Morbius’ Fatal Flaws: Lifeless Characters and Broken Pacing in Sony’s Marvel Experiment

Even though Sony possessed the top-quality ingredients—Jared Leto and Matt Smith as lead actors, high expectations from the audience, and a strong concept—their poor mixology skills, turned the Morbius into a "Trainwreck".

The Morbius movie was released in 2022. The story is set in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe. The superhero movie focuses on Jared Leto’s titular living vampire, who, while trying to cure himself of a rare and eventually fatal blood disease, turns himself into a bloodthirsty creature—who hasn’t?—and feasts on fresh human blood to stay healthy and prevent himself from turning into a monster. It’s a typical superhero film that mixes sci-fi and action genres.

Sony's Spider-Man Universe Morbius non cannon poster.

After the back-to-back success of the Venom movies, Sony Pictures planned to develop their own Spider-Man Universe. As the first step, Sony decided to produce a standalone film of an anti-hero character that is associated with Spider-Man, just like Venom. Yet the first step turns into the worst step ever as the Morbius movie becomes the biggest flop of 2022.

Writing & Pacing Are Unimpressive As It Could Get

They tried to portray Dr. Michael Morbius, as someone who is a monstrously genius, prideful, yet kind and morally good person. Well... it has failed because of the film’s lack of structure and coherent script. Most of the scenes happen just to move the story along, not for any reason, and they sometimes contradict each other. The details are vague and sloppy, raise a lot of logical questions which are not answered in the film.   The most crucial reasons for the movie to become a flop are that the writing failed to connect the audiences with the character and chose the wrong theme to implement. Morbius is a vampire—a night creature that feasts on humans—and a morally grey person. Instead of portraying Morbius as a bloodthirsty person who struggles between his increasing thirst for blood and desire to live a normal life, he is portrayed as kind of like a saint (what the hell?). Even though Venom is PG-13, the film has its horror moments. In Morbius, maybe because they tried to create it as a PG-13 film, it does not have the horror elements that are needed in a vampire movie.   The pacing also plays a crucial role in the downfall of the film; the pacing of the story is unimpressive—not cutthroat boring, but not engaging enough. Also, the scene about Morbius’s childhood doesn’t connect the audiences with Morbius; instead, it becomes a scene that complements Milo’s character.

Jared Leto's Morbius, the first time he taste human blood

Morbius is not a well-known character like Spider-Man or Venom, even to the comic reader, and Sony Pictures does not have a well-known superhero franchise. Under this setting, the story needs some concrete moments and grounded decisions made by leading characters. Take Iron Man 1 as an example: when Iron Man is released, Marvel is well known, or the audience is familiar with the superhero concept, yet it becomes a blockbuster because it has the narrative span of approximately four months within the movie timeline and has badass moments such as Tony Stark escaping from the terrorists, walking as the tank blasts in the background, or almost losing in the ending fight. In Morbius, that approximate narrative span is 6-8 weeks; it seems enough, but in the movie it does feel like it all happens within a week, and Morbius’s decisions are not impactful or grounded; it didn’t even have any realistic reason behind it.

Characters Are Unrealistic and Lifeless

There are three lead characters that carry the movie’s flow: Dr. Michael Morbius, Milo, and Martine Bancroft. The film depicts the differences of perspectives and conflicts of the surrogate brothers, Morbius & Milo, and the struggles of Martine Bancroft, who is stuck between their struggles.

Morbius movie poster; Jared Leto is Dr. Morbius and his vampire face

Actor Jared Leto played Dr. Michael Morbius; his acting is one of the few good things in the movie. Apart from the actor’s performance, the character itself leaves no impression on audiences. Morbius’s sudden shifts in decisions, going back and forth on his words, and making unreasonable or illogical choices make his character too artificial or lifeless. He refuses to drink the blood even from the blood bags, yet breaks some thug’s bone to occupy their place, those types of contradictory moments constantly reminding me of the fact "it’s just a film," which is the no-no take to success.

Adria Arjona as Martine Bancroft

Martine Bancroft, played by actress Adria Arjona, is actually the fiancée of Morbius in the comics. Martine Bancroft’s character is put in the movie just for the sake of introduction; it has no presence in the story. I mean, she’s not even Morbius’s fiancée in the film; if she is taken out, it doesn’t change the story flow. Martine Bancroft’s story in the comic is more concrete; she loves Morbius enough to try to cure him multiple times, dies for him, and is later revived by Morbius, yet becomes the host of Lilith, turns herself into a true vampire to live with him forever, and pursues Morbius to become a true vampire by manipulating Spider-Man but is killed by them both in the end. Her character is so complex and compelling to be wasted like this.

Matt Smith as Milo

Lucien Crown, aka Milo, played by Matt Smith, is the only character that is impressive to me, yet he faced death at the movie's ending. Milo is the only character that feels natural and alive in this whole movie; his decisions are grounded and reasonable, and his behaviour is realistic. It also lacks some background details, but the Design and development of his character overshadowed any doubts. Milo is not a character from comics; maybe because of that, the character leaves a strong impression, almost feels like a true protagonist of the movie.

Thus, Morbius became the biggest flop of 2022 because of its lacking details, impressive script, and sloppy character designs, along with somewhat questionable CGI.