Morbius: Neon NZ Review

Much-delayed by the pandemic and finally released without much fanfare except derision, Jared Leto's outing as Marvel's Dr Michael Morbius marks somewhat of a new low for the Sony association with the MCU.

Leto is Michael Morbius, a brilliant biochemist who is suffering from a rare blood disease, that's slowly destroying his body and has marked his time in the world.

When Morbius catches a herd of vampire bats, he begins splicing the genes together, in a dangerous and illegal experiment that only gets worse when he injects it into his own veins.

Initially emboldened by the transfer Morbius soon struggles with the darker side of the power given to him, which forces a craving for human blood and a need for killing to survive.

Things are further complicated when long-term friend Milo (Doctor Who's Matt Smith, who hams it up at times), suffering from the same affliction, decides to steal the blood treatment which sets him on a collision course with Morbius.

Muddled, dark and messy, Morbius is a vampire tale which sucks the life out of an origin story without much work.

A lack of any real clarity of execution and depth of character really robs the film of the intimate level it's going for - especially as the film is essentially centred in the face-off between Smith's Milo and Leto's Morbius.

But the absence of any emotional heft and the use of only cursory amounts of backstory and expositional flashbacks doesn't help build anything resembling character for Leto's man-bun wearing, junkie Messiah posing Morbius, a character so bland that it's hard to care when he turns or faces inner turmoil.

Uses of misty blur FX for running, eyes glazing over for Morbius to channel the bat-sensors like listening or radar and morphing facials don't work nearly as well as they should thanks to Espinosa's desire to soak the whole thing in darkness.

Throw in a series of mid-credits scene that scream shameless tie-in to the wider world, and you've got the main reasons why Morbius fails - this tale should focus on the moral dilemma and the potential conflict of all concerned.

What it manages solely to do is simply convey a feeling of utter anaemia from beginning to end. Despite what you may hope for, this tale of vampirism was exsanguinated at birth.