• Reviews
    • Watch This
    • VODepths
  • Humor
  • On the Marquee
  • Looking Back
    • Classic Corner
    • Anniversary
  • Film Fests
Crooked Marquee
  • Reviews
    • Watch This
    • VODepths
  • Humor
  • On the Marquee
  • Looking Back
    • Classic Corner
    • Anniversary
  • Film Fests
Home
Reviews

Review: Morbius

Mar 31st, 2022 Craig Lindsey
Review: Morbius

I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but I almost feel bad for Sony. Almost.

The entertainment giant spent the past winter watching Marvel Studios rule the multiplexes (during a gotdamn Omicron outbreak!) with their former, franchise cash cow Spider-Man, as Spider-Man: No Way Home raked in over a billion dollars worldwide as Marvel’s version of Peter Parker joined forces with their previous Peter Parkers. That’s gotta hurt. It’s like watching your exes have a threesome with a new dude and they’re having a way better time with him.

They may have lost Spider-Man, but they still got the Spider-Man universe (a universe they apparently also have to share with Disney). And they’ve been leaning in on making down-and-dirty flicks about the universe’s antiheroes, with two movies where Tom Hardy assumes the role of half-man/half-alien symbiote Venom and, soon, Dakota Johnson will play blind superheroine Madame Web. (Since this movie will also co-star Euphoria temptress Sydney Sweeney, Sony is also in the business of making comic-book movies fanboys can finally use as masturbatory material.)

At the moment, the latest antihero ride for Sony is Morbius, at long last hitting theaters after a couple years of postponed release dates, due to either the pandemic or other, more high-profile superhero films on the horizon. (With The Batman still killing it in theaters, perhaps Sony thought they’d pick up curious moviegoers by dropping their own bat guy a few weeks later.)

That pretty-ass pain in the ass Jared Leto plays the titular good/bad guy, a brilliant but physically handicapped doctor who’s best known for making life-saving, Nobel Prize-winning, artificial blood. After rounding up a bunch of bats from Costa Rica, he creates a serum that’ll hopefully cure him and his best friend/benefactor Milo (former Doctor Who time lord Matt Smith) of their debilitating ailments. 

Of course, when he gets injected with the serum, he gets all bloodthirsty and kills a bunch of mercenaries on a boat. (Don’t worry — the mercenaries are dicks. We know this because one of them didn’t treat his beautiful colleague, played by Adria Arjona, with respect.) He spends most of the movie keeping his bloodthirstiness at bay, especially when dead bodies start piling up and FBI agents (played by the dull duo of Tyrese Gibson and Al Madrigal) start pursuing him.

It’s kind of frustrating how Morbius is just a quick, grungy exercise in keeping the SSU — Sony’s Spider-Man Universe — running smoothly. Director Daniel Espinosa (Safe House, Life) and screenwriters Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless (Netflix’s Lost in Space reboot) feverishly set up the conflict, with Morbius immediately doing battle — which, of course, means a lot of city property gets torn up — with his buddy Milo, who takes the serum and turns into a petulant, murderous douchebag. (Morbius continues Sony’s tradition of giving these superhumans archvillains who are really just bitter-ass brats.)

The execution is utterly transparent, creating this flimsy origin story so Leto’s living vampire can eventually become a flying, fugitive badass who — as the obligatory, post-credits scenes immediately establish — becomes an integral figure in the Spider-Man world. For an actor who’s notorious for doing too gotdamn much when he’s in character, Leto surprisingly keeps things chill with his performance. (I guess he learned it’s best to play it cool after showing his whole ass as Suicide Squad’s annoyingly extra Joker.) Even before he gets all ravenous, developing not only a taste for blood but also “the constitution of an Olympic athlete,” his Morbius is already a cocky, long-haired rebel. Yeah, Leto is pretty much Leto throughout this gotdamn thing. 

There isn’t much there with Morbius, a lame, lazy actioner so forced and derivative that it feels like it came out in 2002 rather than 2022. But, hey, unlike those CGIed-to-hell Marvel movies, at least it looks like it was shot on actual soundstages. 

D

  • Tags
  • movie review
Facebook Twitter Google+
Craig Lindsey

Craig Lindsey

Related Posts
Review: <i>Men</i>
Robert Daniels

Review: Men

May 19th, 2022
Review: <i>Emergency</i>
Kimber Myers

Review: Emergency

May 19th, 2022
Review: <i>Pleasure</i>
Kimber Myers

Review: Pleasure

May 12th, 2022
Trending
Jul 15th 11:00 AM
Reviews

Review: Pig

Jul 16th 11:00 AM
Looking Back

Classic Corner: Meet John Doe

Jul 30th 9:00 AM
Looking Back

Classic Corner: The Killing of a Chinese Bookie

Sep 23rd 9:00 AM
Reviews

Review: The Starling

Oct 21st 9:00 AM
Reviews

Review: The French Dispatch

Oct 28th 9:00 AM
Reviews

Review: The Souvenir: Part II

Dec 1st 9:00 AM
Looking Back

Harvey’s Hellhole: Mimic

Oct 16th 9:00 AM
Looking Back

Classic Corner: Fade to Black

Feb 12th 9:00 AM
Reviews

Review: Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar

Jun 1st 9:00 AM
Movies

No Couture For You: Punk, Fashion, and Cruella

blank
cmpopcorn_white3.svg
  • Company
    • About Us
    • Contact
    • Writers Guidelines
  • Members
    • Login
    • SignUp
    • Forums
telephone icon [email protected]
envelope icon [email protected]
© 2014-2022 Crooked™ Publishing
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service
blankblank
Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}