Ok. Enough is enough.
There is a lot of bully culture surrounding Morbius. Some people who thrive on bully culture want to mock the movie endlessly. Look, find a crappy movie to bully. Morbius isn’t it.
In the interests of honesty, I’ll admit Morbius one of my three favorite Marvel characters. Had a subscription. Dressed as him for halloween twice as a boy.
I’ve tried watching the reaction videos to it. Recently, I watched a reaction video where a couple decided they were going to suspend judgment on it, and watch it fairly. Decide for themselves.
Throughout the movie, they kept commenting, “That scene is FIRE!” Certain scenes they deemed awe-inspiring. The Mercenary killing sequence, for instance.
At the end, they said the only two things they felt were wrong with the movie were the transition from child to adult was too jarring, and the ridiculous after credits scene.
One scene they said they didn’t understand was why Martine licked her lips as she died, after Morbius kissed her goodbye. That’s easy to explain, and I’d say the director missed out on how long the scene would have to be to allow the CGI operators to portray the effect.
Morbius was bleeding when he kissed her. A drop of his blood landed on her lips. She licked up the blood, knowing it would bring her back from the dead.
Explained. Questions?
After credits scene: undoubtably ordered by the Sony to tie in a future sequel. It didn’t ring true to Morbius, and everyone picked up on it. Morbius is not a villain per se, but a tragic hero.
Now, if a couple who decided they were going to be fair to the movie kept describing it as “Fire”, then Morbius is not a bad movie. It must therefore be fairly good, merely marred by a couple of problems.
One problem is the “joke.” The accusation has been made industry wide that movies are rushing to incorporate joke sequences into otherwise serious movies to get a cheap laugh. The Star Wars franchise is guilty of this, and may be the source of it.
A movie where a man is dying and trying to find a cure for a disease that requires daily blood transfusions is serious. When his cure backfires and causes him to murder a group of mercenaries for their blood and he only finds out when he reviews security cameras – there’s not a lot of room for joking in there.
Morbius never was much for humor. He was a serious man caught in a serious predicament, and make serious choices – such as killing his enemies so that he wouldn’t kill an innocent civilian for their blood.
I don’t know whether Leto focused on including the jokes, or if they were scripted. Morbius was never light hearted, and portraying him in such a way cheapened the movie. This may be what all the fuss is about. The “I’m not that kind of vampire” joke, along with “I am Venom…” fell flat. The “Stinky pinky” joke actually did work. I could see Michael Morbius clinically identifying every bone in your hand as he broke them one by one. The couple doing the reaction video reacted well to that scene. “Man, that is COLD.”
Let’s analyze one scene that really was important. Michael’s transformation. He is going through convulsions as the bat DNA is affecting him. A lost moment for dialog there: “You need to hurry.” Would have tripled the tension, if followed with, “Go, go!” and Martine running for the door.
After he kills and drinks the first mercenary, Martine calls through the glass. “Michael?”
He turns with a guttural snarl. The two honest reactors went wide eyed.
Another reactor (another channel) burst out in laughter at the scene. His co-star looked at him in surprise.
Okay, maybe you didn’t get it.
Michael is now part Vampire bat. The Beast within him is in control. There’s only one way he would respond. A turn and a snarl. If you’re part of the bully culture, you’ll be looking for any moment in the movie to laugh at. But-there’s nothing remotely funny about the scene. Michael killed the man so fast he probably didn’t know he died. Martine just tried talking to him, and sees a horror respond with violent aggression. He freezes when he sees its her. We don’t kill Martine.
I’ll say this part was missing from the original Morbius, but I applaud its inclusion. It makes the movie and character more tragic. Morbius’s transition was one way originally. He quite simply had the Vampire bat face and pale white skin forever at that point.
Ok. Let me deal with the single most cringe-worthy scene.
Milo’s dance.
It establishes the absolute evil of Lucian/Milo. But I mean, it gets established quickly in other ways. For crying out loud, the dance should have been cut. It’s cringe.
What did Morbius need?
Make Milo more powerful. More threatening. He was not large enough in scale. The audience gets a minor victory when Morbius wins. They were asking for a MAJOR victory. So make Milo much more powerful, so that we fear for Morbius.
And the ending scene was just too fast. Milo weakened by the bats, and Morbius stabs him. Where’s the drastic punch-punch-punch slam Milo into building beams kind of fight?
Give me the budget, the script, Jared Leto and I can deliver a blockbuster. Morbius was very good, but viewers were hoping for legendary-and I think this is where the criticisms lie.
Please don’t say Morbius sucked. It’s actually, as the reactors said, a very good movie – 7 out of 10 was their rating. And so little work to have earned the ten stars!
