Review By Jon Donnis
Morbius is the latest superhero film from Marvel, and based on the character from the comic books.
Now before this movie I had never actually heard of Morbius so I am coming to this as a total noob with no expectations or knowledge on the character at all.
Morbius is the third film in the Sony Spider-Man Universe (SSU), which basically means you will eventually get cross over of characters from various films with the Spider-man films being the centre point that connects everything else. With that said there is no Spider-man in this film before you get too excited, and other than the end credits scene, this does play as a stand-alone film, which is perfect for me.
Directed by Daniel Espinosa and written by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless, it stars Jared Leto as Dr. Michael Morbius, alongside Matt Smith, Adria Arjona, Jared Harris, Al Madrigal, and Tyrese Gibson.
The film starts off with Morbius landing in Costa Rica and going to a cave full of Vampire Bats, before you know it the story quickly shifts back to a children's hospital in Greece, a young 10-year-old boy called Michael Morbius meets a young boy called Lucien, he gives him the name Milo, (which means apple in Greek) they share a blood illness which instantly bonds them, as well as a wish to be healthy.
Hospital director Dr. Emil Nicholas (Jared Harris) arranges for Michael Morbius to attend medical school in New York after realising he is a gifted child, Dr. Emil Nicholas tells Morbius that he will focus on caring for Milo.
Fast forward 25 ears and Mobius is now a scientist who has been working on synthetic blood, Martine Bancroft (Adria Arjona) a colleague of Morbius finds out that he has been secretly capturing vampire bats from Costa Rica (hence the opening scene in the film), and has been trying to find a way to splice the bats DNA with his own as a way to cure his blood condition, which has left him struggling to walk and living in bad health.
Morbius gets private funding to continue his experiments, although they are illegal so he outfits a private ship, and journeys to international water.
He manages to create a cure for his condition, but in doing so it turns himself into a living vampire. He kills the ship's crew and drains them of their blood, when his bloodlust subsides and he regains control, he is horrified at what he has done. Back in New York he realises he can use the synthetic blood to feed his blood lust, he conducts more experiments on himself and develops his newly found powers.
A returning Milo (Matt Smith) steals the cure, becomes a vampire himself, but decides to take a darker route, and thus we have our hero and our villain, and the film is set up nicely.
I enjoyed Morbius, as an origin story it is well told, it gets to the point pretty quickly, without losing any of the explanation of the characters. It acts as a stand alone film, so even if you have never seen a Marvel film before, you can still watch and enjoy this, so this film will appeal to not only Marvel fans but also to fans of Vampire films.
It is not overly gory, but does carry a 15 certificate which I thought was fair.
The Good
Very well told origin story that doesn't mess about, and gets to the action quick. Great visual effects, convincing transformations, and a decent set up for a sequel or future films featuring our main character.
The Bad
I was slightly confused by the end credits scene, which I won't spoil. At first I thought it was someone else, but then realised that that was DC and this is Marvel.
My other complaint is that the two boys were from Greece, yet there was no real "Greekness" to the film, as children they had posh English accents, even the Doctor was English. It almost seemed pointless to have the story of these characters begin in Greece, and then not do anything with that.
Overall
One of the better Marvel films of recent times, I really enjoyed it, and was nice to see a Vampire film set within the Marvel/Sony Universe.
I score Morbius a solid 9/10
Morbius is in UK Cinemas now, and you can pre-order it at https://amzn.to/37O8Q0S
