Morbius (2022)
I have been a fan of the Morbius comics and when I saw that they were finally giving it the screen time it needed I was really excited. I was more then a little unsure about them casting Jared Leto as Morbius. I have liked him in some of his past work, but at the same time he has done a few things that I do not approve of. One of these is when he sent a dog head to Viola Davis while filming the Suicide Squad.[i] I can only hope that he got the head from a kill shelter or a specimen shop. Besides that, to me most of the other cast didn’t really stand out from the preview, but I was ready to see how they would bring the comic to life.
The movie opens and we meet two young boys. Both have a serious illness that is slowly killing them and it impacts their mobility. The movie focuses on these two characters when they get older. One of the boys is a genius, Morbius, and he is given the chance to go to the best schools and become a doctor. The other boy Morbius stays close friends with, but he basically turns into a bit of a rich gangster. I won’t give too much detail to keep from doing spoilers, but Morbius ends up turning himself into a vampire and his friend gets jealous. From there you end up with a good and a bad vampire that have to battle it out.
The first thing about this movie is that you can really be drawn into the stories of the two characters. I really found myself feeling their desperation to find a cure and them both wanting to just be able to live a healthy life. If you have ever had a serious medical condition or had your mobility impacted, I think this would have a stronger impact on you (or if you had to watch friends and family with these issues). The movie does show them being bullied by able bodied kids and the lasting impact that this bullying has on Morbius’ friend can be seen in that he grows up to be a bully. Doing my research on this movie I actually found Leishman’s article where she talks about the method acting that Jared used to help him develop the character of Morbius. He actually used crutches or was pushed around in a wheelchair to help him keep in character.[ii] Sometimes I think method acting goes too far, but at the same time I think it also may have a chance to help impact the overall life of an actor. By doing this it helped Jared to see life from another’s perception. Most people will not know major health issues until they get near the end of their life and because of this they take many things for granted. I hope that after this experience that Jared Leto is a larger supporter of access for all and the issues around ADA.
I know some were probably excited to see Matt Smith, best known for his work on Dr. Who, who played Morbius' friend grown up. I’ve never really been able to get into the Dr. Who fandom, but I know that it is loved by many. I think that Matt did a good job playing the bad guy and showing the hunger for wanting to live. Tyrese Gibson was also in the movie as a cop. His character kept bugging me because I kept wanting to yell at the screen, look for video evidence. There were several ‘crime scenes’ (like in the subway) where you know there should have been video cameras, but it took forever to get to a crime scene that had video. That aspect of the movie just seemed so unreal because in our modern world there are cameras everywhere. One of the other characters that stood out was the farther figure in the lives of the main characters played by Jared Harris. The only thing where I can say for sure that I had seen him before was in the movie The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. This was mostly a male film, but there was one female character, which of course was Morbius’ love interest, played by Adria Arjona. I think she did well with her part and I liked how they made her character able to stand up for herself and make people know that she is also a doctor.
The CGI in this movie was really impressive, but some of it didn’t make sense. I know that when things got wobbly they were trying to convey his abilities, but it just didn’t make clear sense and they never really explained it. Like when he flies things would get wobbly, but what does that have to do with flying. I think that they could have dug deeper into his abilities. Also, the very look of Morbius as a vampire was basically spot on.
After seeing the movie, I really do not understand why there were so many bad reviews of it. I would say it’s in the middle ground for comic book movies and there have been a lot of worse Marvel movies then this. I do get that the end scenes were really pathetic, but I know that they were just trying to set up things for more movies, but they just missed the mark in getting people excited.
Overall I would
give the movie 4 stars out of 5 or a B+.
Some comic images of Morbius:
Works Cited
Leishman, Rachel. “Mads
Mikkelsen, Will Poulter Speak Out Against ‘Method Acting’ Excuses for
Inappropriate Behavior,” The Mary Sue, 4/13/2022. https://www.themarysue.com/mads-mikkelsen-will-poulter-method-acting/
Article Pictures:
Morbius Comic Images:
Picture 1 From: https://www.amazon.com/Morbius-Preludes-Nightmares-Marvel-Comics/dp/130292592X
Picture 2 From: https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Michael_Morbius_(Earth-2149)
Picture 3 From: https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Living_Vampires
 |
| The Movie Tavern had plastic cups you could keep as a promotion for the movie. |
 |
| This was a poster that the Movie Tavern was giving away for free if you bought a ticket to the movie. |
Comments
Post a Comment