The Cine Geek

After 2 years of non stop delays, and an entire Spider-Man movie being made, released and having finished its box office run. Sony’s other Spider-Verse film Morbius has finally been released in theaters. The film’s first trailer came out more than 2 years ago in January of 2020. If I were a Sony executive, I would’ve done the same to bury this movie as much as possible, a true bore of a film, with terribly written characters and a nonsensical plot.

The movie is a Comic Book movie straight out of the 90s, combined with a vampire flick. It accomplishes what even most vampire movies could not, by providing really no source of enjoyment. My main issue with the movie was that it took it self way too seriously, to the point where dialogue and writing feel unnatural. The movie sets up a lot of threads in it’s first 30 minutes and ends up delivering on none of them, leaving you asking why certain characters and elements were even introduced. Throughout the character choices are inconsistent, where you don’t feel that the choices the characters end up making is at all true to what the film set up in the first half. It also makes it apparent why Sony tried to sell the movie on Spider-Man references instead of the actual content.

Cine Geek Meter rating

I can also say however that the film is not as bad as it’s rotten tomatoes score suggests, especially with the quality of Sony’s previous entry in their Spiderman universe Marvel film with Venom Let There be Carnage. At least Morbius can be called a film, the structure is all there. I also quite liked the visual design of his powers, which the movie undercut itself on by overusing it and with wonky CGI in it’s latter half. Matt Smith’s character really carries this movie providing some emotional depth and comedy to the movie, however, the way that the movie decides to go with his character at the end is totally inconsistent with what we previously know about the character.

Not much makes sense, the plot itself leaves you asking why? throughout the 104 minute run time of the film. Neither the director Daniel Espinoza nor Jared Leto seem decided on the tone of the movie, with it taking itself too seriously throughout and odd jokes sprinkled along, taking you out of the experience.

Post Credit Scenes

No review for this movie is complete without mentioning how stupid and non sensical the post credit scenes of the movie are. *SPOILER WARNING* The first post credit scene starts off with Doctor Strange’s spell bringing in Michael Keaton’s Vulture into Morbius’ Universe, clearly contradicting the Multiversal logic established by Marvel in Spider-Man: No Way Home. And it gets worse as Michael Keaton’s first line after being transported into a different universe is about the food in this joint. The writing in the film is extremely laughable but the writing in the post credit scenes is just plain hilarious. The second post credit scene also makes zero sense since Morbius is developed as a hero in the movie but is now willing to team up with a bunch of other villains. You would think that Sony would’ve learned from the post credit scenes for The Amazing Spider-Man 2, trying to unnaturally setup a sinister six. The scene also destroys the Vulture character, who was an amazing villain in Spider-Man: Homecoming, being a family man and not someone who is a villain for the sake of just being a villain. But here instead of trying to find a way back, now he’s assembling the sinister six to fight Spider-Man. The dialogue like the rest of the movie is yet again horrible. These post credit scenes give me the feeling that Sony made a movie pre No Way Home without consulting Marvel Studios on how the multiverse logic would work. Where the previous version of the film would’ve had Vulture somehow arriving into the Venom Universe. So when Marvel President Kevin Fiege finally heard about this, they were made to edit Vulture’s scenes in the movie out and film post credit scenes which would partly fit in with the logic establish in No Way Home, failing to even do that.

Closing Thoughts

Morbius had the potential of being a good film at least, however stupid creative decisions, an uncertain tone and mood, and horrendous dialogue prevent it from being even watchable. The movie also shows that Sony have not yet decided the direction for their universe of movies. This is a movie which would leave Marvel Studios scrambling to have the Marvel logo removed from the start of the film. The unethical marketing approach of the movie also adds to the sour taste left by the film.

We encourage you to still go and watch the film in theaters to form your own opinion. Morbius is Exclusively in Theaters right now.