IR Film Review: MORBIUS [Sony]
The intention of a super hero versus a super villain comes down to motivation and the aspect of path. "Morbius" seems very aware of this and that is where the would-be balance would lie. The interesting element is trying to see what film each character is playing. Many different actors are almost in different films. Jared Leto always gives his all and this is fairly close to being a romantic lead and it works well within the construct of his character because despite everything that goes wrong with his character you can see the soul moving through it and it is not as benevolent as one would think seeing the trailers. The issue is that it is stuck between a character drama and a Marvel movie and not quite fully either. Unlike "Venom" which uses Tom Hardy's comedy chops to balance (but always seems to have inherent script problems), here the tone inherently more downtrodden but not necessarily darker (and again is beset by script problems in certain ways).
The set up in the beginning is location unknown and is supposed to lay the groundwork for the main character's life. It would seem NY (in the beginning instance( but it is not quite (which throws the story slightly off at the inset) but it shows the motivation of Michael Morbius in his intent. He is helped by his assistant/co-doctor Martine (Adria Arjona). It seems they work in a hospital for sick children and then they have their own lab which is too convenient. The super structure of this is a little flimsy to be sure but you go with it because again Leto is interesting to watch. One dialogue scene with Leto and Matt Smith in a crowd is cool and simple since it hasn't been done in a while. Once the film gets going and the rub comes out, it does revert in certain ways to old stereotypes (or rather archetypes and classic structure) that seems almost antiquated in an age of new Marvel superheroes. Maybe we have come to expect too much of all of our characters but we should.
Arjona as Martine understands and modulates to what Leto is doing per se but she is the only one. Smith is more in scene chewing mode which makes him less scary and more cartoonish and out of balance with Leto's more grounded and dramatic Morbius. Jared Harris is wasted as he is a much more nuanced actor (Moriarty in "Sherlock Holmes") but we see none of that depth here (again as a fault of the script). The cops (played by Al Madrigal and Tyrese Gibson) are in a completely other movie. Madrigal tries to instill some humor and it falls flat while Gibson is just monotone (not that there was a lot to work with but the delivery doesn't work either especially with any lack of facial expression).
The final nail in the coffin is the action and the mid and mid-mid credits sequence which don't really provide much excitement (except to play to the multiverse perspective). The action just becomes a blur that is really unnecessary. When it is first shown earlier in the film, it wants to be a vampire bullet time but it is completely overused. "Venom" in certain ways suffered from this as well but it understood (only at times though) is that the best effects were Hardy interacting with the creature on a smaller scale. "Morbius" for all its delays ends up being somewhat of a dud despite Leto, as always, doing his best to elevate. C
By Tim Wassberg
