MORBIUS – Review

Already, it’s been over three months, so who’s ready to return to the Marvel Universe via your nearby multiplex? Now, before the littlest hands “rise up”, be forewarned that this is the “dark, spooky” corner of Marvel. Oh, and technically it’s not the official MCU, but rather the “Sony-verse’ as this is labeled “in association with Marvel”, much as was the Oscar-winning SPIDER-VERSE animated epic and the twin VENOM flicks. But it does tie into our favorite “wall-crawler” as did the former films. To coincide with Spidey’s sixtieth (must be something extra in that radioactive “bite”). we’re getting another villain “spin-off” (insert web-spinning puns). Now, the oozing symbiote was from the 1980s and the “baddie quintet” from December’s blockbuster are all from the 1960s. So what about those swingin’ sparkly 70s? To be precise, 1971 saw a lot of change in the “funny books’ as the Comic Code Authority (a self-regulating group) finally let the monsters rise again. Naturally, Marvel tested the waters by introducing one to face the “amazing y’know”. And now he makes his big-screen debut (after a two-year pandemic delay). So put on your scarves “true believers”, here comes the very thirty vampire known as MORBIUS. As a count named Floyd would say, “ooooo, scary keeds’!”.

After a brief present-day prologue in Costa Rica, we’re whisked back twenty-five years to a childrens’ hospital special unit in Greece where we meet pre-teen Michael Morbius. He’s suffering from a rare blood malady, leaving him very weak and under the care of the kind Dr. Nikols (Jared Harris). We also meet Michael’s newest friend and neighbor (he’s got the bed next to him), Lucian, whom he dubs Milo (after the last occupant of the space). Michael’s already a science whiz, which leads him a couple of decades later to invent life-saving artificial blood. And now Dr. Morbius (Jared Leto) is the “top dog” at the Horizon medical center alongside friend (maybe more) Dr. Bancroft (Adria Arjona). But while Dr. M tends to the kids there, he’s got another project brewing, namely a cure for his own weakened condition. Now because some of his ideas are considered radical, Horizon won’t “foot the bill”, so Michael must turn to Milo (Matt Smith), who’s now a wealthy businessman (though the biz is more than a bit “shady”) and is still tended by Nikols. He really wants that healing “fix” so he hires a cargo ship out of Panama manned by local mercenaries to take Morbius and Bancroft to Central America. Onboard, the two perfect a “serum” which has disastrous side effects for Dr. M. After one of the crew knocks out Bancroft, Dr. M transforms into a powerful bat-like blood-drinking “demon”. When the ship drifts to the coast of Long Island with its crew drained of blood and Bancroft unconscious, two FBI agents, Stroud (Tyrese Gibson) and Rodriguez (Al Madrigal) investigate while searching for the missing Mobius. Meanwhile, he’s roaming the streets of NYC, secretly entering the Horizon lab, hoping to make a cure to his botched “cure” and trying to keep his “inner beast” caged by consuming his own artificial blood supply. But his body seems to crave the “real deal”. Will he turn the Big Apple into his own blood bank? And what about Milo’s mania for the cure? Could this lead to a showdown between childhood pals?

Leto brings some much-needed humanity to his role as one of Marvel’s early anti-heroes (many forget that Hawkeye and the Black Widow originally teamed up against Iron Man) and gives us a look into the conflicted nature of Michael. With dark, haunting eyes, Leto conveys the doc’s empathetic nature, first with young Milo, then with his afflicted child patients, gifting them with a bit of origami. But when the “hunger” overtakes him, there’s a feral intensity in those eyes, showing us that he’ll do whatever it takes to survive. Then the remorse sets in as guilt cast its shadow and Leto’s disturbed doc thinks that he must save the world from himself. Smith is very effective as the “flip side of the coin”, also ailing but with no compulsion about humanity, adding lots of danger to his “dandy” persona from ONE NIGHT IN SOHO. Arjona makes a terrific partner for Leto as the co-worker who challenges him while slowly sliding from the professional to the personal in their relationship. Harris brings lots of father-like compassion to his too-small role as Nikols. Plus Gibson and Madrigal make a good team, call it a “dour cop/wiseacre cop” team as the agents are almost always a few steps behind the monster mayhem.

The horror and superhero elements somehow mesh together under the assured direction of Daniel Espinosa working from the script by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless (and based on the Marvel character created by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane). The brief “origin” sequence has a haunting childhood melancholy like a nostalgic nightmare. And that’s the correct way to describe the last part of that origin as the tragic “transformation” turns the cargo ship (check out its familiar name) into a floating deathtrap. Since Morbius becomes a vampire via science and not a magical curse, the effects team has found some interesting ways to twist the horror trope. Morbius in attack mode seemingly bursts into a mass of flying bats or leaves a trail of them in his wake. His speed is slowed down for a few seconds to highlight his animal-like stance and stride. When he must feed his face morphs into the lean angular rodent visage (I thought of the vamps that Buffy dusted on TV). One nice touch is the appearance of ridges in his earlobes when he uses his sonar abilities. Later when he leaps across the city a color trail (the orange jumpsuit) barely catches up to him. Set against the glittering neon cityscape, the visuals are stunning, but it doesn’t quite make up for some of the script’s problems. Nikols is an underwritten enigma, we’re not quite certain of Milo’s true “interest’, and the romance of Morbius and Bancroft feels like a bit of plot motivation. I did enjoy this more than the Venom films, but then I’ve also preferred this character in Spidey’s “rogue’s gallery”, mixing the ferocity of Lee’s Dracula with the romantic sadness of Frid’s Barnabas. And no, he’s not got that dark blue with red highlights open chested suit of the comics, but it’s not really missed in the long run. It’s not at all close to the scope of the last Spider-Man opus but there’s quite a bit of bite in MORBIUS.

3 out of 4

MORBIUS is now playing in theatres everywhere