n Bored Paragraphs: Morbius

2022, Daniel Espinosa (Life) -- download

Kent mentioned the other night, when we were OUTSIDE doing a SOCIAL THING like SEEING A MOVIE, that this blog is akin to us talking to each other about movies, but in text format. I mean, that was the intent of the blog after one particularly fevered conversation after seeing Source Code (ed. note: apparently my brain is retconning the whole thing as Source Code was 4 months after the blog started). But I think, for me at least, it is more like me telling you (random fictional reader) what I told Kent when were chatting about movies (during random fictional social engagement). You see, when I am face to face, even when I am "in practice" (the last few years [decade], even pre-pandemic, social interaction has taken a nose dive) I am not all that verbose; well, maybe more so after a few drinks. But in words, I can blather on and on, even about something I wasn't all that interested in. Sometimes. Sometimes, this comes down to, "saw movie, was good."

Preamble (said blathering) explains proper preamble where I talk about the weirdness going on around the reviewing of this movie, which to me, was more interesting than the movie itself.

So, there was some sort of review bombing going on with the Morbius rating on Rotten Tomatoes. While I don't hold the reviewers of the world as a hallowed group determining the validity of movie making, peeking at IMDB and RT ratings are usually a good place to to see how the world considers a movie. At the time of this post it was 17% Critic, 71% Viewer. So, the audience forgave it more than the critics did? Not at all surprising with superhero based movies, but then you peek at the actual viewer ratings and there is tomfoolery going on there. What the heck are "morbillion dollars" ? Apparently some sort of Internet movement did their own form of review bombing giving the flick more high ratings than it truly deserved. And the "reviews" are truly weird. You cannot take them seriously. But instead of bad actors panning a flick because its "woke", these weirdos are inflating the worth of a truly mediocre flick.

Michael Morbius was one of those Marvel characters I really enjoyed as a kid, atypical from the usual spandex supes, a tortured anti-hero, a "living vampire" whose cure for his disease went terribly wrong when he mixed it with "vampire bat blood". He turned into a pale, stalker of the night in an incredibly tacky disco outfit but still chose to fight bad guys as many of the other Marvel monsters of the time, who included Werewolf (by Night), Frankenstein and actual Dracula. Gawds, I loved those terrible, silly comics!

So, why they choose him for the next non-Marvel Studios character to bring to the screen, after the lackluster Venom movies? I thinks they may be creating some sort of anti-hero squad, based on the coda for this flick. But either way its a weird weird choice, further solidified by casting Jared Leto in the lead. To be honest, I wasn't as bent out of shape as many were, for his casting. I am not a fan but neither am I bothered by him, and his off-screen antics. Whatever; he's Old Hollywood and a bit of a weirdo creep. But he definitely does dive into this role, with just the right amount of levity to bring some character to the movie. Alas, the rest is just... astoundingly bland.

I often fall asleep during a movie, if I have a glass of wine or a beer, but usually only if the movie is something I have seen before or something not worth paying attention to. I nodded off, for a few seconds at a time, at least three times during this watching. There wasn't enough terrible for it to become a mocking, drinking-movie, as we originally intended, but... I am fading again, just thinking about it. There was just .... nothing remarkable about it; it was just such a deficit of a plot that I couldn't keep my attention focused.

So, as in comics, Morbius (it's a Greek name?) is a guy with a disease that will soon (apparently, still takes decades) end his life, so he fucks with his own DNA by adding in vampire bat DNA. Why? Oh, I don't fucking remember. It wasn't even a workable attempt at pseudo science, just a Z-grade monster movie use of coloured water in test tubes and a lab full of blinking lights, as representations of science. Of course, it goes wrong, turning him into a blood sucking, black & purple smoke spewing (what was up with that? was it just ... visually atmospheric or was he ... shedding?) flat nosed monster (why the growling obviously aggressive monster? bats are just bats, even vampire bats are just animals without evil) that apparently can fly (although, he doesn't get skin wings). He inadvertently gives the same "cure" to his best friend Milo (Matt Smith, Doctor Who), who shares the same disease, but has no qualms drinking humans dry to stay alive. They fight, one dies, some tragedy, Michael lives.

Yeah, some tragedy. The real tragedy was the Adria Arjona character. Usually female leads are meant to provide some sexiness to a movie (still sad unto itself), something for the male gaze, and she serves that up well enough, but even so, what was her role? Officially she was supposed to be his assistant, but I don't recall a single thing she did, nor said, other than (SPOILER!) die and become infected. What? Infected? How does that happen? Did I fall asleep when they explained his blood was now infectious?

In the end, this "origin story" is nothing more than a prelude to some sort of Multiverse influenced, Sony studios based anti-hero setup that will include Venom, Vulture (Adrian Toomes) and maybe a few others yet to come? Thinking about that stuff is entirely more interesting than ALL this movie.