More BS

It’s Morbin’ Time (Spoilers)

Dr. Michael Morbius (Jared Leto) is a brilliant scientist with a rare blood disease. Alongside his college Martine Bancroft (Adria Arjona), Morbius is looking to find a cure for himself and his rich, surrogate brother Milo (Matt Smith). Eventually, Morbius starts experimenting with putting vampire bat DNA into a human, turning himself into a living vampire. A vampire that looks worse than the ones in  Fright Night (1985), The Lost Boys, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, From Dusk Till Dawn, and John Carpenter’s Vampires, all of which were made more than a decade ago.

Upon transforming, Morbius slaughters the group of mercenaries that had transported him and Martine to international waters to perform their morally questionable, illegal experiments. Upon being informed of this, Milo dismisses the deaths of the “thugs for hire” and says that he can make it go away. So, Milo later becomes a living vampire himself, one who’s unbothered by the bloodlust, so you’d think that would foreshadow his lack of empathy, but no one else in the movie gives a s**t either.

After FBI agents Simon Stroud (Tyrese Gibson) and Al Rodriguez (Al Madrigal) arrest Morbius, they tell him they’re not going to lose sleep over the mercenaries because they were probably guilty of something. The hardworking nurse and mother of twin girls they think Morbius (really Milo) killed? That one’s a big no-no. Um, excuse me, but those mercenaries probably had a family too. And while their leader might have been a sexist d**k, we don’t see the mercenaries doing anything overtly villainous either.

To me, the strangest scene in the movie is the part where Milo dances while getting dressed to the tune of “EKSE” by Off The Meds. Not for Smith’s meme-worthy dance moves, but that it’s this kind of funny, character-driven moment of Milo celebrating how sexy he is now. It doesn’t add anything to the story, unlike the rest of the movie, which feels like the bare minimum amount of footage required for the plot.

In the wake of Morbius bombing, Madrigal said that it wasn’t a bad movie. It’s just been over-edited. Morbius is certainly a film that you can tell has an hour missing from it. There are numerous parts where further clarity about what’s going on was clearly shaved off. Like how did Morbius capture all those bats after he set the trap? Another thing missing is the much-needed development of the characters’ relationships.

When they were kids, Milo and Lucien were in a hospital being treated under Dr. Emil Nicholas (Jared Harris), who became like a father to them. After they first meet, Morbius says he’s going to call Milo, whose real name is Lucien, Milo because he calls all of his roommates Milo. The implication is that Lucien isn’t going to be around long enough for them to get attached. Well, that’s a s****y thing to say to someone. How did they become friends? Simply because they’re “the few against the many,” as they like to call themselves?

Another relationship that needed more development was Nicholas’ relationship with his surrogate sons. At one point in the movie, Milo accuses him of always loving Morbius more and only took care of him because he felt sorry for Milo. The validity of that statement is impossible to determine because we see the three of them barely interact with one another.

However, even if 50% of the movie wasn’t missing, I sincerely doubt that Morbius still would have been any good. While some of the shots are good and Smith gives an okay supervillain performance, it still would have been a run-of-the-mill superhero movie that doesn’t take any risks, plays everything by the book, and is desperately trying to rush a team-up movie. I say give Morbius a pass unless you’re curious about where all those memes came from.