As the Marvel movies go, "Morbius" is more of a sip than a sip, a relatively short-winded Jekyll-and-Hyde story that sees another Spider-Man villain taking the spotlight. Significantly better than “Venom,” but still lacking somewhat of a bite, this origin story inevitably escalates more clearly toward the end, but until then it deserves to be given a shot. It turns out to be tasty enough.
After sitting on the shelf for 21 months since its originally scheduled release, the timing of the film's arrival only underscores the range of Jared Leto, from this living vampire to an enterprising vampire in the "Vacrashed "Entrepreneurial Vampire". to his scene-chewing vampire in "House Of". Gucci."
The core of the character, however, is a classic literary one, in which Dr. Michael Morbius is beset by a rare blood disorder, winning the Nobel Prize for the development of artificial blood before trying to loose his scientific genius on his own treatment. Won. Situation.
Working with another scientist, Martin (Adria Arjona), Morbius invents a serum that draws from the blood of vampire bats. But while the human trial gives him extraordinary vigor and vitality, it also instills an insatiable thirst for blood, one that his artificial creation only goes so far as in gratification.
"It's a curse," Morbius says calmly, but it doesn't look the same to his childhood friend Milo ("The Crown" Matt Smith), who suffers from the same affliction and craves the serum, Side. Effects are cursed.
Directed by Daniel Espinosa (whose credits include the sci-fi thriller "Life") from a screenplay by Matt Sazama and Burke Sharpless, "Morbius" has enough company in a world of tyrannical antagonists and villains whose well-intentioned scientific goals go horribly wrong. (Another Spider-Man foe, the Lizard, shares almost the same back story.)
While the modest scale actually works to the film's advantage, playing more like an old-fashioned monster movie than a superhero yarn, the plot is so simple and thin that the filmmakers try to prolong the narrative until its climactic battle. do labor.
The special effects similarly display those vampiric characteristics by alternating between slow motion and lightning speed, although the central scene may be the way Morbius transforms from a mortal guise into his vampire, which is known as the Mother- Fathers should be forewarned, which can lead to sleepless nights among young children. Children
The interesting question is how much traction something like "Morbius" will gain in theaters, following the commercial heroism of "Spider-Man: No Way Home" between the horror and action-packed blockbusters of the 1940s. While the end-credits sequence does a fair amount of business, this is one of those stories that would have benefited from being self-contained and less concerned about its place within Sony's larger cinematic universe.
In that context, "Morbius" clears the admittedly low bar for these single stories. But the material is too bloodthirsty, frankly, to consider its wings spreading far beyond that.