Stench of moribund Marvel release sure to please dumpster diving cinephiles

Morbius is an hour and forty-five minutes of wretched CGI, inexplicable slow-motion, nonsensical dialogue, a plot held together by fishing line and some of the most confusing set pieces in recent memory. So much potential, and yet nothing to say and no poignant message to send, leaning instead on a seemingly scraped together at the last minute post-credits scene that serves only to cash in on the Marvel multiverse in a way that not even casual viewers can make sense of, let alone die-hard fans. Its characters are soulless, some quite literally, with the barest sprinkling of characterization added to make them likable, and any romance - if romance one could call it -  is forced beyond belief.

It was, in short, incredibly enjoyable to watch.

This movie is not recommendable, not even for the extremely committed Marvel fan dedicated to seeing every movie opening weekend. Honestly, it’s a shock that Morbius managed  to make any money at all. It has almost no redeeming qualities whatsoever. However, for someone who loves bad movies, it's the most entertaining flick of the year. This movie is so bad that it flipped over on its stomach, died, came back to life, and became great, much like Doctor Morbius himself, played by, of all the actors, Jared Leto, who some may remember from his last disastrous comic book movie appearance in 2016’s Suicide Squad as the Joker.

He wasn’t all that bad in the role, all things considered, although there is much to be desired from the writer’s department, as dialogue either feels incredibly forced or trying much too hard to be quippy and “relatable”.

The pacing  is downright abysmal and very few things in the movie’s sequence of events make much sense at all. The comic relief characters are two government agents sent to investigate Morbius’s apparent murders; they manage to quip their way between scenes and then are promptly forgotten by the end of the movie with no meaningful impact on the plot or characters. But for those who actually dare to warm themselves by this dumpster fire, these bumbling fools provide a glimmer of hope in a bleak world. The villain, a cartoonishly evil British vampire,  would honestly make for some entertaining nefariousness if the hero weren’t just a carbon copy of him, sans accent and with an additional mop of long greasy hair that just feels repulsive to watch move on screen.

That’s one trope Sony Marvel movies (of which this is the latest sad and incapable incarnation) alway seem to dodge- the hero’s miraculous glow-up right before the final battle. Morbius continues to look like a sickly little emo boy even after he gets a six pack as a product of injecting himself with vampire bat DNA, and has no glorious scene where he suits up in a bat-themed hero uniform for the first time (although that may have caused a few copyright issues, to be fair). And honestly, he looks better for it. It’s not like this movie needs more reasons to be taken even less seriously.

Truthfully, if in the mood for a terrible vampire movie, skip Morbius and just watch Twilight instead- at least the romance makes sense in that one.

Grade: D+

By Bailey Staerkel

Oshkosh West Index Volume 118 Issue 7

April 25th, 2022


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