Marvel's Morbius: 'Unoriginal Spider-Verse spin-off a non event apart from Matt Smith'

Morbeii, there's a lot of them about. A character in Forbidden Planet, a villain in Doctor Who, a French artist.

It's a fun name, you enjoy the feel of it on your tongue: Moibeyus, with heavy stress in the oi. This incarnation, something in the expanding Sony/Marvel Spider-Verse, is a living vampire. After the unprecedented, cinema reviving, Covid-be-damned, success of Spider-Man: No Way Home, this spin-off is a total non-event. It's so stubbornly unoriginal, uneventful and unimaginative you might almost believe it was made out of spite.

The running time is a bit of a giveaway – these days any comic book movie that doesn't get close to two and a half hours is probably a stinker. Michael Morbius (Leto) is the genius, maverick scientist desperately searching for a cure to the rare blood condition that has left him unable to walk without sticks and needing transfusions several times a day. Funding his research is a maverick rich guy and surrogate brother Milo (Smith) who suffers from the same condition. Morbius' solution is a serum taken from vampire bat's blood which gives him superhuman abilities but a craving for blood and something of a temper.

Dr. Michael Morbius (Jared Leto) in Columbia Pictures' MORBIUS. (Image: © 2019 CTMG, Inc. All Rights Reserved.**ALL IMAGES ARE PROPERTY OF SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT INC. FOR PROMOTIONAL USE ONL...)

Vampires are just about the most overworked genre still being employed by the cinema, but Morbius doesn't stop there: it lines up plenty more dead horses for a good flogging. He's The Fly's Seth Brundle, recklessly using himself as a guinea pig for his experiment. He’s the Hulk, trying to control the destructive powers he's given himself. There's even a bit of Matrix-style bullet-time imagery crammed in there.

With no new ideas to offer, the material needs to be delivered with a bit of flash, but the action sequences, set design and special effects all seem to belong to a distant past when comic book movies were dashed off quickly and on the cheap.

Of course, all these criticisms were levelled at the previous Spider spin-off, Venom, and that went on to be a surprise hit. That though had Tom Hardy doing a Jekyll and Hyde turn in the main role. This has a perfectly fine, rather dignified performance by Leto which would be perfect in a good movie, but can’t lift a drab one. This is tough on Leto, who deserves a break after the reception to his performance as the Joker.

Another performer deserving a break is Matt Smith. Since leaving Doctor Who, his choice of big-screen projects has been unerringly bad. He's been in the execrable Terminator Genysis, Ryan Gosling’s derided directorial debut Lost River and then wasn't in the last Star Wars film (perhaps a lucky break). He is playing the villain here and I think he's the best thing in it, the only element adding a bit of fun and energy to proceedings. The delivery of his last line is beautifully judged and very touching.