The world is moving forward, but the film industry has been treading water for the second year, often releasing filler movies instead of blockbusters. Last year, Marvel Studios barely scraped by with the unsuccessful “Eternals” and “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.” This year, Sony is casting its line with “Morbius,” an equally unnecessary film where everything is mediocre, and the clichés are taken straight from superhero movies of the 2000s. The plot of “Morbius,” to put it mildly, resembles Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man 3” and Marc Webb’s forgotten “The Amazing Spider-Man” with the Lizard storyline: scientist Michael Morbius (Jared Leto) suffers from a rare disease and invents a “cure” for his ailment. Morbius decides to mix bat and human DNA, turning himself into a vampire. With a wave of a magic wand and a medical syringe, the plasma of the two creatures mixes and works wonders—Morbius is cured, his body bulges with muscles, but he develops a thirst for blood. His equally sick and insecure brother, Milo (Matt Smith), uses the essence thoughtlessly, even though Uncle Ben told Peter Parker 20 years ago that with great power comes great responsibility.
Jared Leto as Morbius in a still from the film “Morbius”
Genetically, “Morbius” is part of a global trend where villains are rehabilitated in some stories, and absent altogether in others. In our case, the villain is presented as a good guy, saving the world from his own invention. The trend of abandoning villains is due to the fact that their image is always associated with some social or ethnic group that might later take offense. Therefore, the bosses of Hollywood decided that it is better to do without antagonists or to present white privileged cisgender men and women as them.
Internal Conflicts and Missed Opportunities
Matt Smith in a still from the film “Morbius”
This has complicated the task for screenwriters, as the heroes must now have internal conflicts, and the psychology of the characters needs to be developed. Dr. Morbius struggles with himself and his envious brother because he does not want to harm the world: the idea is eternal, but it has been reworked by superhero movies for a long time. Also, the conflict between the brothers is so petty, and so little time is devoted to their relationship and past, that the pathos of the action lies at the level of a family quarrel, where the younger brother envies the older one.
Jared Leto as Morbius in a still from the film “Morbius”
Lack of Bite: Missed Horror and Social Commentary
It would seem that a film about vampires should be bloody and violent, but no, it has a PG-13 rating. Sony and Marvel only allow themselves one deep cut in a medium shot, and in all other cases, they hide any violence, although the authors use elements of horror (for example, a corridor with flashing lights). They could have shown sharp fangs piercing bodies and draining them, but the pacifist vampire Morbius drinks artificial blood invented a few years ago, and his brother Milo prefers to kill off-screen or drag victims into the bushes.
“Morbius” could have had original content, but instead, it’s just clichés. The “damsel in distress” trope is there; a cheap parody of Hans Zimmer is present; stupid and unnecessary police are also in the ranks. Not only is the opportunity to create horror lost, but also the attempt at any social commentary. The brothers are English rich men, so their becoming vampires could have been an allusion to capitalist society, where the elites profit from the lower class. This is also absent, as are discussions about the dangers of scientific knowledge and experiments on humans. A love line could have been developed, where Michael worries about his girlfriend and colleague Martine (Adria Arjona), but the film has too much competition in this field—the “Twilight” franchise (2008–2012). Therefore, “Morbius” turned out to be a picture without landmarks, without any significant reason for existence, released because of Sony and Marvel’s desire to suck money out of fans. Only if Morbius turned into a predator, the project of the same name degenerated into a parasite.