Morbius

Solid 6. Will be better if they make Rated R but not bad, leto was good.

6/10 - I don't know what all the fuss is about with this one when the quality matches that of either Venom movie and while I didn't love the visual design of the vampires, I thought the cinematography, VFX, sound design, and Adria Arjona (who is now on my "Actors to Watch" list) really elevated the relatively weak story.

Entertaining and very atmospheric, Morbius manages to serve up yet another helping of campy superhero indulgence despite many little flaws. I'll start off with the problems I had with this film- that mainly being its blatant editing and CGI. I know many people say this about a lot of superhero films, but coming from a horror lovers perspective- as well as fitting the atmospheric and tone Life director Daniel Espinosa seemed to pair within it- this movie really should have been rated R. It feels like Sony really did censor and edit this one as much as they could have, with the blood and violence being as limited as possible. It takes away from the experience as a whole, one moment in particular where a man acts like his throat is cut open but there is LITERALLY NOTHING THERE. Unsurprisingly, as with the case with a lot of films like this, the CGI can be a bit overused at times. For the most part I liked the look of vampire blood hungry Morbius taken on by Jared Leto- but other similar CGI and at times that CGI itself can feel a bit too ugly and forced for comfort. The fight scenes towards the end in particular are also overdone with CGI, and I just really wish Sony would have let the people working on this film give some life to the project instead of worrying about its box office gross. I know i've complained a lot so far, but in terms of a film- I oddly did enjoy this one for the most part. Sure it's messy, Matt Smith's character is a bit over the top and it has some formulaic moments- but it is a very entertaining film. Leto and Arjona give their all to their performances and it has a lot of cool ideas and concepts that are interesting to see fleshed out on screen- particularly with Morbius in particular as he begins to learn how to control himself. There's a lot of humanity hidden beneath the surface in this film though, even with some formulaic moments, there's a lot of depth and heart put into the titular character and it really allows you to empathize both with the film's story as well as Leto on screen. In the end, I enjoyed Morbius- it is far from perfect but it was a solid superhero endeavor and I'm curious to see what they may do with this character next.

My Rating: 6.3/10.

From all the bad press and reviews I suspect that people were looking for more then it intended to be. Seeing it for free on Netflix might have dampened the pain. This is not an MCU movie. It's trying to be one in the Underworld flair. Maybe too much Underworld. One of the problems is that Jared Leto cannot carry a movie. He needs a stronger lead to work off of. When he has that he's more than enough. The subtlety of the effects works for me. The bad guy Milo was a little too one dimensional and flat. Predictable. Weak writing in that regard. Not enough character development. I can see Morbius working in an ensemble MCU cast. Hopefully he will be given that chance.

I expected Howard the duck such was the hate for this movie. Instead I got a short, dark sometimes quite violent slice of entertainment. Not the usual overcomplicated. Overlong marvel stuff that all end up being the same. Matt Smith and Jared Leno gave excellent performances and the special effects for a medium budget movie were very different but still very good. It's a simple origins story and to me I think Jared Leno may be the cause of bad reviews..maybe because he wasn't the Joker of choice and that's a problem for some people. But reviews suggesting this is some kind of disaster turkey are absolutely wrong.