Meh.
Let’s get through this like the studio wants to get this over the movie. Dr. Michael Morbius (Jared Leto) is a brilliant doctor with an incurable blood disease, growing up in a melancholic facility with his blood (illness) brother Lucien (Matt Smith). Desperate to cure his affliction, Morbius splices his blood with all sorts of creatures, like bats. With the help of his fellow doctor Martina Bancroft (Adria Arjona), Michael thinks he cures himself of his illness. There are some side effects however: just a hint of vampirism.
It’s pretty clear that the Sony blood does not mix with storytelling blood, creating a film vampire: undead and sad. Let’s start with our leads: in a movie about Michael Morbius, it’s not great when Matt Smith gets all the best moments. Smith relishes his opportunity to shine here, giving us a fascinating counterpart to the more heroic/anal Dr. Morbius. Maybe Jared Leto thinks the “hero” is a character he is playing, but watching someone masquerade as a hero means he doesn’t really know how to be one. He’s pretty bland, maybe the biggest sin from an actor who goes for it everywhere. The special effects are similar to Nightcrawler from X-Men blood crossed with 300, where vampire Morbius teleports to and from meal to meal, then slow-mo attacking, right back to fast paced teleportin. The story in turn jumps around like Michael, from plot point to plot point to big fight to end credits nonsense, damn characters and world building. So by the end, I was just sitting there, hoping to feel something, only lucky enough to do so when Matt Smith or Al Madrigal give us brief moments of happiness, only to fall back into the vampire bat cave.
Sony wants SO bad to create their own superhero movie universe they’re falling into DC’s traps from the Justice League fiasco. In an effort to get into the game, they’re rushing through their movies, ignoring the characters and world in favor of the end game. I hope this was mostly a one-off cut & run scenario, but I’m not sure. I do know this, putting Jared Leto, Tom Hardy, and Michael Keaton into some sort of insane supervillain teamup will result in some director losing their mind from the egos on that set.