Have you seen the newest Marvel “legend” movie that has people talking and, well, oozing blood since the release of “Morbius” this past weekend? The Sony film starring Jared Leto about the “living vampire” (whatever that means?) hasn’t exactly received the best reviews, especially for Chris Evangelista of /Film. He examines the devastation of this terribly botched comic book movie and reports the sad specifics without holding back any punches in his critique.
Perhaps the most infuriating thing about “Morbius” is how inert it ultimately is. This movie isn’t aggressively bad, or bad in a fun, entertaining way. It’s just plain old regular bad. It’s bad in the way something uninspired is bad. Something that was constructed without an ounce of love, care, or interest. It’s abundantly clear that no one involved here not Leto, director Daniel Espinosa, nor writers Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless has any investment in what they’re creating.
So, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play other than that?
But regardless of whether you agree with the critics or are viewing this critically panned blockbuster more from a “For the fans!” perspective (let’s not forget that the film also received a shockingly low “C+” CinemaScore among general audiences), the movie has left viewers with plenty to talk about in the wake. There are more questions to be asked of those who worked on “Morbius” than there are hours in the day, even after making sense of the movie itself or the post-credits scenes (which raise a few more than they do answers). Luckily, during a lengthy interview he just had with filmmaker Daniel Espinosa, our own Jack Giroux made excellent use of his time. The interview covers a variety of movie-related topics, but one in particular is certain to be of interest to anyone who may have raised an eyebrow or two over the design of Dr. Michael Morbius’ blood-sucking alter ego.
It turns out that there had previously been discussions on adopting a totally different vampire face. Look at the information below!
‘…It starts looking a bit hokey’
Daniel Espinosa, the director, is giving you the responses to any questions you may have. (Well, at least some of them. Nobody appears to be able to explain why so much of the movie’s marketing didn’t actually translate to the actual film.) Espinosa was questioned by /Film’s Jack Giroux if he had ever considered going in a more realistic, low-fi path by using prosthetics or makeup to convince spectators of Morbius’ evil vampire appearance. Whether you liked the finished movie’s VFX-heavy style or not, Espinosa’s intriguing response might have you considering what-if scenarios:
“It started [with makeup]. I started with exactly that because I called [visual effects coordinator] Ryan [Doell] and he said, ‘You should do prosthetics.’ But the problem was that to get the Morbius look, it’s not about negative space. The nose actually goes back and the mouth goes in, and then you build a double the size of Leto’s face, and then you can shrink it, it starts looking a bit hokey. That’s how it happened.”
As much as horror purists may have wished for a much more tactile and grounded feel for Morbius (and, indeed, much of the entire movie, while we’re at it), it’s at least comforting to know that Espinosa, a director who is very experienced in making tense and claustrophobic thrillers like “2012’s “Safe House” or the more recent “Life” in 2017, certainly tried to make the comic book movie’s main character as practical as Although it can’t exactly be stated of “Morbius,” the prior films did let people feel as though they were transported into those stories. Giving viewers just one concrete item to cling onto could have made the remainder of the film a little bit easier to swallow, even if changing the vampire design just a little bit wouldn’t have been enough to rescue the movie. Or perhaps not.
Whatever the case, Sony’s glaringly Spidey-less Spider-Man Universe continued with the (very) inexpensively funded movie this past weekend, though we’ll have to wait and see if it does well enough to continue. Feel free to read the entire /Film interview with Daniel Espinosa in the interim.
Presently showing in theatres is “Morbius.”
