BEFORE: OK, another Marvel movie, that's, I don't know, a dozen this year? "Spider-Man: No Way Home", "Shang-Chi", "Venom: Let There Be Carnage", "Eternals, "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness", and "Thor: Love and Thunder". Is that it? Well, there's "Black Panther 2" coming out later this year, but I just can't. There's no time, no space, and no way to work that one into the chain. Seven Marvel movies this year, compared to just ONE for DC, "The Batman". It hardly seems fair.
Matt Smith carries over again from "Last Night in Soho", and since this is a film about a vampire, there's no denying it, thematically I'm definitely into the Countdown to the Countdown to Halloween.
THE PLOT: Biochemist Michael Morbius tries to cure himself of a rare blood disease, but he inadvertently infects himself with a form of vampirism instead.
AFTER: Well, I don't think this movie is the pile of hot garbage that some of the reviews made it out to be. It's dumb, sure, and very misguided, but a lot of that comes from the set-up, which just can't possibly work. If you're going to do a vampire movie, you've got to really go for it, because vampires are truly evil. They're undead, they kill humans for their blood, either for sustenance or just for the hell of it, and they're so evil that they'll turn to dust if exposed to sunlight or burn at the touch of holy water. Evil, evil, evil.
But Marvel's always hedged its bets with Morbius - he's not dead or undead, he's "The Living Vampire". And he's fought Spider-Man many times in the comic books, but that's only because he's misunderstood and he's got this medical condition where he needs to drink blood to survive. So, a sort of vampire, but not a REAL vampire, not like Dracula, who's also a character in the Marvel comic-book universe. Usually it's Blade who fights the vampires, but Spider-Man has fought Morbius more times than anyone else, and there's always some kind of "miracle" cure that stops Morbius from draining blood from everyone on his block. Then Morbius will team up with Spider-Man and together they can defeat the evil power, whatever it is.
The reason that Marvel Comics hero-fies Morbius, periodically, but also nearly every time he appears, is that most people want to read a comic book about a hero, someone who does good things, but a vampire normally wouldn't qualify - so the comics have to make him a well-intentioned doctor and scientist who was in a lab accident or something, and it's just not his fault that drinking blood makes him feel better and more alive. Why IS that, anyway, I mean blood is just like anything else a human might eat, it would get digested just like any other organic food material, so why does drinking blood give vampires special powers and abilities? It's going down their food-hole to the stomach, right? People in Europe eat blood sausage and blood pudding, and it doesn't give them an unquenchable thirst for more blood, right?
Here they also had to make Michael Morbius a scientific genius, not only in organic science - he invented artificial blood - but also in technical engineering (because later in the film he has only minutes to turn a counterfeiting operation into a medical lab, for some reason) and he's frantically searching for a cure for the blood disease that affects him and his childhood best friend. He's a giver, but he needs to hurry if he wants to save his friend's life AND win a second Nobel Prize. The only thing that could stop him now would be if the treatment he's discovered has some bizarre, unforeseen side effects.
Actually, there's a point to be made here about animal testing - I don't know if the medical industry still does this, or if they had to stop like the cosmetics industry - Morbius tests his latest serum on a laboratory rat, and then when it works on the rodent, he can't wait to jab himself with the needle and try the process out on himself. Umm, I think there's a reason why. most medical companies test monkeys next, they don't just go straight from mice to clinical trials on humans.
Anyway, Morbius infects himself with the serum, and immediately feels the most alive he's ever felt. But, umm, don't do drugs, OK kids? Even if they make you feel awesome! Then Morbius has to deal with the fact that every six hours the abilities wear off, and he's got to find blood yet AGAIN. I'm already feeling less than sympathetic towards Morbius, and now my opinion is getting worse by the minute. Sure, he's got a rare disease, sure, he's kind of handicapped - but as soon as he gets that taste of blood, look out, he's got a lot of LIVIN he missed out on over the years.
The same goes for Morbius' friend, Milo, he can't wait to get to the serum either, and he does so while Michael's being interrogated by the police about the blood-draining murders that seem to happen anywhere near him. And that's when I realized that "Morbius" follows (almost) the exact same structure as the "Venom" films - take a normal, unassuming guy, get him mixed up with some kind of alien or non-human infection, which creates an unusual hunger inside him (brains, blood) and then make another character just like that, so he'll have somebody to fight. Then have just ONE big fight, run the closing credits and collect the cash. It's the SAME DAMN story, this and both of the "Venom" films. And if Morbius has to fight against someone just like him, only slightly more evil, really, aren't we splitting hairs then? Why can't I have a real hero to root for, one who's not a vampire at all?
Then there's the whole Michael Keaton as Vulture thing - what is the deal with this? I told you when they started explaining that the Spider-Man movies take place in three different timelines, that things were about to get super-confusing. WHY do we need three DIFFERENT Spider-Men in three parallel universes, why can't we first learn to tell one GOOD Spider-Man story in ONE timeline, before we expand the franchise, HMMM? There, I said it.
Sure, we know that in the last "Spider-Man" movie he asked Dr. Strange for help and accidentally caused every villain who knew Spider-Man's identity, across all the timelines, ended up in the same timeline, and that included Venom for some reason, thanks to all the Klyntar symbiotes sharing their knowledge with each other across the different dimensions, or so we've been told. But now, what about Vulture? Didn't Michael Keaton's Vulture character learn Peter Parker was Spider-Man, in one of the movies? No? Well, then, how does he teleport into the timeline with Morbius in it, which might also be the Venom-verse? Vulture just appears in a prison cell one day, and at the tail end of this movie, he tracks down Morbius and says they have to team up together to take down Spider-Man - but if that's the Venom-verse, there's no Spider-Man in it to take down! The Tom Hardy Venom has never met Spider-Man, not ANY of them, so how is this going to work? Is Vulture going to form the Sinister Six villain team, recruit Morbius and maybe Doctor Octopus, and Electro again, and really, really make an effort this time around? And if so, how are they going to get all those villains into the right universe with the Spider-Man they want to kill in it? Stay tuned, I guess.
Also starring Jared Leto (last seen in "The Little Things"), Adria Arjona (last seen in "6 Underground"), Jared Harris (last seen in "Igby Goes Down"), Tyrese Gibson (last seen in "Flight of the Phoenix"), Al Madrigal (last seen in "The Way Back"), Michael Keaton (last seen in "Clear History"), Zaris-Angel Hator, Charlie Shotwell (last seen in "The Glass Castle"), Joseph Esson, Corey Johnson (last seen in "The Mauritanian"), Joanna Burnett, Archie Renaux (last seen in "Voyagers"), Jojo Macari, Abraham Popoola (last seen in "Cruella"), Chris Ryman (ditto).
RATING: 4 out of 10 fractured phalanges
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