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.

The Notorious Bettie Page

Saturday is traditionally "Take Out the Trash" Day. And although the film isn't trashy, the world it describes is...was...

This was originally written before Bettie Page's death in 2008.

The Notorious Bettie Page (Mary Harron, 2006) If Marilyn Monroe was the blonde goddess of sex in the 1950's, Bettie Page was her player on the other side. Marilyn was blonde, Bettie, brunette. Where Marilyn had success in Hollywood, Bettie never got beyond stag reels. Where Marilyn's sexuality was paired with a psychic pain, Bettie's was exuberant. Marilyn had booze and pills for sanctuary. Bettie had Jesus. Marilyn died fairly young. Bettie's still alive and kicking*** and getting royalties from the continuing interest in her, thanks to devotees such as artist Dave Stevens, who used her as the model for the girlfriend of "The Rocketeer." 

Both Marilyn and Bettie appeared as centerfolds within the first year of the publication of Playboy Magazine. And this has to be said--Marilyn had talent. Bettie...wasn't much of a dancer. Marilyn was the epitome of sex in Tinseltown, while Bettie worked in the squalid back-rooms of seamy pornographers, and panting "photo clubs."

Bettie's story mirrors Marilyn's: Pretty girl, growing up dirt-poor and abused, an early marriage that doesn't work out, and heading to the Big City to get into acting. There they diverge: Marilyn to fame and early death; Bettie to obscurity, long life and delayed fame. Bettie quit modeling in the 50's after she was hauled to DC to testify in Estes Kefauver's pornography hearings (she was never called in to the hearing room), and so both Marilyn and Bettie are frozen, existing in images of their prime.

Does the film by Mary Harron (who made American Psycho) explain Bettie Page and her circumstances and times? Not at all. The facts are laid out rather bare, stopping precisely at the hearings that ended Bettie's modeling days and goes no further. The closest it comes is her repeated defense for her nude modeling: "Well, I figure Adam and Eve were naked in the Garden of Eden..." Point taken, but it doesn't explain the spike heels, whips, spanking and ball-gags (The real Bettie always dismissed her bondage photos as being "silly" and paying the bills). Considering that most people only know her through her looks, Gretchen Mol does an amazing impersonation, right down to a clumsy dance in the end credits, that has just the right touch of amateur clunkiness. In fact, it's downright eerie. Still, it's nice to see this story have a happy ending. 

I think Bettie would be pleased to know that the copy I watched was from the Public Library. If that's not vindication, I don't know what is.

*** Bettie has been publicly reluctant to be photographed, preferring that people remember how she looked "in her prime." Still, an Image search for "Bettie Page" will reveal rare recent photos of her, and she looks GREAT! The woman's over 80!

Update: The "notorious" Bettie Page died December 11, 2008

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Written at the time of the film's release...

Bullet-Time
or
"Forewarned is Fore-armed (and Don't Call Me 'Shirley')"

"'Well, well,' said he, at last. 'It seems a pity, but I have done what I could. I know every move of your game. You can do nothing before Monday. It has been a duel between you and me, Mr. Holmes. You hope to place me in the dock. I tell you that I will never stand in the dock. You hope to beat me. I tell you that you will never beat me. If you are clever enough to bring destruction upon me, rest assured that I shall do as much to you.'

"'You have paid me several compliments, Mr. Moriarty,' said I. 'Let me pay you one in return when I say that if I were assured of the former eventuality I would, in the interests of the public, cheerfully accept the latter.'

"The Final Problem" Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is the inevitable (and one should say quick-on-its-heels) follow-up to Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes, and as an adaptation of Conan Doyle's "The Final Problem," It has as much source-relationship as the later Bond films have to Fleming—the bare-bones structure is there, but it's pumped, plumped, and trumped-up to fulfill the needs of action, humor and modern audience identification.

Really, "The Final Problem" is enough, we don't need the world-conquering machinations of Professor Moriarty (The Napoleon of Crime, the Scourge of London, and Holmes' best match) to make him a worthy adversary. He merely needs to be omnipresent by means of his web of chicanery, rather than an omniscient history-maker. In fact, Conan Doyle's Moriarty would rather his bad work went undetected, as opposed to this movie's version producing a shattering World War. Here, in the words of Robert Downey Jr.'s Holmes, the plot is "so overt, it's covert," involving twins who aren't twins, TB, the Romany, anarchists, darts for various purposes, intricate explosive devices and not-so-intricate shell-firing ones, countries that can't be named ("although they speak French and German"), and the prospect of "war on an industrial scale."

20/20 hindsight always looks like genius when set in the past.

Actually, it's pretty clever how the doom-laden inevitability of "The Final Problem" is translated into the fore-shadowing of the war-torn 20th Century (the screen-writers are the wife-husband team Michele Mulroney and Kieran Mulroney*), and its focus on large artillery and semi-automatic "machine-pistols" has a nice hard edge as opposed to the original film's emphasis on the psuedo-occult. 

But, director Ritchie seems to have lost of his edge somewhat, as the fight-sequences (and there are many) are nicely fore-shadowed with flash-cut Holmsian cognitive pre-functioning, but when the fisticuffs and baritsu moves start flying, the action is hard to follow, even when the action is slowed to a crawl—there is far too much ramp-editing and Matrix-y "bullet-time" FX in the film for no good purpose other than to slow down the practical and digital effects and give us the illusion of "wow, that was close." (Thanks, we assume that fire-fights and shellings are dangerous things). However fast the editor can manipulate images, one still gets the impression of the film being a bit too "fussy" for its own good, delaying information or simply obfuscating it for a later time, giving one the impression that one is seeing a lot of the movie twice. Efficient, it ain't, even if the titular character is supposed to be the height of it.

Also, although the first of Downey's adventurings could be seen as being a nicely nuanced (if scruffy) interpretation of The Great Detective, here the character is allowed to go a little more broad, dressing in comedic drag ("I admit, it's not my best disguise") and another, which is actually taken from The Pink Panther series (mind you, Steve Martin's "Pink Panther" series), the comedy is played up and not necessarily in character, and Holmes is seen to be practically infallible—even his getting seriously hurt is all part of his plan.

Downey, Jr. is great at playing this, even if it's a more absurd version of Holmes, and Jude Law again plays Dr. Watson (now with a severe limp and who is only now about to be married to Mary Morston, again played by Kelly Reilly) and it's one of Law's best performances, quick as Downey and capable of the slowest of "burns." Law's role is expanded somewhat and he makes the most of it. The two are joined (briefly) by Rachel McAdams, reprising her role as "the woman" Irene Adler, but is soon replaced by Noomi Rapace's gypsy princess Simza. Aiding and abetting is Stephen Fry, as Holmes' smarter, drier brother Mycroft (it might actually be considered type-casting), with Jared Harris as the coolest of Moriarty's (Brad Pitt was initially considered for the role), as well as being one of the youngest.

As fun as it is, one can't help but look at it as a step down—the filmmakers are getting further afield of the Holmes characterization, and it's only a matter of time before the Downey, Jr. version is locked into buffoonery and slapstick, and it comes perilously close to teetering off the edge here. As it is, this plot is more reminiscent of the Basil Rathbone films set during WWII—entertaining if anachronistic fluff.

Paget's Strand Magazine illustration of the first of two Holmes-Moriarty encounters.

* Kieran is the brother of Dermot Mulroney, husband of Michele, and you may best remember him from "Seinfeld" as the fellow who gets bent out of shape at a funeral reception when he see George Costanza double-dipping a chip.