you: go do it. And if you end up hating it like most of the world does? Well, let’s just put the blame on Sony.