The reviews are in, and "Morbius," Sony's super-vampire movie, seems to kind of suck.
"What else can I do?"
"Morbius" just hit theaters, and reviewers have already started sinking their teeth into it.
Over on Rotten Tomatoes, the internet's leading film review
site, people have been ripping the Marvel Comics-inspired superhero flick
to shreds — saying "Morbius" is boring and inconsistent, pretty much across the board.
The negative sentiment echoes the early impressions about the Jared Leto-led project,
which also stars former "Doctor Who" actor Matt Smith, as well as Adria Arjona, Jared Harris,
Al Madrigal and Tyrese Gibson.
As Collider's Sab Astley previously said on Twitter,
"Morbius is about as bad as you were expecting. A 2005 plot collides with visually confusing CGI
to create a bit of a snooze fest [...] Featuring some of the worst
post credits scenes you've EVER seen, Sony are off their rocker."
Other early reviews called "Morbius" a number of different things,
few of them flattering, with some assessing it as "disjointed" and "messy."
Based on the early reactions, it was pretty clear that the critiques on Rotten Tomatoes
probably wouldn't be pretty. Here's what reviewers are saying about "Morbius."
"Just accept who you are… the bad guy."
There's really no way around it: The vast majority of critics on Rotten Tomatoes dislike "Morbius."
In fact, it would be an understatement to say they merely "dislike" it. From the looks of it,
reviewers seem to consider "Morbius" one of those rare movies that is such a failure,
the only difference between reviews involves the words to describe how bad it is.
For example, Barry Hertz of The Globe and Mail states that the movie is so very bad
that it might actually end up single-handedly tanking the superhero movie trend. He wrote,
"If there is any justice in Hollywood, Morbius will be retconned to the margins of superhero
cinema history. If the film doesn't bury the genre alive first, that is."
Robbie Collin of The Telegraph didn't hide his thoughts about the movie's pointlessness, writing,
"It goes on for about an hour and 45 minutes,
and right up until the second it ends, you keep feeling as if it's just about to start."
Other critics turned their ire toward Sony, calling "Morbius" an obvious example
of a cynical money-making machine. Charlotte O'Sullivan of London Evening Standard called it:
"A cash-grab so sloppy it makes you wonder if the top brass at
Sony are nihilistic members of the undead."
Meanwhile, others chose to slouch into the vampire puns,
like Brian Lloyd of Entertainment.ie, who wrote,
"'Morbius' really does... *sigh* suck.
Yes, we couldn't even come up with something more inventive, folks."
To be fair, neither could we.
"How far are we allowed to go to fix something that's broken?"
It's not just the movie's general quality that's drawing the reviewers' ire.
Several critics have also pointed out that Jared Leto — who, as an Academy Award winner,
clearly has a history of knowing how to act — doesn't quite manage to impress
as the titular character, for various reasons.
According to Meagan Navarro of Bloody Disgusting, Leto simply fails to captivate in the same way as
Tom Hardy does in his symbiote-filled corner of Sony's universe of Marvel characters. She wrote,
"Without, say, someone like Tom Hardy embracing the weirdness of the character in 'Venom',
it's tough to find rooting interest or muster any excitement for the vampiric bat man."
Meanwhile, Stephanie Zacharek of Time felt that while Leto
does bring an element of emotion in the movie,
"[He] perhaps isn't so much a serious actor as one who takes himself very seriously."
Oof.
"Nobody has ever said that to me, no - body."
Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune stepped back to look at the bigger picture,
and found that when you combine "Morbius" with Leto's recent turn as Paolo Gucci in
"House of Gucci," it can be very difficult to comprehend the actor's ways. The critic wrote,
"I don't relish pinning blame, or a tail, or horns,
or anything on a particular star [...] But my bafflement regarding Leto is becoming chronic,
and I'm still recovering from his opera buffa turn and Chico Marx dialect in 'House of Gucci.'"
All in all, whether audiences find the movie enjoyable or not, it's already pretty clear
that the critics don't like "Morbius," and they don't think you will either.
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