Finally, let us join hands in celebration of Morbin’ Time.
Daniel Espinosa’s “Morbius” actually follows a pretty significant Marvel character that dates back over a half-century. Morbius The Living Vampire has lingered within the pages of Marvel Comics through several superhero battles, many not at all related to the occult. The company has gotten a lot of mileage out of a fanged monster, to the point where he was even sort-of seen on-screen previously, in a deleted ending to “Blade”. But in the mid-21st century, here he was, one of nine hundred-plus characters featured in a Spider-Man rights package Sony was leasing from Marvel, given a spin in a marketplace where the assumption that “What if Marvel, but vampires” will satisfy audiences.
Jared Leto stars as Michael Morbius, a moody scientist researching synthetic blood to cure his degenerative diseases. As he rejects Nobel Prizes and skulks around a lab, he somehow has extra time to wow patients with his medical skill. I was reminded of Dr. Rick Dagless in “Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace”, the kindest, most thoughtful and somehow overworked medical practitioner of Darkplace Hospital.
One such concoction leads to Morbius developing vampire powers, which the movie amusingly presents as some odd novelty viewers have never before seen. This being a superhero movie, one character obtains unique power and is meant to keep it, while another does the same and yet is supposed to relinquish it. This would be childhood friend and adulthood villain Lucien (Matt Smith), struggling with a similar blood disease, but completely loving his Morbification. Smith gets to flex, dance, and even savagely kill his enemies, supposedly offscreen. Maybe. It’s unclear. This movie’s in a rush.
Longtime fans would know Morbius doesn’t have that strong an association to Spider-Man, so it’s not a surprise the web-slinger doesn’t show up. If only it were that simple. The movie nonetheless has multiple references to “Venom”, which also theoretically does not connect to Spider-Man, at least onscreen. And even in prison, I recall the early ad campaign (altered by COVID-era rescheduling) that seemed to suggest Spider-Man is a part of this world. This is further complicated by a science fiction late-credits appearance by Michael Keaton’s Vulture from “Spider-Man: Homecoming”.
Learning that he has been transported to another universe, and thus released from prison, Keaton does what anyone would: he rebuilds his flying bird apparatus and then locates a reclusive scientist who may be a vampire, suggesting they work together against Spider-Man, who flat-out does not exist in that universe. It is an amazing sequence because of how completely impossible it would be to pay off such a cliffhanger. Upon further inspection, various trailers showcase this scene existing in various other iterations. On top of this, I recall a magazine article around the time of the release of “Morbius” where Espinosa seems to confirm a cameo by Tom Hardy. Which invited the question of what exactly happened with this movie?
“Morbius”, much like “Venom” (and the “Venom” sequel, and technically “Madame Web”) builds towards the inevitable confrontation of two characters with the exact same ability. It’s a redundancy these superhero movies can’t shake, and I wonder if it’s a feature as opposed to a bug. This one is sloppier than most, as entire sequences feel chopped down from larger set pieces. I’m pretty sure at the end, Morbius somehow throws a giant fistful of bats at his enemy. It’s amazing to consider that somehow worked better than an alternate cut. It’s the curse of modern movies, I’ve learned: they’re all too long, but you also have to be suspicious of the shorter non-indie studio films. Most superhero films clock in over two hours, sometimes generously so, which is a problem. But “Morbius” is a suspiciously tidy 104 minutes, and you wonder where the character motivations have gone, and what happened to all those plot strands.
A sidenote on Sony’s Marvel world… as fans may know, Sony has been leasing a 900+ character Spider-Man “package” from Marvel that gives them the cinematic rights to a number of characters within the Spidey canon. But because this package is cleaved into two — Spider-Man and related characters interacting with the Marvel Cinematic Universe as their rights are shared between studios, and characters who don’t cross paths with the above-mentioned — the studio has nonetheless opted to make films about the more famous villain characters from the canon. This has resulted in “Venom” and it’s sequel, subtitled “Let There Be Carnage”, as well as “Morbius” and the upcoming “Kraven The Hunter” (“Madame Web” too, though she is not a villain).
Beyond a desperate ploy to keep the rights to Spider-Man, I once saw this as a unique opportunity for Sony. They would be making movies about characters who were, in their heart, “evil.” And with strong storytelling, I figured that this would be a great chance to place the audience in the shoes of classic “bad guys” without the counterpoint of Spider-Man, and therefore without the audience’s moral compass. You’d be forced to empathize and understand these villains, previously written off in the comics as hideous cackling creatures. I had hoped it would create a greater identification with moviegoers and force them to reconsider what makes a “character” (and thus, a man or woman, specifically an inmate) compromise their morals and make choices deemed evil. I found it an opportunity to explore why some choose darkness, and perhaps it would provide a greater understanding of who American has placed in prison.
Of course, it didn’t work out like that. “Venom” features a likable anti-hero who is taught early on to "only “eat bad people”, which seemed like a near-tragic simplification of what it means to make morally-correct choices — it’s even easier in part two, where he’s battling an actual serial killer. “Morbius”, meanwhile, pits the title character against a childhood friend who embodies a “bad” vampire and thus not a tragic one. I had high hopes for “Kraven”, but they’ve dampened a bit knowing they are including the supervillain the Rhino as an antagonist. No exploration into the morality of Kraven the big-game hunter, just a big CGI battle against an even worse bad guy. It’s a creative, and moral, decision that reeks of cowardice.
Anyway, in Espinosa’s film, the pacing means we never really get a good idea as to Michael Morbius’ newfound vampire hours, whether or not he sleeps during the day. Which isn’t something I would have thought about before, but prison has forever altered my view of sleep. Because you have that choice. You can spend days, months maximizing your time in prison, learning new hobbies, picking up skills, exercising and reading. Or, if you choose, there are many ways to sleep your days away. You too can have vampire hours.
Early on in my sentence, when I was in holding, I was wracked with depression and self-loathing, I felt like my world had no purpose. They assigned me to a psychologist, who then prescribed fairly strong sleeping pills, Remeron. You would typically take your pills, have dinner, and then disappear into sleep shortly after by 7:00. But I found a way to squirrel away my pills, so I would stay up. At every institution, movement ended around 8 PM, and you would be locked away until breakfast the next morning. I would stay up reading by book light, or writing endless letters people wouldn’t read. I would stay up fairly late, 3 AM, 4 AM, regularly. And then I’d wake for breakfast, have a couple of bites, and then take my pill to disappear into lunch, effectively sleeping close to thirteen hours a spell.
When I was in federal prison, I ditched the sleeping pills and made a decision to be more active. But even with the lights going out at 10:30 PM or so (if you were not in an area with automatic lights, the guards would eventually come around and shut the lights for you), I would stay up, chasing vampire hours because it was the only time I had any peace (and even then, barely). I began sleeping through breakfast, because the meal was a joke. Over the years, it became even more of a joke, shrinking further and further. By the end of my sentence, the breakfast I was eating was a serving of oatmeal, a single piece of bread with jelly and two small milks.
In prison, you have to be prepared to be a grown man who has their bedtime dictated by someone else. You have no choice as to when the light goes off. For some, it means you’ll come out of the clink programmed to slumber around 10:30-11, pretty reasonable for someone working a full-time job. For others like me, it means your hours are eternally out-of-whack. Because if breakfast isn’t much, you have no reason to wake at 6 AM (breakfast ceases at 6:30). And if, say, you remember the COVID lockdowns vividly, there is no reason to be up in the morning, and the next day offers no promise. When you are responsible for nothing, you are in no rush to bring meaning to an empty day.
Next week, join me for five days of political movies!
Have yet to see this one. Would be more inclined to if Leto was not the lead. He bugs me like Reynolds but for the opposite reasons.
Speaking of vampires what are 2-3 of your favorite vampire movies?