The Morbius movie wants what Venom has

The Morbius movie wants what Venom has

It’s true: movies are magic. It’s just that people often forget that sometimes magic is bad. Morbius is the kind of magic you want to keep under control: a two-hour spell that makes viewers forget that it stars Jared Leto, one of the few living men in danger of being also interesting, thanks to his widely publicized over-engagement in the method game and a public persona who frequently evokes “benevolent cult leader” vibes. Unfortunately, Morbius is not a good showcase for its talents like its Sony/Marvel predecessor Venom was a showcase for Tom Hardy, even though the two films share a similar structure. And a movie that apes Venom without an unpredictable performance at center, it turns out to be a pretty lousy moment.
To like Venom, Morbius turns a Spider-Man villain into a story that makes him the anti-hero of his own little corner of the world. (The film, as a gag in the trailers points out, is set in the same universe as Venom.) Dr. Michael Morbius (Leto) is a brilliant scientist with a rare and debilitating blood disease, one that leaves him frail, unable to walk without support, and requires regular blood transfusions. Dr. Morbius, we are told, is one of the world’s greatest scientific minds, having developed blue-tinted artificial blood that has “saved more lives than penicillin”. Yet he still hasn’t found a cure for his illness – something he desperately wants, not for his own good, but for his childhood friend Milo (Matt Smith), who suffers from the same disease and funds Morbius’ research with his wealth.
In a desperate attempt to test his first viable cure, Morbius uses himself as a guinea pig for a serum intended to rewrite his genome and turn him into a human-vampire hybrid bat – an off-the-books and unethical experiment . (If it wasn’t, someone probably would have asked her to say “human/bat chimera” out loud and reconsider if the experiment was a good idea.) With help from her colleague and love interest, Dr. Martine Bancroft (Adria Arjona), Morbius “accidentally” transforms into a living vampire—essentially an ordinary vampire, but without the traditional church allergies.

Picture: Sony Pictures
Morbius is the kind of film where it would be very useful for viewers not to dwell on the details. Anyone wondering about the specifics of Morbius’ disease or superpowers better not try to parse the film’s thin explanations. This is a movie set in New York but very clearly shot in London, where the crew stuck a few subway signs on the wall of a subway station and called it a day. The film only really comes to life when Matt Smith’s Milo assumes his villainous role, learns what Morbius has become, and takes the serum himself.
New vampiric Milo relishes the powers that horrify Morbius, relishing the thrills of being superhuman and dismissing the qualms that cause Morbius to feed on artificial blue blood instead of real human blood. (The two of them repeatedly refer to this as drinking “red” or “blue,” which never ceases to be funny.) Herein lies the biggest problem for Morbius: The villain, who isn’t in the movie as much as he should be, is enjoying himself like Morbius should be enjoying himself. Milo dances and basks every moment he’s on camera, in a performance that’s only marred by the CGI makeover the two leads get when they shapeshift, a choice that doesn’t look much better than buffy the vampire slayerstyle prostheses.
Smith’s dynamism painfully underscores the lack of imagination and energy elsewhere in the film. Clearly shot, with a score (and a scene or two) that shamelessly apes batman begins, Morbius appears to be algorithmically calibrated to enter the blockbuster market as easily as possible. Its action is unimaginative, with exhausting slow pauses. His violence is muted and disenchanted, even though it’s, you know, vampires. Despite guidance from Daniel Espinosa, who previously made Surprisingly Scary in 2017 Life, Morbius does not convey any real atmosphere. If Instagram had a “blockbuster” filter, this movie would use it all the time.

Photo: Sony Pictures
One of the important lessons of Venomsuccess was that if unimaginative superhero franchise movies must be produced, they can still feel useful if fueled by smart and fun performances. Audiences show up for characters they love, but they also show up for characters played by peopleby actors who give them bizarre quirks and specific mannerisms. Morbius this is what happens when there is a studio desire for another Venombut without thinking too much about how Venom connected with anyone. He’s only there to connect with a burgeoning crossover franchise. (As a pair of nonsensical mid-credits scenes indicate.)
It’s as wild as Morbius manages to do all of this while starring Jared Leto. He’s the guy who made the Joker comically twisted, his hilarious and life-changing performance is the best part of Gucci Househe does extremely committed accent work in We crashed. He’s a man who should be able to make a meme out of Morbius. Instead, he’s a victim, sucked in by a big-budget movie that only wants to sell a sequel.
Morbius hits theaters on March 31.

#Morbius #movie #Venom

The Morbius movie wants what Venom has

It’s true: movies are magic. It’s just that people often forget that sometimes magic is bad. Morbius is the kind of magic you want to keep under control: a two-hour spell that makes viewers forget that it stars Jared Leto, one of the few living men in danger of being also interesting, thanks to his widely publicized over-engagement in the method game and a public persona who frequently evokes “benevolent cult leader” vibes. Unfortunately, Morbius is not a good showcase for its talents like its Sony/Marvel predecessor Venom was a showcase for Tom Hardy, even though the two films share a similar structure. And a movie that apes Venom without an unpredictable performance at center, it turns out to be a pretty lousy moment.
To like Venom, Morbius turns a Spider-Man villain into a story that makes him the anti-hero of his own little corner of the world. (The film, as a gag in the trailers points out, is set in the same universe as Venom.) Dr. Michael Morbius (Leto) is a brilliant scientist with a rare and debilitating blood disease, one that leaves him frail, unable to walk without support, and requires regular blood transfusions. Dr. Morbius, we are told, is one of the world’s greatest scientific minds, having developed blue-tinted artificial blood that has “saved more lives than penicillin”. Yet he still hasn’t found a cure for his illness – something he desperately wants, not for his own good, but for his childhood friend Milo (Matt Smith), who suffers from the same disease and funds Morbius’ research with his wealth.
In a desperate attempt to test his first viable cure, Morbius uses himself as a guinea pig for a serum intended to rewrite his genome and turn him into a human-vampire hybrid bat – an off-the-books and unethical experiment . (If it wasn’t, someone probably would have asked her to say “human/bat chimera” out loud and reconsider if the experiment was a good idea.) With help from her colleague and love interest, Dr. Martine Bancroft (Adria Arjona), Morbius “accidentally” transforms into a living vampire—essentially an ordinary vampire, but without the traditional church allergies.

Picture: Sony Pictures
Morbius is the kind of film where it would be very useful for viewers not to dwell on the details. Anyone wondering about the specifics of Morbius’ disease or superpowers better not try to parse the film’s thin explanations. This is a movie set in New York but very clearly shot in London, where the crew stuck a few subway signs on the wall of a subway station and called it a day. The film only really comes to life when Matt Smith’s Milo assumes his villainous role, learns what Morbius has become, and takes the serum himself.
New vampiric Milo relishes the powers that horrify Morbius, relishing the thrills of being superhuman and dismissing the qualms that cause Morbius to feed on artificial blue blood instead of real human blood. (The two of them repeatedly refer to this as drinking “red” or “blue,” which never ceases to be funny.) Herein lies the biggest problem for Morbius: The villain, who isn’t in the movie as much as he should be, is enjoying himself like Morbius should be enjoying himself. Milo dances and basks every moment he’s on camera, in a performance that’s only marred by the CGI makeover the two leads get when they shapeshift, a choice that doesn’t look much better than buffy the vampire slayerstyle prostheses.
Smith’s dynamism painfully underscores the lack of imagination and energy elsewhere in the film. Clearly shot, with a score (and a scene or two) that shamelessly apes batman begins, Morbius appears to be algorithmically calibrated to enter the blockbuster market as easily as possible. Its action is unimaginative, with exhausting slow pauses. His violence is muted and disenchanted, even though it’s, you know, vampires. Despite guidance from Daniel Espinosa, who previously made Surprisingly Scary in 2017 Life, Morbius does not convey any real atmosphere. If Instagram had a “blockbuster” filter, this movie would use it all the time.

Photo: Sony Pictures
One of the important lessons of Venomsuccess was that if unimaginative superhero franchise movies must be produced, they can still feel useful if fueled by smart and fun performances. Audiences show up for characters they love, but they also show up for characters played by peopleby actors who give them bizarre quirks and specific mannerisms. Morbius this is what happens when there is a studio desire for another Venombut without thinking too much about how Venom connected with anyone. He’s only there to connect with a burgeoning crossover franchise. (As a pair of nonsensical mid-credits scenes indicate.)
It’s as wild as Morbius manages to do all of this while starring Jared Leto. He’s the guy who made the Joker comically twisted, his hilarious and life-changing performance is the best part of Gucci Househe does extremely committed accent work in We crashed. He’s a man who should be able to make a meme out of Morbius. Instead, he’s a victim, sucked in by a big-budget movie that only wants to sell a sequel.
Morbius hits theaters on March 31.

#Morbius #movie #Venom