April 1, 2022, is a historic day not for the history of cinema but the history of art and human civilization as a whole. Of course, as anyone reading knows, I am talking about the long-awaited release of the movie Morbius; if you can use the word movie for something that perfect, that is.
Morbius is the newest installment of Sony’s Marvel Universe that includes Venom and sort of Spiderman. The film was produced by Columbia Pictures and was directed by the legendary Daniel Espinosa. For those who are unfamiliar with his works, Espinosa produced a bunch of movies I am not going to tell you about as you won’t want to watch anything that isn’t Morbius once you’ve seen this movie.
The movie stars the loveable and charming Jared Leto as Dr. Michael Morbius. I know when many people hear his name they think of the awful Joker from the 2016 “Suicide Squad,” but I am happy to report this role is his redemption. In addition, the movie stars Matt Smith in one of his biggest roles since BBC’s Doctor Who.
The movie begins with Matt Smith’s character, Milo, meeting Morbius in a children's hospital due to a disease they both share that requires daily blood transfusions. As they grow older, they begin their search for a cure to their disease which leads to the central plot of the movie. After pulling some very risky, and perhaps unethical, tests Morbius finds himself with a strange new set of powers, including super-strength, flight and echolocation.
Despite giving a solution to his disease, his tests come at a cost as he faces a monster-like transformation and an intense craving for human blood that is required to keep his form. This inner struggle of finding a cure to something you’ve been fighting your whole life but at the cost of the safety of those around you drives the emotion and depth of the movie.
One very interesting aspect of this is his transformation between his monster form and his human form. The CGI used in the creation of the vampires felt seamless as his cravings for blood intense his face begins to mold into an unrecognizable creature of the night. Without going into spoilers, there were very cool action sequences in this movie. A highlight was this amazing teleportation dash-like effect where Morbius transforms almost into a cloud of black smoke as he moves, which showed his speed and ability to quickly take down enemies.
One question I was asked by several friends of mine was my guess as to why this movie was delayed six times by Sony. I believe that it was due to the troubles of trying to find theaters big enough to fit all the people that want to see Morbius. AMC and Regal are great theaters, but with how popular they knew Morbius would be, Sony likely wanted at least three screens per theater just for showtimes of Morbius.
When it comes to the downsides of the movie, I feel that there was only one major flaw. In recent movies, such as Spiderman, Endgame or even movies as old as Lord of the Rings, it has been shown, time and time again, that if a story is really good you need a full three hours to make it perfect. Morbius, however, isn’t even two, as it clocks in at only one hour and forty-four minutes. Throw just one more hour into this movie, and it could slow down the plot just enough to take a little more time with each memorable character. I feel it would have benefited as well to show off more of Morbius's fighting skills as, in my opinion, he is up there with the greats like Hulk or Thor.
Overall, it is very plain to see why #MorbiusSweep was trending on Twitter. Morbius should be sweeping everyone off their feet. If I had to give it a rating, I don’t think I could go any lower than a Morbillion out of ten. The moral of the story, grab your friends, pre-order your tickets before your local theater fills and have the best movie experience of your life.
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