With a routine plot and an unexciting script MORBIUS is a weak fare.

Morbius (English) Review {2.0/5} & Review Rating

MORBIUS is the story of a genius doctor trying to cure himself. Michael Morbius (Jared Leto) is a celebrated doctor who has invented ‘artificial blood’, which has saved millions of lives worldwide. He is handicapped since birth and is trying to find a cure for it. His research leads him to conclude that mixing the DNA of bats will be the cure that he’s looking for. He manages to trap several bats in Costa Rica and secretly brings them to his lab in New York. He begins an experiment on a rat and it produces encouraging results. Morbius then along with his colleague, Dr Martine Bancroft (Adria Arjona), goes to the international waters in a ship. There, Martine injects himself with bat serum. Morbius gets cured of his handicap but also injects himself with a form of vampirism instead. In a fit of uncontrolled rage, he ends up killing the ship’s crew. Morbius destroys the CCTV footage and escapes. Meanwhile, Lucian aka Milo (Matt Smith) is a close childhood friend of Morbius and is also handicap. Morbius had assured him that he’ll cure Milo as well. After the episode on the ship, Morbius decides to not use it on Milo. However, Milo is dying to be ‘normal’ and hence, secretly injects himself with the serum, leading to madness. What happens next forms the rest of the film.

Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless’ story is okay. Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless’ screenplay is weak. The film is filled with ordinary and beaten to death moments that we have already seen in the previous Marvel and other sci-fi films. The dialogues are nothing special.

Daniel Espinosa’s direction fails to save the film. With such a routine storyline, it becomes crucial for the execution to be a class apart. Nothing of that sort happens here. Moreover, the way the character is connected to the Spider-Man universe looks forced. On the positive side, a few scenes are well executed, like Morbius being injected with the bat serum, the fight between Morbius and Milo in the subway station and the kiss between Morbius and Martine in the climax.

Jared Leto is in a good form. Matt Smith is over the top. Adria Arjona leaves a huge mark. The same goes for Charlie Shotwell (Young Michael) and Joseph Esson (Young Milo). Jared Harris (Nicholas) is decent in a cameo. Tyrese Gibson (Simon Stroud) is known for his comic timing but in MORBIUS, his character is lacklustre. Al Madrigal (Alberto Rodriguez) is wasted. Michael Keaton (Adrian Toomes)’s cameo fails to generate excitement.

Jon Ekstrand’s music is cinematic. Oliver Wood’s cinematography is quite nice and keeps the interest going. Stefania Cella’s production design is very rich. Cindy Evans’ costumes are appealing. VFX, as expected, is out of the world. Action is minimal and this also goes against the film as one expects a lot of fight scenes in such films. Pietro Scalia’s editing is passable.

On the whole, MORBIUS emerges as the weakest Marvel film due to the routine plot and unexciting script. At the box office, it will find it tough to survive due to the limited buzz and negative word of mouth.