Review | Morbius movie review: lifeless Marvel origin story gives Jared Leto, as Spider-Man’s vampire foe, little to work with

The origin story of Dr Michael Morbius (Leto), a scientist whose cure for his rare blood disease goes badly wrong, making him a foe of Spider-Man, is a big dud

The characters are poorly drawn, their motivations are muddled and the script is threadbare - this is a return to the bad days pre-Marvel Cinematic Universe

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Jared Leto as Dr Michael Morbius in a still from Morbius, directed by Daniel Espinosa. Matt Smith co-stars.

Published: 11:53am, 31 Mar 2022

2/5 stars

Like Venom before it, Morbius is a Marvel Comics-inspired blockbuster set in the outer reaches of the Spider-Verse. Created by Roy Thomas, and first appearing in print in 1971, the titular “living vampire” was a dangerous antagonist to Spider-Man.

Here, as with the Venom movies, Spidey is nowhere to be seen. Instead, we get an origin story as the brilliant scientist Dr Michael Morbius (Jared Leto) attempts to cure his rare blood disease.

After a prologue about his childhood in a facility run by the caring Nicholas (Jared Harris), the story moves on a quarter-century. Morbius (Jared Leto) is now a revered Nobel Prize winner whose development of artificial blood has helped millions.

Behind this is a desperate desire to alleviate his own debilitating condition, aided by fellow doctor Martine Bancroft (Adria Arjona).

Experimenting with human and bat DNA, Morbius undergoes a radical change, gaining superhuman strength and speed – and also a rapacious appetite for human blood.