Morbius

Saturday is traditionally "Take Out the Trash" Day.

Bore-Me/Us

or

I Was a Vampire Jesus

Sheldon Cooper : I have a question about Batman. Batman is a man who dresses up like a bat. Manbat is a part man part bat hybrid. Now, if Manbat dressed up as a man to fight crime, would he be Manbatman;?
Leonard Hofstadter : No, he'd be Batmanbat.
Howard Wolowitz : But wouldn't Manbatman just be a batman that was bitten by a radioactive man?
Howard Wolowitz : But Batman is a man. You're talking about a man who would have the powers of a man. That's just Manman.
Sheldon Cooper : Well, isn't Manman just Man?
Leonard Hofstadter : Well, what if Manman dressed as a bat?
Raj Koothrappali : Well, that's just Batman.

Leonard Hofstadter : No, if a man dresses as a bat, that's Batman, but if Manman dresses as a bat that's Batmanman.

"The Big Bang Theory" "The Viewing Party Combustion" Season 9; Episode 21

Semantics. There have been so many super-hero movies now, that things are starting to blur a bit. Not just that you can't tell a hero from a villain these days, but the characters (despite ©/®™ considerations) are starting to all feel the same, variations on a theme. Even if something feels completely revolutionary in the comics, they get so watered down in the movies, they don't feel too different from everything else.

 

Not that Marvel's "scientific vampire" "Morbius" was all that revolutionary. When he first appeared in the first series of "Spider-man" comics (No. 101, Oct. 1971), he was the product of a seeming "market need." Marvel created him because they wanted to use "Dracula" (but didn't want to use "Dracula" so much as an original, marketable character)—the comics code authority had dropped their ban on vampires*, while, at the same time, vampires were "big" on the daytime "soap" "Dark Shadows." Writer Roy Thomas and artist Gil Kane created the character as a villain for Spider-man, and, after transmorgriphying into his own comics and as a compatriot/villain, for such Marvel properties as "Blade" and "Ghost Rider." The character has gone through the usual continuity confusions of "is he a hero or is he a villain" as well as some changes in appearance, powers, and ret-conned history. He's always been Dr. Michael Morbius, brilliant scientist, who in attempting to cure himself of a lethal blood disease, turned himself into a "living vampire" without the usual superstitious tropes, sort of like Spider-man, but only if you replace spiders with bats. Or DC's Man-bat, but with vampirism. Or compare him to Marvel's Jekyll/Hyde appropriation, The Hulk, with the emotional on-set trigger.

 

See what I mean about the lines getting blurred? (And we haven't talked about the movie yet!)

So, Columbia Pictures/Sony has been doing "Spider-man" movies for quite awhile. So much so that they have pretty much run through Spider-man's best villains. IGN has made a list of the best 25. #19 is Morbius. Pretty damn low on the list.**

 
Still, since Venom has his own series of movies, CP/S (in association with Marvel) has decided to make a series based on that Spidey character not at the top of anybody's mind, Morbius. Like Tom Hardy in the Venom films, they've cast great character actor Jared Leto in the title role.

Unlike the Venom series, they failed to make it entertaining.

Morbius starts with a prologue of how Dr. Michael Morbius (Leto) flies to Costa Rica to trap some vampire bats—with his blood as bait—so that he can do blood studies on their DNA to improve human blood, all of which is explained in the next sequence (they evidently did the Costa Rica side-bar first because all of its swooping helicopter shots provide a bit more action and brings in Leto faster), where young Milo is in a Greek hospital, being tended to by Dr. Emil Nicholas (Jared Harris) for his blood disorder, requiring "an oil change three times a day."
Prognoses are not good for his survival, as he is introduced to young Lucius who is rotated in replacing another patient who has passed. Young Michael calls him "Milo"—he's called all the kids in the next bed "Milo", which tells you exactly what he thinks the new kid's chances are. The two become conveniently fast friends, but Michael is transferred out when his repairing Milo's dialysis equipment inspires Nicholas to study the sciences. Good luck with the next guy's being able to repair your faulty equipment, kid.

Michael does become brilliant, winning the Nobel Prize for his work synthesizing artificial blood. He works for Horizon Labs, where he does his blood research; Lucien/"Milo" has become quite wealthy in his own right and the two have maintained their friendship. Michael tells "Milo" (now in the form of Matt Smith) that he may be on the brink of discovering a cure for their rare blood disease, but, the process can only be done off-shore as the procedure is undoubtedly illegal and Michael will be the initial test subject.

With the help of Dr. Martine Bancroft (Adria Arjona), Morbius CRISPR's particular bat-blood DNA with a sample of his own blood and has it injected into his spinal marrow. As he's the first test subject, he, of course, doesn't have any knowledge of the side-effects that one usually finds dominating 2/3 of pharmaceutical commercials. And, for sure, he's never seen one that informs "Some side effects include vampirism, blood-sucking, echolocation, fingernails for claws, and great pecs." But, that's what he gets, as well as a pronounced 'roid-rage every time his batty-sense is tingling. Or hungry (at one point, he even says—Hulkily—"I'm starting to get hungry. You don't want to see me when I'm hungry."

That's bad news for the anonymous mercenaries who are evidently guarding the boat—the "Murnau" (snicker)—all of whom get eviscerated with Morbius performing one-way blood-transfusions on them. Morbius, satiated, comes out of his vampire funk, and seeing the somewhat less than sterile conditions on the boat...and seeing Dr. Bancroft knocked unconscious (it's what pissed him off) calls in a "May-day" and jumps ship, the "Murnau" being lost.

Well, the FBI is called—in the forms of Al Madrigal and Tyrese Gibson—and before long, Morbius is on the run (or should that be "on the fly?") for the notorious "vampire murders" and Morbius has to contend with that, his dependence on his artificial blood mixture (which seems to have a lessening efficiency) and his ol' buddy "Milo" who's pissed off that Dr. Michael doesn't share and finds his own way to fang up and become a villain as that, seemingly, is his nature. One wonders why. Is it because he's rich, pampered—despite having a debilitating disease—or because we saw him get beat up that one time? Explanations are less than forthcoming, but, then, neither is the acting. Everyone seems to go through the motions of portraying "hero," "mentor," "rival," "love interest" but the script and the performances based on it feel devoid of anything beyond the rote requirements of the roles. There's just no inner life to any of them beyond going through the motions and hitting the marks.

One can say the same for the direction...except for one little sequence in a hospital corridor where—the conceit is—for energy-saving reasons, is lit only by lights triggered by motion-detectors. As someone walks along, the lights for the upcoming block comes on, the one behind turns off. Director Daniel Espinosa makes very good use of it, ramping up the suspense for the inevitable fake-out and jump-scare. 

 

One wishes the rest of the movie had as much bite.

* "Scenes dealing with, or instruments associated with walking dead, torture, vampires and vampirism, ghouls, cannibalism, and werewolfism are prohibited."

 

** The higher-ranked ones they haven't used are Kraven the Hunter, Hobgoblin, Spider-Slayer, Scorpion, Chameleon, Jackal, and Morlun. Except for Kraven, they all feel like you've seen them before...even though you haven't.