I don't think Morbius is that bad

[Gold Leaf]

Now, I'm no critic, but I can't say I found that many faults with Morbius. My largest complaints are that the sound design was a little unimpressive and the fact that Milo's portrayal easily surpasses the character that the movie is named after, but other than that the fights looked incredibly cool, there were some very fun scenes like the one where Dr. Morbius tries to be Venom and, as mentioned, Matt Smith's acting as Milo was an 11/10. I think if Marvel had intended this to be its own movie instead of just using it to set up a Spider-Man fight later down the line, it could have achieved great things instead of being relegated to "IT'S MORBIN TIME!" jokes. (Though those are pretty funny.)

Spoiler: Favourite scene:

Show

When Morbius kills Milo. As he's dying, we see the greatest acting the movie has to offer, and the fight that came before it was just too cool.

What do you think?

[Rynjin]

Get away from him everyone, he's beginning to Morb

Real talk though, nothing about this movie ever looked like a good idea. Jared Leto is a cringe loser who I have no interest in seeing onscreen and Morbius is such a weird Z-tier comics character to make a movie out of in the first place. I literally only know he exists because he was in a couple of episodes of the 90's Spider-man cartoon.

[Lurkmoar]

They did a great Super hero vampire/horror flick already. It was actually a trilogy.

It was Blade. The only thing I can say for both Morbius and Blade was that they have bad CGI (imo). But Blade has the excuse of being over two decades old.

[Trixie_One]

Jared Leto is a cringe loser who I have no interest in seeing onscreen

I have no skin in this game. I haven't seen Morbius or indeed any live action Spider-Man related film since Raimi's 3. I do wonder though that if this film had pretty much any other leading man then would the rush to kick the living hell out of it have been quite so intense. That's saying just swap out Leto and keeping the film entirely otherwise unchanged.

I say that as I do think the first Suicide Squad is not good, but does have many moments worthy of being considered quality which usually get overlooked. Well outside of it's work on Killer Croc by the Academy anyway

One of those moments even involved Leto, who don't get me wrong I do think is a real negative to the rest of the film, but there's one moment where he makes the decision to dive into save Quinn, and that's not something I'd ever expect any interation of a Joker to do and I thought that was a neat.

[Rynjin]

I doubt reception would be much better, but Leto being this pretentious "method actor" who probably tried to morb in real life as part of preparing for the role probably didn't help. There's a deep schadenfreude in a man who takes himself far too seriously being viewed by everyone as a clown. It's gotta hurt the ego.

[Lurkmoar]

Supposedly, Wesley Snipes lost himself in the Blade role for the third film.

Coincidence!

[RedSand]

My friend, people are not making those jokes because the movie is bad, though it very well might be. The jokes exist because a lot of people are sick of marvel movies, basically no one has ever heard of Dr. Morbius prior to this and the idea of the MCU just throwing out a random vampire movie with a very stupid name when they've been completely dominating pop culture for over a decade at this point is just. Laughable. No one cares about the movie, the idea that someone would be really into something called Morbius is really funny, so pretending that you saw the movie and it was about some vampire guy yelling "It's morbin time!" and "Everyone stand back! I'm gounna morb!" and you just absolutely loved it is a natural progression re: the joke. People did a similar thing with the movie Chappie years ago.

No offense since you clearly seem to like the movie, but a lot of people saw the title, said "who exactly is this for", made a bunch of ironic jokes about how they're super excited to see Morbius, and those escalated until there is now an entire genre of fanfiction that is just people on twitter making up fake quotes from a movie they probably wouldn't like.

And I'm not judging them either. It's hysterical.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Now, I'm no critic, but I can't say I found that many faults with Morbius. My largest complaints are that the sound design was a little unimpressive and the fact that Milo's portrayal easily surpasses the character that the movie is named after, but other than that the fights looked incredibly cool, there were some very fun scenes like the one where Dr. Morbius tries to be Venom and, as mentioned, Matt Smith's acting as Milo was an 11/10. I think if Marvel had intended this to be its own movie instead of just using it to set up a Spider-Man fight later down the line, it could have achieved great things instead of being relegated to "IT'S MORBIN TIME!" jokes. (Though those are pretty funny.)

Spoiler: Favourite scene:

Show

When Morbius kills Milo. As he's dying, we see the greatest acting the movie has to offer, and the fight that came before it was just too cool.

What do you think?

I thought it was decent too. I’ve mentioned some of this before, but characterization was solid. Dr. Morbius has a very distinct feel from Eddie Brock: bit of a troll, but on top of things when it matters. There was some nice use of foreshadowing with the mouse. There were a couple of points during fight scenes where I was like ‘yeah, I want to see this guy fight Venom, that will be cool.’ The smoky effect fits nicely with the whole ‘vampires turning to mist’ trope, and is both distinct from Venom and most of the supers we’ve seen so far. It made good use of vampire tropes in general. At the same time he doesn’t pull any powers out of thin air, everything is set up in advance. No glaring plotholes, which is more than I can say for some MCU movies (looking at you, Black Widow).

and the idea of the MCU just throwing out a random vampire movie

I need to correct this point: Disney/Marvel did not make Morbius, Sony did. Sony has the rights to Spider-man and his supporting cast, including villains, the only reason we got Spider-man in the MCU is because Disney cut a deal to get him specifically. (You may recall that whole ‘Spider-man leaving the MCU’ press party a few years back? Disney wanted to renegotiate terms.) Thus we get from them movies about Venom, Carnage, Morbius, Kraven the Hunter has one in the works, and so on.

No one cares about the movie, the idea that someone would be really into something called Morbius is really funny,

I have to politely disagree; I went to see this movie owing to having seen him in the 90’s Spider-man cartoon and liking the Venom movie and that’s basically it.

I will also point out that ‘no one cared’ about Shang-Chi, Guardians of the Galaxy, and a number of other deep cuts in the MCU, but Disney/Marvel made them movies anyway despite having access to a much wider array of better-known heroes, which Sony at least has the excuse that they don’t have the rights to.

[DaOldeWolf]

I heard the movie made tons of Morbucks. More than enough to get into the Morbillions.

[Rynjin]

I will also point out that ‘no one cared’ about Shang-Chi, Guardians of the Galaxy, and a number of other deep cuts in the MCU, but Disney/Marvel made them movies anyway despite having access to a much wider array of better-known heroes, which Sony at least has the excuse that they don’t have the rights to.

Shang-Chi, while relatively obscure, is still infinitely more...relevant to make a movie out of than Morbius. Same with the Guardians.

And now Sony is digging even deeper for their next desperate fix, El Muerto. A character who, based on what I can find, has literally only ever appeared in two Spider-man issues. I can't wait for him to Mort all over those guys. 11 Mortrillion tickets will be sold, I'm sure.

[Eldan]

Shang-Chi, while relatively obscure, is still infinitely more...relevant to make a movie out of than Morbius. Same with the Guardians.

And now Sony is digging even deeper for their next desperate fix, El Muerto. A character who, based on what I can find, has literally only ever appeared in two Spider-man issues. I can't wait for him to Mort all over those guys. 11 Mortrillion tickets will be sold, I'm sure.

With no context, I will simply assume that El Muerto is a Luchadore who is possessed by Santa Muerte and looks like Ghost Rider. That's almost certainly more interesting than what we'll actually get.

Edit: *looks character up on Wiki* Dangit, I was joking.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Shang-Chi, while relatively obscure, is still infinitely more...relevant to make a movie out of than Morbius. Same with the Guardians.

Hw do you figure?

[Rynjin]

Hw do you figure?

A.) They're both heroes/hero groups in their own right rather than extraordinarily minor supporting cast. B.) They both serve as a solid, grounded introduction to two parts of the MCU that hadn't been touched on yet: cosmic/spacefaring for Guardians, and the martial arts/mysticism side that may mean, one day, if some benevolent being decides to bless me, we get a good adaptation of the conflict between the Immortal Weapons and the seven heavenly cities.

[Cikomyr2]

I watched it 2 days ago for the first time. I think the biggest problem with the movie is just how absurdly boring and generic it is. The final act when the hero and bad guy face down is just a generic CGI fest of action beat.

Nothing clever. No wit, no surprises. You see every beat coming a mile away. Theres a lot to like about Morbius - the acting is certainly solid - but the script was horribly "90s generic superhero movie".

[Kareeah_Indaga]

A.) They're both heroes/hero groups in their own right rather than extraordinarily minor supporting cast.

1.) Morbius has been a hero too (in the 90’s cartoon he teamed up with Black Cat and IIRC Blade and a quick glance at the wiki tells me he’s done the hero bit in the comics as well). If anything he’s more of a hero than the Guardians, because he was mucking around with bat DNA to cure sick people whereas the Guardians just want to get paid.
2.) That doesn’t actually make them relevant.

B.) They both serve as a solid, grounded introduction to two parts of the MCU that hadn't been touched on yet: cosmic/spacefaring for Guardians, and the martial arts/mysticism side that may mean, one day, if some benevolent being decides to bless me, we get a good adaptation of the conflict between the Immortal Weapons and the seven heavenly cities.

1.) Thor did cosmic/space first, so no not really.
2.) You sure you want to see Finn Jones again?

[M1982]

I have no skin in this game. I haven't seen Morbius or indeed any live action Spider-Man related film since Raimi's 3. I do wonder though that if this film had pretty much any other leading man then would the rush to kick the living hell out of it have been quite so intense. That's saying just swap out Leto and keeping the film entirely otherwise unchanged.

I went into the movie without knowing anything except that I heard once that it's supposed to be made and then later that it's actually playing already.

Nothing inbetween about anything related to it's making or anything regarding any critics and ratings on the finished movie.

I am even in the minority that liked Leto's Joker and would have liked to see more of him.

I walked in without any bias or pre-conditioning what to expect. I walked out bored, disappointed and regretting my money.

Reading about the negative reviews afterwards did not surprise me at all.

[Mokèlé-mbèmbé]

Now, I'm no critic

if you got an opinion u good as gold.

just cos you ain't work for the chicago tribune doesn't make you any less equipped to critique than... whoever they got working for the chicago tribune rn.

my feeling is, go about life as though you were a published critic. it's a gas.

[Eldan]

2.) You sure you want to see Finn Jones again?

He wouldn't be that hard to write out, surely. Just introduce a new Iron Fist, surely there must be some others who took up that mantle at some point.

[Rynjin]

Or just, you know, recast him. He didn't exactly create an impression, unlike Mike Coulter. If they could get away with recasting the Hulk, Iron Fist should be no problem. Cast someone with martial arts experience this time.

[GloatingSwine]

Yeah, I think we can all make the agreement to silently pretend that Iron Fist and Defenders never happened, and do Heroes for Hire with Mike Coulter and someone who could actually play Danny.

[Precure]

To be honest, this whole negative campaigns for both this and the Doctor Strange movie is probably bolstered due to the recent political drama regarding Disney.

[Ramza00]

I doubt reception would be much better, but Leto being this pretentious "method actor" who probably tried to morb in real life as part of preparing for the role probably didn't help. There's a deep schadenfreude in a man who takes himself far too seriously being viewed by everyone as a clown. It's gotta hurt the ego.

Per interviews (I think this detail came from Vanity Fair) the method actor Leto was using crutches all the time and this frequently made the shoot be behind for it took 40 mins to get from his trailer to the shooting location when he used crutches.

Leto wanted to feel the pain of his fictional handicap for this was his method. Meanwhile I was thinking reading this image screenshot of the ridiculous man that everyone was passing around on the social media, that the simpler solution is one can just kick him in the leg if his goal is to feel pain.

———

(Yes not all Method Actors are like this, I think Leto likes saying he is method so he can be a rude jerk to everyone else on the filming site)

[Rynjin]

Yeah, I think we can all make the agreement to silently pretend that Iron Fist and Defenders never happened, and do Heroes for Hire with Mike Coulter and someone who could actually play Danny.

This would make me very happy, but sadly I'm pretty sure somebody at Marvel editorial ****ing hates Iron Fist because he keeps getting screwed over both on-screen and in the comics.

[Trixie_One]

This would make me very happy, but sadly I'm pretty sure somebody at Marvel editorial ****ing hates Iron Fist because he keeps getting screwed over both on-screen and in the comics.

He does have a bad case of 'white man learns something foreign, and is better at it than the foreigners' which makes him a much harder sell these days. Any adaptation that handles the character like the series did is going to want to try to undercut and/or appologise for it, and that never works if you're trying to make this a character general audiences warm up to as you're basically telling them this guy sucks so the audience can't be blamed for agreeing with you.

To use much a more frivolous comics example there was a period where they were trying to make Aquaman a character to be taken seriously, and so they all felt they had to address the 'talks to fish' joke in one or another, and they all sucked because it got old so very fast rather than using that same time to show how the character could be amazing instead. Like for example in Brave and the Bold where they just gave him an OUTRAGEOUS personality and it worked gangbusters.

[Rynjin]

He does have a bad case of 'white man learns something foreign, and is better at it than the foreigners' which makes him a much harder sell these days. Any adaptation that handles the character like the series did is going to want to try to undercut and/or appologise for it, and that never works if you're trying to make this a character general audiences warm up to as you're basically telling them this guy sucks so the audience can't be blamed for agreeing with you.

This issue is already handled by later evolutions of the story, as A.) he was raised from a very young age in K'un L'un (meaning he got the same amount of time to train) and B.) all of the other Immortal Weapons are of Asian descent, as were most previous Iron Fists (most of whom were more powerful at the same stage of development). They don't need to "apologize" for it because there's nothing wrong. He's the best there because he's the best there at the time, not because of any inherent superiority.

Plus I don't think Disney actually...cares? Given how hard they whitewashed the Ancient One.

[Cikomyr2]

This issue is already handled by later evolutions of the story, as A.) he was raised from a very young age in K'un L'un (meaning he got the same amount of time to train) and B.) all of the other Immortal Weapons are of Asian descent, as were most previous Iron Fists (most of whom were more powerful at the same stage of development). They don't need to "apologize" for it because there's nothing wrong. He's the best there because he's the best there at the time, not because of any inherent superiority.

Plus I don't think Disney actually...cares? Given how hard they whitewashed the Ancient One.

Yhea but they regenderized her, so the Problemeter didnt ping too much.

[Eldan]

It also gets a bit confusing about how many hidden mystical Asian martial arts places there are. MCU has three now? (K'un L'un, Ta Lo and Kamar Taj.) Two of them with dragons, too.

[Rynjin]

Honestly expanding the Seven Capital Cities of Heaven into one setting wouldn't be a bad idea with that in mind. It was always weird that they're kind of dimensionally out of sync and take turns aligning with Earth. Just make it a whole separate spiritual realm where all seven cities exist, and I imagine it'd be easy for audiences to understand.

[Anonymouswizard]

(Yes not all Method Actors are like this, I think Leto likes saying he is method so he can be a rude jerk to everyone else on the filming site)

Yeah, was going to comment on this. Method acting is a legitimate method that many actors use successfully, but jerks will be jerks.


On the movie's quality, there's nothing wrong with legitimately liking a bad or unpopular piece of media. People's tastes differ, and there's nothing wrong with disagreeing with critical or popular opinion.

Like how Colin Baker is clearly the best Doctor and David Tennant the worst.

[Eldan]

Weird way of spelling McCoy you have there.