“Morbius” Review: Successful Character Origins, Failed Plots and Endings

“Morbius” is a 2022 superhero film directed by Daniel Espinosa and starring Jared Leto, Adria Arjona, Jared Harris.

The plot tells the story of Dr. Morbius, who is devoted to blood research, in order to treat patients with the same disease, he is willing to bet his own body.

At first the treatment seemed to be quite successful, Morbius not only regained his health, but his body also gained a steady stream of strength.

But as time went on, he had to fight against the dark forces in his body and a strong thirst for blood.

Sony Spider-Man universe lay out

Originally scheduled to be released in 2020, “Mobius”, like “Venom”, is part of the “Sony Marvel Universe” related to Spider-Man.

The film features Jared Leto, who played the role of “Mobius”, an anti-hero who is both good and evil.

Although Morbius was delayed for nearly two years due to the epidemic, I believe that everyone is still looking forward to this movie.

Morbius actor protagonist

The story of “Morbius” stars Jared Leto as the protagonist Michael Morbius, who has been born with a rare genetic disorder due to a genetic defect.

In addition to being born thin and needing crutches to walk, he must exchange blood three times a day to survive. It can be said that life is forcibly handcuffed to a heavy and difficult to break free shackle, and the future is dark.

When Morbius was a child, a boy named Loxias, whom Michael nicknamed Milo, came to the hospital in charge of treating him with the same condition.

Since the hospital bed is next door and they are often treated together, the two become friends with the same disease and agree to overcome the pain together in the future.

One day Milo’s life support equipment malfunctioned, and Morbius saved his life with a ball-pen spring when he fainted.

Then his ingenuity and talent were discovered by the Dean, and the story of “Mobius” unfolded.

Morbius story background

The plot of the “Morbius” movie begins 25 years after the background introduction, and went to New York to study. “Mobius” obtained a doctorate at the age of 19, and Milo, a wealthy family, became his sponsor and helped to found the “Horizon Company”.

Morbius has been committed to blood-related research for many years, and the invention can be compatible with all artificial blood, saving countless lives from excessive blood loss in emergency situations such as battlefields and hospitals.

But this achievement was not enough to satisfy Morbius.

After rejecting the Nobel Prize for his outstanding contributions, he felt that his research was not perfect.

Morbius then went to a remote cave in Costa Rica, Central America, to trap a large number of ferocious bloodthirsty “vampire bats” with his own blood.

He hopes to use the anticoagulant components in the saliva of the same mammalian bat to develop an antidote to his incurable disease.

Morbius Ability

After more than 200 tests and experiments, Morbius, the protagonist of “Mobius”, finally found a combination to incorporate bat anti-coagulation factors into human genes, and decided to use himself as the first experimental product to conduct human trials.

However, despite the seemingly infallible data from medical theoretical research and computer simulations, after Morbius’ research partner injected the drug into his spine, unexpected changes occurred in his body.

Combining it with bat DNA did cure Morbius, but it seemed a bit too bat for him to extract that gene.

The “Mobius” experiment unexpectedly turned Morbius into a true “Batman”, physically strong, and possessed the super ability to use echoes to locate.

It’s just that although “Mobius” has superhuman physical fitness like many superheroes such as “Spider-Man” on the surface, the problem is that “Bat”, the source of Morbius’ ability, is an animal that lives on “blood”.

Vampire Morbius is both good and evil

After becoming Batman, Morbius, the protagonist of “Mobius”, immediately lost control due to his deep bloodlust, killing all the mercenaries he hired to guard the laboratory.

Therefore, when the experiment itself is illegal, and there are many sucked corpses left at the scene, Morbius, the protagonist of “Morbius”, is wanted by the police and is in a difficult situation.

Because even if the disease is cured and superpowers are obtained, “Morbius” becomes a “vampire” Morbius not only regrets his killing behavior, but also quite resists drawing blood at ordinary times, only relying on his own research and development of artificial blood to temporarily satisfy his hunger.

However, this was not the case with his long-time friend Milo. Due to suffering from illness for many years and having no freedom since childhood, he ignored Morbius’s warning that this ability was a “curse”, and stole his research results on his own, becoming the “Mobius” villain.

Morbius major flaw

I like the description of the origin of the “Morbius” hero in the first part of the “Morbius” movie.

Not only are genius doctors like “The Amazing Spider-Man 2‎” and “Lizard Man” trying their best to treat physical diseases, but they also cause severe side effects. The design is quite interesting. Morbius was in prison when he learned that his friend Milo had taken medication. Not bad.

But it wasn’t until the buddies began to clash, or even fight, that “Mobius” became chaotic and uninteresting, and the more you watched it, the more frustrating it became.

In addition to the old-fashioned story, “Mobius” is like a backwater between the best friends, lacking the chemical effect of “Captain America and the Winter Soldier”, cheap character facial special effects, messy action scenes, broken screen editing, and nothing to affect. Technical issues such as the design of the audience’s emotional sound effects caused “Mobius” to take a sharp turn in the second half of the climax.

Even trying to pretend to be “The Dark Knight” didn’t stop the movie from finally having a hard time getting people interested in the antihero “Mobius” a disaster.

Morbius plot is boring

Yep, “Mobius” echolocation, shadow ripples on the move, and ultimately summoning an overwhelming number of bats to attack opponents are pretty cool.

But beyond that, is there anything else in “Mobius” that will make the audience think back a week after watching the movie?

Obviously, judging from the content of the trailer that was previously released but did not appear in the feature film, “Mobius” finally became what it is now after a lot of script rewriting and clipping during the two-year extension.

Have you seen “Venom”? Have you seen “The Incredible Hulk‎”?

It is surprising and puzzling that in 2022, when the development of superhero movies tends to be saturated and mature, and everyone is constantly seeking innovation and change, why is Sony still able to receive negative reviews of “Venom: Let There Be Carnage‎” in 2022. Later, “Mobius” was launched.

Such a change of soup but not of medicine, the whole film is full of the above-mentioned works, which have already used bad model routines, and only let the pros and cons with the same ability but opposite positions fight each other to end the film hastily?

I think the most likely reason behind it is that they want to focus on the entree at the back.

Morbius ending development

After watching “Mobius”, Morbius reluctantly killed his friend, the villain, and his assistant girlfriend Medina also came back to life after drinking a drop of his blood and was bitten, becoming a similar existence to Morbius. Spider-Man: Homecoming” villain “Condor” appeared in the end credits, and it is almost certain that “Mobius” will finally set the tone, but it is only a 108-minute-long trailer used to lay out the future development of the universe.

But that makes it even more worrying. Not to mention that nearly 4 years have passed since “Venom” in 2018, and Sony Pictures “Spider-Man Universe” has only released 3 movies.

When the previous film didn’t get much acclaim and the content of “Mobius” was so boring, trying to connect these films into a “universe” is like building a building without even decorating a room. Same.

It seems that “Venom” relies on gimmicks to achieve box office performance that is not proportional to the quality. It seems that Sony executives have false confidence in themselves.

Morbius Review Conclusion

Overall, the only praiseworthy aspect of “Mobius” is the origin of the protagonist Morbius’ background.

With actor Jared Leto perfectly matching the temperament of the anti-hero “Mobius”, the film clearly introduces the audience to how he acquired his abilities, and that he was influenced by the uncontrollable bloodlust in his heart, and finally became such a good and evil character.

It’s just that the script is old and Sony’s executives have the wrong development direction for its IP, which has also caused “Mobius” to be in a very embarrassing position, which makes people wonder how to look at this movie, which is quite a pity.

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