Surprise! Jared Leto’s ‘Morbius’ Isn’t the Epic Disaster We Expected
Debuting nearly two years after its originally scheduled release date, Morbius is the beneficiary of fortuitous timing, opening as it is in the wake of Sony’s sky-high superhero successes Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Spider-Man: No Way Home. Alas, at least some of the goodwill generated by those Marvel efforts is squandered by Daniel Espinosa’s origin story for vampiric Michael Morbius, another Spider-Man adversary who’s been reconfigured into a cursed antihero. Designed to expand the studio’s web-slinging cinematic universe, this generic monster mash adheres to such a rote formula that its every move feels lethargically mechanical. Jared Leto’s bat-man isn’t the Dark Knight, and his film definitely isn’t The Batman—although neither is it the debacle suggested by its underwhelming promos.
If one thing remains true about Oscar-winner Leto, it’s that he’s rarely a safe or boring screen presence. Nonetheless, Morbius finds him eschewing the affected gimmickry he recently brought to House of Gucci and WeCrashed. Leto is Dr. Michael Morbius, a famed scientist with a rare blood disorder that requires regular transfusions. Michael doesn’t play by the rules, as evidenced by his initial decision to collect a few of the millions of dangerous vampire bats lurking in a Costa Rica cave, and his subsequent refusal to accept his Nobel prize. Of sole concern to Michael is curing himself of his fatal affliction, as well as saving those like him, be it a young girl who’s a patient at his clinic, or Milo (Matt Smith), his childhood friend and present-day financial benefactor.
With sunken eyes, pale skin, and a veiny, emaciated frame, Michael resembles a skeletal specter, but his toil pays off when his experiments with mixing human and vampire-bat DNA reap astounding rewards. Because such work is ethically dubious and totally illegal, he and his colleague/eventual love interest Dr. Martine Bancroft (Adria Arjona) head out into international waters aboard a tanker to see if Michael’s concoction will do the trick and spare him an early grave. It does, albeit with a catch: Michael gains superhuman speed, strength, and echolocation powers, a supernatural badass who must feed on blood. Following a rampage in which he slaughters the vessel’s (not-very-nice) mercenaries, Michael runs tests on himself, and determines that his revolutionary artificial blood won’t sustain him for long; at a certain point, he’ll have to unleash his inner beast and consume “the red.”