With the success of the Harry Potter series both on the page and on the screen, you could imagine a whole wealth of new stories that could be potentially spun off from the main narrative and stand well enough on it’s own.  And that indeed is what creator and author J.K. Rowling thought as well, and actively pursued in the wake of the final Potter film.  Working with producers Hayman Productions and Warner Brothers Pictures, the team behind the Potter series, she developed a new brand that would be an all encompassing home for all the universe building projects that would be coming from her post Potter period.  This brand would be known as the Wizarding World, and it would include everything from movies, to books, to video games, and even social media; all connected to the same universe.  The Wizarding World would be an ambitious undertaking that all parties involved were hoping would prosper for well into the future; doing for the Wizarding World what George Lucas had built with Star Wars.  To launch this ambitious plan, a new series of movies were announced.  Based loosely on a encyclopedic style book called Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, an appendices that Ms. Rowling released separately where she went into greater detail about the magical creatures found in her stories, the new movie series would be a whole new narrative focused on new characters, but still connected with the history that we were all familiar with in the Potter series.  In addition to taking a more active role in producing the films as well, Rowling also made her debut as a screenwriter, having only been a novelist up to that point.  Leading up to it’s debut, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) was wildly anticipated by fans and also industry insiders who were interested to see how well a new Rowling film series would do without the famous boy wizard at it’s center.  But, as we would learn, best laid plans don’t always pan out.

Fantastic Beats and Where to Find Them grossed a respectable, but not earth-shattering amount at the box office.  It was certainly under what the Harry Potter movies made, and though some saw it as disappointing in comparison, others thought it had a strong start for a new franchise.  However a lot of other world events began to shroud the series as it headed into production on it’s second film; Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018).  First and foremost J.K. Rowling began to publicly declare he beliefs that many people (I’d say rightly) claimed were transphobic.  This very controversial stand by Rowling alienated herself from many people who were among the millions of fans of her work, and her words against the trans community brought about a lot of condemnation, including from Harry Potter himself, actor Daniel Radcliffe.  This led to many fans being turned off by the series, not wanting to support Rowling’s empire with their own money, which they believe would just encourage her controversial opinions even more without facing any repercussions.  Secondly, Rowling’s choice to play the villainous Gellart Grindelwald, the series central antagonist, was Johnny Depp who at the time of the film’s production was in the middle of a very messy divorce from ex-wife, Amber Heard.  Surrounding the news of Depp’s divorce was also accusations from Heard that he was physically abusive.  This suddenly turned public opinion against Depp in the eyes of many and the one time A-list star suddenly became un-hirable in Hollywood.  Even Warner Brothers decided to keep their distance, and Depp was fired soon after Grindelwald’s release.  And now, with the third film in the series coming out, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022), another star of the film, Ezra Miller, has been arrested for assault and for threatening to kill a couple in Hawaii whose house he was staying at.  Suffice to say, the Fantastic Beasts franchise has taken on a lot of negative baggage along the way as it’s pressed forward.  And yet, there are still fans eager to see the third chapter in this Fantastic Beasts series.  The only question is, can The Secrets of Dumbledore able to recapture the magic of past Potter glory, or is it again succumbing to a curse from both external and internal factors.

The film picks up not long after the events of The Crimes of Grindelwald.  The dark wizard Gellart Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelsen) is plotting something in the shadows, gaining support from many in the wizard world for his extreme views of magical superiority.  Up against his world vision is Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law), a professor at the Hogawarts School of Witchcraft who is know to many to be the one and only wizard powerful enough to go up against Grindelwald.  However, neither Grindelwald nor Dumbledore can take up arms (or wands) against each other, due to a blood pact they made together when they were young lovers.  In order to stop Grindelwald’s rise in power from happening, Dumbledore enlists the help of Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), a former student of his and a resourceful zoologist of magical creatures.  Helping Newt along are his brother Theseus (Callum Turner),  his assistant Bunty (Victoria Yeates), a premiant French wizard named Yusuf Kama (William Nadylam), an American witch named Lally Hicks (Jessica Williams) and a muggle named Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler), who has been a friend and ally of Newt’s in the past.  Together, they take part in a multi-faceted plan to undermine Grindelwald’s subversion of an upcoming election for the High Council of Wizards (sort of like the Wizarding World’s United Nations).  Meanwhile, Grindelwald is embarking on his own schemes, with the help of Queenie Goldstein (Alison Sudol), a mind-reading witch who was once in love with muggle Jacob Kowalski, and a young wizard named Credence Barebone (Ezra Miller), who has been discovered to be a blood relation of Dumbledore.  At the heart of the mission for both sides is a mythical creature known to the whole wizarding world for it’s ability to recognize the purest souls, something that is important in determining the future leaders of their community.  Of course Newt, with his knowledge of magical creatures, is central to the creature’s well-being, and the fate of the wizarding world depends on if he is able to keep Grindelwald from using the creature for his evil ends.

In anticipation of the release of this film, I went back and re-watched the first two Fantastic Beasts movies as a refresher.  Controversies aside, I wanted to find out how well these two movies stand up, and one bad sign already is that I remembered very little about these movies since I first saw them.  Upon re-watching Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, I realized that it was a flawed but not at all bad of a movie.  It works pretty well as a stand alone feature that in many ways fulfills the promise of what the Wizarding World is setting out to do, showing us more of the world itself.  I liked that it showed us how the Wizarding World worked in America, with it’s own set of rules and special words and spells different from the British side that we’ve thus far.  If it lacked anything, it’s that it lacks the balance of whimsy and peril that the Harry Potter movies were so renowned for.  Unfortunately all the problems found in the first Fantastic Beasts were magnified even more in The Crimes of Grindelwald.  Crimes is just an incoherent mess, devoid of any meaningful entertainment and is just a collection of plot threads that feel more like an outline than a narrative.  Considering that J.K. Rowling’s plan is to make this a five film series, Crimes of Grindelwald felt very much like filler with no meaningful momentum to justify it’s existence.  It’s a movie that clearly demonstrates why some novelist should not adapt their own work into screenplays.  Rowling works best when she can work out her plots in full chapters, and not show the strain of telling too much story in a 2 hour time frame.  So, the extensive problems of Crimes of Grindelwald made me wary of what a third film in this series might bring.  Thankfully, Secrets of Dumbledore is an improvement over it’s predecessor, but at the same time, it’s a movie that still can’t overcome the flaws of the series in general.  I have yet to get a clear reason as to why this story is a worthy successor to the Potter series.  Each Potter story to various degrees works as a harrowing stand-alone adventure with a connecting narrative sown throughout.  With Fantastic Beasts, it seems that Rowling wants to make each movie essential viewing to understand the plot of the series as a whole, and that causes each film to lack an identity separate from each other.

There is one thing that I noticed as being a major issue with the series as a whole thus far, and that’s the Newt Problem.  Newt Scamamder is the main protagonist of this franchise, and yet J.K. Rowling does very little to make him an essential part of the narrative.  In the Potter series, Harry was key to every aspect of the story, as it became a coming of age tale mixed in with this battle of good against the forces of evil.  In Fantastic Beasts, Newt is not at all important.  He certainly has a presence, but his factor in the plot is far more passive than what Harry was in his.  Newt left much more of an impression in the first Fantastic Beasts, because that movie’s plot was tailored around his expertise.  It was an easy to follow fetch quest across New York City in the 1920’s, where we saw all of Newt’s know-how come into play as he helped to tame and corral all the Fantastic Beasts loose in the city.  But it feels like starting with Crimes of Grindelwald, Rowling became less interested in her own main character and began to delve more into the secondary characters; particularly with the characters of Grindelwald and Dumbledore.  That continues on in Secrets of Dumbledore, where it almost feels like Newt is an afterthought in the story.  He even spends most of the climax of this film just standing around and watching what’s happening.  How are we supposed to care about this franchise when the main character is just a passive bystander.  Had Newt just been a one-off character and the remainder of the series was more anthology based around different main characters, it might make more sense, but as it stands, it just shows Rowling’s shortcomings as a screenwriter where she places more emphasis on plot than meaningful character development.  At least with The Secrets of Dumbledore we actually have a plot that makes more sense and is easy to follow, as opposed to the mishmash that was Crimes of Grindelwald.  I think one thing that helped here was that this film brought on a co-writer for the screenplay; that being Steven Kloves, the writer of seven of the eight Potter films.  I get the feeling that Kloves was brought in by Warner Brothers to sort of reign in Ms. Rowling and find a coherent, human thread in the middle of her larger plot ambitions.

Another major problem with the series is that even with the new characters and the period setting, it can’t escape the shadow of the Potter franchise.  What was so distinctive about the Potter franchise was the way that it evolved over time.  It began as this warm, colorful adventure that was endearing to audiences of all ages, but as the series went along, it became darker and more serious in tone, and it did so in an organic way.  I feel like one of the things that really helped that transformation along was the variety of directors that they had involved.  Chris Columbus successfully laid the foundation of this fantastic, magical world; Alfonso Cuaron gave it artistic panache; Mike Newall broadened it’s epic scope; and David Yates carried it to the end with an assured sense of importance.  Fantastic Beasts is a series that even three films in still can’t decide on the tone it wants to have.  David Yates, who directed the final half of the Potter series over it’s last 4 films, has continued on directing all the Fantastic Beasts movies so far.  And he has likewise continued to direct the movies the same way that he did with his Potter films.  Unfortunately, here, he doesn’t have the foundation of a magical world set up in previous films.  Secrets of Dumbledore just feels very dour and gloomy, with a gray-scale color scheme that lacks any visual appeal whatsoever.  If there was any movie that deserved to break the mold and start looking more imaginative, this was the one, but instead, we get probably the ugliest looking movie in the series yet.  Remember the warm color palette of the first couple Potter films.  That’s been replaced with muted tones that make the film feel like a dirge, even when it’s trying too hard to lighten up.  There’s only one scene in the entire movie that feels vaguely in line with what we remember from the Potter films, and it’s when Newt tries to help his brother escape imprisonment in a chamber full of scorpion like creatures.  In this scene, Newt manages to charm the scorpions by wiggling around in a dance similar to the way they walk.  In that moment, we see the movie finally find a balance between the perilous and the whimsical, and it is sadly all too fleeting.  That’s generally where Fantastic Beasts has faltered thus far as a series.  It’s too dark and serious for children to enjoy, and too whimsically inclined to appeal to serious adults at the same time.  That lack of a clear identity has been it’s biggest problem and Secrets of Dumbledore amplifies that problem once again.

If there is one thing can still be admired about Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, it’s that the cast is giving it their all, even when the script lets them down.  While Newt Scamander is a very lackluster protagonist overall, you still have to appreciate Eddie Redmayne’s commitment to the character and all his eccentricities.  Like the aforementioned scene with the scorpions, he tackles the sillier stuff in this movie with the same effort that he does with the more serious elements.  If he were just sleepwalking through the role, it would’ve probably made this movie nearly unwatchable, so the fact that he gives it his all is appreciated.  Also appreciated is the return of Dan Fogler as Jakob Kowalski, who has honestly been the MVP of the Fantastic Beasts movies so far.  He’s the only character that has that right balance of humor and sincerity, which would’ve made him feel at home in the Potter franchise, and he’s far and away the highlight of this movie.  Had he been the main character instead of Newt, this franchise might have had some better success with it’s balance of tone.  But, apart from him, the movie’s other highlight is Jude Law as young Dumbledore.  It’s a daunting task having to fill the shoes of a role that has been played by acting legends Richard Harris and Michael Gambon, but Jude surprisingly has managed to bring his own bit of gravitas to the role.  You see a lot of glimmer of past Dumbledore’s in his performance, but you also get the energy of a younger man in his prime still working out his own place in the world.  They also do an interesting dissection into Albus’ estranged relationship with his brother Aberforth (Richard Coyle), which has been hinted at in past Potter films, but is given more exploration here.  And one definite improvement over Crime of Grindelwald is the re-casting of Grindelwald himself.  Johnny Depp, in retrospect, was not an ideal choice for the character, as Depp only brought his oddball schtick to the character with no real menace.  Mads Mikkelsen on the other hand (who honestly should’ve been playing this character from the beginning) is far more intimidating in the role, and you really feel more of a darker presence with him in the part.  Unfortunately, Grindelwald still remains a rather underwhelming villain script wise, but with Mikkelsen finally in the role, he at least no longer comes across as a cartoonish villain, but instead a force to be reckoned with.

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore rights the ship a little bit, but not nearly enough to actually salvage the series mired reputation.  It’s sad that the drama outside of the series itself, with so many scandals erupting all around it, has overshadowed the series so far.  Some of it is definitely self-inflicted wounds, with J.K. Rowling perhaps being too unaware of her own mistakes in the making of this series and resting too much on her past laurels to actually challenge herself as an artist.  Controversy about her opinions aside, which is it’s own problem, she really needs to understand that there are aspects of telling a story that are better left to other people who can bring new energy into this world she imagined.  That’s what worked for George Lucas and Star Wars.  Hell, it even worked on the Harry Potter movies, where different directors helped to make each film have it’s own unique voice.  Fantastic Beasts thus far has felt like an ego trip for J.K. Rowling, seeing just how far she can go with telling the story her own way without loosing the audience.  The Secrets of Dumbledore is going to be a test to see if the audience has reached it’s limit and have moved on from Rowling’s Wizarding World.  As of right now, Warner Brothers is putting the series on hold until they see how Secrets performs at the box office.  This could spell the premature end of the series, or it could force Warner Brothers to steal away more control of the series away from Rowling.  The fact that The Secrets of Dumbledore is only incrementally better than it’s predecessor and not a massive course correction leaves me to believe that it’s rough waters ahead.  Perhaps Rowling needs to be humbled a bit, because no one can doubt her creativity; it’s just that she’s in a way become her own worst enemy.  The Wizarding World is a valuable brand, but it’s one that’s growing increasingly stale because of the fact that it is no longer inspiring it’s audiences like it has before.  Now, only the die hard fans are sticking by it, and it’s increasingly becoming an obligation more than an event.  If Warner Brothers does move ahead with more, let’s hope Rowling reconsiders the possibilities with this franchise and allows for more diversity of input into the Fantastic Beasts series.  Like the menagerie of Beast’s living in Newt’s enchanted trunk, a more gentler touch is better at taming a beast than a iron clad grip, and what J.K. Rowling needs to do with her Wizarding World is to find a way to let it find it’s own way than force her own self interest onto it.  Great writers always lets the story speak to them and guide their way through, and my hope is that Rowling discovers that it might be better to not let her own flaws spill into so much of the things that she clearly has a love of sharing with the rest of the world.

Rating: 6.5/10

If there is anything that Marvel Studios has shown us over the last decade, it’s the best way to make a super hero movie.  Under the watchful eye of Studio head Kevin Feige, Marvel has cultivated it’s brand to perfection, helping it to become the power house that it is today.  And they did so by embracing the things that make comic books popular in the first place.  The Marvel Studios movies are not afraid to indulge in the weird and silly with their films, which has helped to give their movies a surprisingly broad appeals across all types of audiences.  Their films are colorful, eccentric, and at times very provocative with it’s themes.  There are still examples of excellent super hero movies being made by other studios, like their rival DC, but with Marvel Studios they have proven themselves able to turn out one hit film after another based on their proven formula.  This is in sharp contrast to the earlier days of Marvel comics on the big screen.  Before Kevin Feige took the reigns of what would eventually become the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Marvel brand on the big screen was handled by a man named Avi Arad.  Arad’s time at the top of Marvel Productions was a bit more of a rollercoaster for the company.  During his reign, Marvel didn’t have a single benefactor to finance all their projects like they do now with Disney, so the film rights were scattered across all the studios in Hollywood.  And in order to get these movies made, Arad’s job was to sell the studios on these movies being not so much comic book entertainment, but rather on their potential as action films.  Comic books were not as valued at that time as they are now, and most super hero movies of the 2000’s tended to go out of their way to not look like they came from the comics.  There were noteworthy exceptions, like the Sam Raimi directed Spider-Man movies, but otherwise more often than not super hero movies became darker and more grounded.  It’s almost like they were ashamed that these characters started on the comic page and needed to distance themselves as far as they could from the colorful spandex and silly situations.  Suffice to say, there were a lot of super heroes in the pre-MCU days that were wearing black.  Kevin Feige definitely changed that attitude and Marvel benefitted greatly from it, but there are still some outliers that still follow that original Arad formula.

It’s not surprising that most of the movies that still feel like the old Marvel movies before the MCU began are the ones that are coming from where Avi Arad now calls home: Sony Pictures.  Sony of course was one of the many studios that gained the film rights to Marvel properties over the years, but unlike the other studios, they have yet to yield over those film rights back to Marvel.  Marvel successfully managed to buy back the Avengers from Paramount, and the Hulk from Universal, and Disney’s merger with Fox led to the Fantastic Four and the X-Men returning to the Marvel fold.  But, as part of Sony’s original deal, as long as they keep making more movies with their Marvel characters, they can still hold onto the rights, and to their benefit they managed to have one of the crown jewels of Marvel in their possession; Spider-Man.  Now, an unsuccessful reboot of the Spider-Man franchise starring Andrew Garfield did cause Sony to call a truce with Marvel’s parent Disney, so that they could allow Spider-Man to appear as part of the lucrative Avengers franchise.  But, their iron grip on the rights of the character still gives them a valuable asset to work to their advantage.  One of the things that Sony has attempted with their Marvel properties is to launch their own cinematic universe centered around Spider-Man and the characters in his adjacent comic book storyline that is separate from Marvel’s MCU.  So while Spider-Man has been the bridge, Sony is concurrently launching film franchises for all the characters that have some connection, loose as they may be, to the popular webslinger.  We’ve already seen the character Venom launch into his own series of films, and on the horizon are movies of characters as random as Kraven the Hunter and Madame Web.  This week, however, marks the launch of a lesser know character within the Spider-verse; one who’s identity as a super hero is a little dubious at best.  And yet, Sony believes he’s a character worthy enough to contend in a market where even the most obscure Marvel characters have been turned into household names.  That character of course is the vampire known as Dr. Michael Morbius.

The movie Morbius introduces us to Dr. Michael Morbius (Jared Leto) as he travels to the jungles of South America to capture vampire bats for his lab experiments in hopes of finding a rare blood disorder that he himself is inflicted with.  Having revolutionized medicine already with the invention of synthetic blood, Morbius believes he’s on the edge of a breakthrough cure, and he intends to become the first human test subject.  With the assistance of his colleague Dr. Martine Bancroft (Adria Arjona), he conducts the test run in secret on a ship in international waters.  The experiment has unintended consequences, as Michael’s own DNA is infused with that of the vampire bats that he had been experimenting with, and he body begins to go through transformations.  In a violent, bloodthirsty rampage through the ship, Morbius heads back to his lab, leaving an unconscious Dr. Bancroft the sole survivor on the boat.  Morbius soon learns the limits of what his body can do with these changes, including super human strength, agility, as well as super sensitive hearing that acts like a bat radar.  However, there is a catch; he can only control his abilities as long as he consumes blood.  His supply of synthetic blood helps, but it’s affects are limited.  Meanwhile, Morbius’ new lease on life grabs the attention of his childhood friend Milo (Matt Smith), whose also the rich benefactor that has been funding Michael’s research, mainly because he’s afflicted with the same disorder.  Milo demands that Michael should give him the “cure” as well but Morbius refuses, because he doesn’t want anyone else to have to suffer the same consequences.  At the same time, a pair of FBI agents  (Al Madrigal and Tyrese Gibson) are following Morbius’s actions very closely, as he is their prime suspect for the murders aboard the cargo ship.  To make matters more complicated, a string of mysterious murders are happening across the city, which Morbius believes may be connected with his friend Milo, who at some point went behind Morbius’ back to give himself the “cure.”  Now Michael Morbius must do what he can to stop the monster he has unleashed on the city, while at the same time battling the monster within.

If you were to tell me that Morbius was a comic book movie made 17 years ago, I would believe you.  This is very much a movie that feels like a throwback to those pre-MCU days of comic book movies, complete with it’s somber tone, drab color palette and cheap looking CGI effects.  I would say that this has Avi Arad’s fingerprints all over it, but he’s more or less a background executive producer on the Sony Marvel output.  What it does show is that the formula that Arad began back in the 2000’s seems to not have changed at all within the Sony studio system.  This is a movie that is merely the product of a studio keeping it’s wheels turning and little else; a movie made out of a need to justify Sony’s grip on the Spider-Man properties.  You might have had a couple comic book movie fans hoping that a character like Morbius would pop up somewhere in the Spider-Man films, but no one was really demanding a whole movie dedicated to him.  The only reason we are getting this movie is because Sony seems to have delusional belief that all the characters connected to Spider-Man are capable of carrying their own movie, and that they can spin-off a universe of their own outside of Marvel’s expansive Cinematic Universe.  But, I think they severely overestimate some of the value of these characters too.  What may have convinced Sony to pursue a film devoted to a character like Morbius is because of the success they found with Venom.  However, Venom is a special case because the character does already have a strong, built in following, and those movies were bolstered by Tom Hardy’s committed and eccentric performance.  Here, we are getting a film about a Spider-Man frenemy that I swear a majority of people don’t even realize is connected with Spider-Man.  He’s not even the most popular vampire within Marvel comics: that would be the character Blade, who thankfully has his rights maintained by Marvel itself, with plans for his own reboot starring Mahershala Ali.  So, with a movie that’s born out of a corporate mandated necessity, it’s not anyone’s surprise that Morbius has turned into a passionless mess of a movie that feels well out of date with the rest of the comic book movies that are being made.  However, it could be the already low expectations that I had going into this movie, but I have honestly seen much worse when it comes to comic book movies.

The worst thing I can say about Morbius is that it is boring.  That’s it.  It’s not an insult to cinema.  It’s not offensive in any way.  It’s just a pointless movie, and that’s the extent of it.  The faintest praise I can give is that it didn’t make me angry while I was watching it, like some of the worst comic book movies I have ever seen have done in the past (Fant4stic and Dark Phoenix, for example).  If the movie were separated from it’s comic book origins, and especially from it’s connections to Spider-Man and the other Marvel properties, I would say that it was a harmless if not particularly inspired vampire movie with maybe one or two good scenes here and there.  I think the fact that it’s meant to be another cog in this misguided franchise masterplan that Sony is trying to cook up with their Marvel licenses is what works against it the most.  Thankfully, the Marvel references are kept to a minimum, which is a plus, but once the movie tries to embrace more of the comic book origins, it begins to suffer.  It goes back to that outdated formula that it’s trying to follow, where it seems almost ashamed to be a comic book movie, and tries too hard to be edgy and dark.  It’s kinda hard to make the audience buy into the edginess of the movie once Jared Leto’s face turns bat-like in a rather awkward looking visual render that borders on the ridiculous.  There are definitely many parts of this movie where you can feel like the filmmakers are trying to break away from formula, but are being held back by the studio.  It’s clear in some of the action scenes that the director wanted this movie to be a lot bloodier than what we actually get.  The lack of gushing blood is awkwardly absent in moments that should have looked like it came out of a slasher film, showing that the film was clearly neutered to give it a PG-13 rating.  It’s almost comical how tame the movie gets, especially when there’s a moment when an armed mercenary has his throat slashed by Morbius, but as the actor performs to hold together his mortal wound, you see his neck and hands are completely dry of blood.  Even MCU movies have had better action moments with bloody outcomes, including films like Avengers: Infinity War (2018) which had some pretty shocking moments of brutality.  Morbius could have found some clever ways around it’s restrictive rating, but it chose to take the wrong, more transparently lazy way.

Another big problem with the movie is that Michael Morbius himself is such a bland, uninteresting character.  One of the worst things you can do with establishing your main character is show him to be already perfect even before he becomes a superhero.  Even despite his crippling illness, we are introduced to him winning a Nobel Prize.  Honestly, where do you build from that?  Interesting characters are built around flaws.  You make your hero too perfect from the get-go, and you have a character that feels unrelatable.  And that’s what happens with Michael Morbius in this movie.  All we see him do is figure out the limitations of his new powers.  That’s it.  We don’ get a sense of his personality, his wants and needs, or the things that he must overcome to be the hero he wants to be.  The movie just treats him like a pre-formed hero that we should all embrace immediately, and that just makes him dull.  Though his character is terribly written and frustratingly opaque, I will say that I don’t fault Jared Leto too much with his performance.  In all honesty, after a string of cringey, over-the-top performances from him in Suicide Squad (2016) and House of Gucci (2021), it’s actually refreshing to see him reign it in as Michael Morbius and play him more even keel.  Sure, perhaps he goes a little too far in underacting, but as we’ve seen, he could do a whole lot worse.  Unfortunately, the rest of the cast is mostly wasted.  Veteran character actor Jared Harris gets barely anything to do in his father figure role in this movie, and there’s barely anything to say about Adria Arjona’s presence as the love interest.  The cast’s one saving grace is Matt Smith as the villainous Milo.  He’s the only one allowed to camp it up in the way that the movie desperately needs, and he’s easily the best part of the film.  Through his more playful role, you see glimpses of what the movie could have been if it embraced more of the MCU’s style of comic book storytelling.

What you come to learn over the course of watching Morbius is that at no point does it justify it’s reason for being.  Morbius is not inspiring as a super hero.  There’s nothing about his origin story that we haven’t already seen a hundred times before in other comic book movies.  Literally half of the movie is devoted to Morbius learning the extent of his super powers.  You know what we don’t see; Morbius actually being a super hero.  He never uses his powers to help anyone.  In fact, he ends up letting a lot of people die at the hands of Milo because he is spending most of the movie either in his lab working things out, or in a jail cell after he’s cornered by the FBI. We don’t need to see every detail of Morbius’ origin story; he’s a vampire with a heart of gold, that’s basically the character in a nutshell.  It’s only in a scant couple of scenes that we see the movie start to come to life, and it’s usually the moments where Michael and Milo are facing off.  I will say the movie hits it’s apex in an extended fight between the two in a subway station.  In that scene, we finally get to see the movie actually deliver on the promise of what can be done with this character.  It includes an incredible one-shot where Morbius and Milo fight their way down each level of the station, from street level to the platforms themselves in an exciting, kinetic moment.  If only the rest of the film had that kind of sustained energy.  The adversarial relationship between the hero and the villain is also the only part of the story that has any drive.  There’s absolutely no spark in the romantic subplot, and Morbius’ arc as I mentioned is more of a flat line.  The whole purpose of a super hero origin is seeing the character rise to the hero they are destined to be, and that sometimes means wrestling with one’s own shortcomings in the process.  It’s spoken right there in the immortal phrase “With great power, comes great responsibility.”  Morbius is an already upstanding citizen when we meet him, and he only gets stronger as the movie goes along.  There’s nothing compelling in that narrative, and by the film’s end you are just left wondering why you should even care for Morbius at all.

So, of course there are much worse super hero movies out there.  I’ll credit the movie for not making me feel like I was suffering watching it.  It basically met my low expectation, without sinking any further, and it’s own prize is that it has a good shot of missing my worst of the year list.  Jared Leto is refreshingly subdued in this film, albeit with a character that is as bland and forgettable as they come.  And there are moments where you can see a better movie trying hard to get out.  But, if Sony believes that this is going to be another step towards being able to thrive off their own universe without Marvel’s help, they should really reconsider their overall strategy.  This is a movie that recalls a less than ideal point in time with super hero movies that we’ve clearly moved away from.  Even DC movies have been moving away from those 2000’s era style of comic book movies, and have embraced the idea that these films can indeed feel more like the comic books they were based on, with the silliness in tact.  Morbius just feels like so many angst filled comic book films from days gone by, and in the process, it lacks an identity.  At least with Venom, the Tom Hardy eccentricity gives those films some personality that helps to distinguish it.  Morbius is just an exercise in studio executives playing it safe.  It certainly could’ve been worse, however, and thankfully after 5 different delays due to Covid (it was originally supposed to come out in July 2020), we can now watch it and judge for ourselves.  I for one was unmoved by the movie and found it unforgettable mostly.  It at the very least didn’t make me mad; except for the end credits scenes, which I have to say are probably the worst ones I have ever seen, and not just with comic book movies.  Seriously, if you’ve seen most of the other Sony Spider-Man movies, those end credit scenes make absolutely no sense whatsoever.  Apart from that baffling move, it’s a movie that most people are likely to forget soon after seeing it, which is a shame for a character that could have had some cinematic potential.  It remains to be seen what becomes of Dr. Morbius in the wake of this deeply flawed movie, but certainly there’s a lot to be desired from what Sony is putting out thus far in their plans for a cinematic universe of their own by way of Spider-Man, and it probably would serve them well to not adhere so stringently to past formula and instead look into making movies around characters that are more in touch with the goofier sides of comic books, even if it does make them appear a bit more Marvel-like.

Rating: 5.5. /10