Morbius Review

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Quick heads up at the top of the episode guys, this month podchaser.com is teaming up with World Central Kitchen to provide food supplies for Ukraine as part of their Hashtag Chefs for Ukraine initiative. This will provide meals to individuals and families fleeing the current crisis there. For every review of our podcast or one of our episodes, Podchaser will donate 25 cents to World Central Kitchen. And another 25 cents.

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Welcome to the Dynamic Duel Podcast, a weekly show where we review superhero films and debate the superiority between Marvel and DC by comparing their characters in stat-based battle simulations. I'm Johnny DC. And I'm his twin brother Marvelous Joe. In this episode, we will be reviewing the long-delayed Morbius film produced by Sony Pictures. Now, a lot of you may be surprised in this upcoming review to hear that I actually didn't hate it.

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Yeah, I went in with the lowest of expectations and I was actually looking forward to like hating on the film. But we'll get into our thoughts later on in the episode. Before that, we're going to break down the comic book movie news from the past week. Of which there is just one big movie related news item and that is that Sharon Stone is going to play the villain Victoria Kord in the Blue Beetle movie. It was a pretty slow news week. It seemed like all of the Hollywood news was about Will Smith and like Ezra Miller. I mean the Ezra Miller news does sort of affect the DCEU.

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but it wasn't specific to the flash, so we're not really gonna talk about it. As always, we list our segment times in our episode description, so feel free to check out the show notes if you wanna skip ahead to a particular topic. And don't forget, guys, to join us on Patreon, where we offer ad-free episodes of the show via a custom RSS feed, bonus content, including top 10 episodes and bloopers, monthly live movie watch-alongs, and access to our Discord chat server. Check it out right after this episode at patreon.com slash dynamicduel.

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linked in our show notes. Our lowest tier is only $2 a month. But with that out of the way, quick to the no prize. A no prize is an award Marvel used to give out up until the 90s to fans. Our version, the dynamic dual no prize, is a digital award we post on social media that Jonathan sometimes draws for those who we feel gave the best answer to our question of the week. That's fair. I am very, very behind.

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like a month behind on these No Prize illustrations. Just I want to apologize to everyone who's won a No Prize in the past month. I'm working on them. I have some of the illustrations done, not all of them. I'm trying to put all of them up all at once. I think the listeners deserve to know why you're so behind. So Joseph and I used to work together. He recently abandoned me, so I have more responsibilities at work.

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And just life in general, I got a new house. I'm doing a lot of work on the house on the weekends. It's I have less free time, but that's not a good excuse. And I need to get on those drawings. I know. I know. I'm sorry, guys. You're right. It's not a good excuse. I said that. I said that. Anyway, last week, we asked the question, should the deleted scene in The Batman with Joker have been in the movie?

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or not and why. And of course this was related to the deleted scene that Matt Reeves posted to social media that we all got to see involving the Joker and Batman in Arkham Asylum. We got quite a few answers. Let's go through our list of honorable mentions before we announce this no prize winner. Our first honorable mention goes to John Spies who said, Hi gentlemen, Executive Producer John Spies here. Not only should the deleted scene not have appeared in the movie.

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But the whole Joker cameo was completely unnecessary. It added nothing to the story, only to add for fan service, and to be honest, we're a little oversaturated with the Joker right now. So honestly, he's got a whole rogues gallery. Give us something new. Do you think that the Joker was included in the Batman movie as fan service? Oh yeah, totally. I agree with John. I don't think there was really any reason for him to be in the movie and even the deleted scene.

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save for fanservice. It is great to know that he exists in that universe and I definitely would have been questioning where's the Joker if he didn't appear in the movie as a fan, but that being said I understand it's there only for the fans and wasn't there for the story. I've gone back and forth as to whether or not this should be in the film and you know acknowledging the fact that it is fanservice is a pretty good reason.

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John of course is the co-host of the Blast from Our Past podcast, which he does with his brother Adam Spies. Both John and Adam are actually going to be guests on our podcast in just a couple of weeks. You may remember them from our past episodes like our X-Men Origins Wolverine review and our review of the 1960s Batman movie with Adam West. I love both of those episodes. I can't wait to have these guys back on our show. Yeah, it'll be a great time. Our next honorable mention goes to Rick, who said...

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Hey guys, Rick here. I think it was super necessary to pull such an unnecessary scene from the movie. When I say that, I don't mean I didn't like the character. I loved his betrayal and take on the Joker. I just don't think he did anything to really move the story they were trying to tell along. I think it was a very character saturated movie already. And I think those characters did a fantastic job of advancing the story they were trying to tell. I hope to see him more. I hope to see him in future movies. I just don't think he belonged in this one and I'm glad they pulled the scene.

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Yeah, I thought Barry Keegan did a fantastic job as the Joker. I thought that take on the Joker was really, really super interesting. But again, it really didn't service the story. Just like John said, what do you think will come first? A sequel to the Batman or a sequel to the Joker? Like, when do you think we'll see this character again? Oh, snap. That's a good question. I feel like a sequel to the Joker will come up sooner because I feel like Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix have been working on that for a while. Honestly, though.

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I don't know if I need a sequel to the Joker. In fact, I know I don't. I'm really hoping we get to see a sequel to the Batman and never see a sequel to the Joker. I think that's a great standalone story. Just let that one exist on its own. Yeah, I think I agree with that for sure. Great answer, Rick. Our final honorable mention goes to Jacob Bell, who said. Hey guys, this is Jacob Bell. I may have submitted this answer too late, but either way, I think it should have been in the movie.

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I think it was a great scene and I think ultimately the reason it should have been in the movie is because that kind of scene would have been in the comics. Like if that movie was a comic or whatever, that kind of scene would have been in the comic absolutely and that's just how the source material is so I think it should have been in the movie.

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Yeah, I'm old enough to remember back when they did like novelizations of these comic book superhero films and they would always have like extra scenes. They still may make these books. I'm actually not sure. But yeah, this feels like this scene would have been in one of those stories, just one of those extra scenes and definitely in a comic book, because, you know, in comics, you're not limited by time like you are in a film. You're limited by page counts. Right. Exactly. But you're also allowed to tell a really long story over a span of a month over a year rather than just.

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within a few hours. I did really like the scene as I mentioned last week when we talked about it. I thought it was a fantastic scene that really did justice to the Joker and portrayed him in a way that we haven't seen him in a really long time on film. Just like literally the smartest guy in the room and just like a total psychological threat for Batman. Yeah thanks Jacob Bell. A lot of great answers here. We want to give big thanks to Wilfright, Bodhi, Simone Bermudez and John Storosky for also taking the time to visit our website.

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Click that record button and leave your answer. But the no prize for this week goes to Benjamin Alves who said Hey John and Joe, so I think the Joker scene should have been in the movie because like it gave out too much of the story and it like, I don't know, I feel like it would be better if the Joker just wasn't in this movie or like they teased it with um

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the Joker card like in Batman Begins. Like, yeah, that's it. Bye guys. Yeah, honestly, I think I would have been happier with like a Joker tease, maybe not the card, because we've already had that, than the scene that we got in the movie. The deleted scene, I agree with Benjamin, did reveal too much of the story. Like the Joker gave away that the Riddler's motive was vengeance before we would have even known that, right? And the fact that he was able to figure it out so quickly.

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ahead of Batman just made Batman look like he wasn't that smart. And that scene kind of took away from what made the scene between Batman and the Riddler so special in Arkham. Right, right. Those scenes took place like in almost literally the same location, right? So it's hard not to compare both of them. And I really, really liked Paul Dano's performance in that scene. It was so haunting, so weird. But you can also see the same thing about the Joker scene. So it wouldn't quite make sense to have.

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two kinds of scenes that were so similar in the same movie. I do wish they would have taken the Joker completely out of the film and just saved him for later. And that's why Benjamin Alvis gets this week's win. Yeah, congrats Benjamin for winning this week's No Prize. If you the listener want a shot at winning Giro No Prize, stay tuned to later on this episode when we'll be asking another question of the week. And now that that's done, on to the news!

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Okay, last week we learned that Sharon Stone will be playing Victoria Cord, who I guess is the villain in the upcoming Blue Beetle movie that will be starring Sholo Maritwenya. I'm really looking forward to this movie and I've been wondering who the main villain was going to be and I'm actually really surprised to hear that it's an original character named Victoria Cord. Now it sounds like she is related to the character Ted Cord.

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You know, either his mother or maybe his wife or something like that. Or maybe a gender swap. It could be that too. Yeah, they may be gender swapping Ted Kord into Victoria Kord, which would be interesting. I would also hate it, but it would be interesting. Ted Kord, if you're not familiar with him, is the second Blue Beetle, actually DC Comics' first Blue Beetle, because Blue Beetle, of course, is a legacy character that was taken from Charlton Comics, which DC acquired in the 80s.

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Yeah, Ted Kord's version of Blue Beetle was like this inventor kind of gadgeteer type character. He was the head of Kord Industries. I'm wondering if Victoria is going to be the head of Kord Industries in this upcoming movie. And that's just speculation. But if that's the case, I get heavy Catwoman movie vibes from this casting, because of course, Sharon Stone was the villain in the Catwoman movie with Halle Berry.

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You know, but also she was probably the best part of that movie in a way. I think she's a fantastic actress. You know, I still remember her from films like Basic Instinct. Did you say Basic Instinct? Of course, who'd forget that? No, but I do think she should be working more than she is. I know she was almost cast in a Marvel movie. Wasn't she almost going to be cast as Janet Van Dyne? Yeah, before Michelle Pfeiffer got the role. See, I would have loved to have seen Sharon Stone over Michelle Pfeiffer in that role, just so we could have.

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Michael Douglas Sharon Stone reunion. But I really hope Victoria Cord is like Ted Cord's sister or something like that and maybe they're both vying for the head of the company. Initially when I heard about this casting I didn't know her name was Victoria Cord. I automatically thought that she was going to play the character Ladama from the Blue Beetle comics. She's like a mob boss, this urban legend like no one is quite sure if she's real or not and she's into the occult. That's right she was in the recent Cat Omen hunted animated movie that we reviewed. Right yep.

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was her. And you know, for all I know, maybe that's secretly who Victoria Cord is. Hopefully, let's not have a spoiler for anyone. But we'll see. I don't actually know any of Blue Beetle's rogues gallery. Like, is there a character that you wish would have been the villain of this instead of Victoria Cord? I mean, ultimately, Jaime Reyes, his Blue Beetle scarab, has alien origins from this alien race known as the Reach. I imagine that ultimately they will be the ultimate

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occultism, Ladama will be involved with like, I don't know, black market alien weaponry from the Reach or something like that. And she wants the scarab for herself. This is all speculation, who knows. But yeah, the Reach would make sense for the character. If Sharon Stone turns out to not be like a version of Ladama and she actually is a gender swapped version of Ted Kord, it would be interesting to see like a female version of the Blue Beetle character. But if Ted Kord is in the movie, well, that just brings us to our question of the week.

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Who would you cast as Ted Kord in the Blue Beetle movie? Record your answer at dynamicduel.com by clicking on the red microphone button in the bottom right-hand corner, which will prompt you to leave us a voicemail. Your message could be up to 30 seconds long, and don't forget to leave your name in case we include you on the podcast. We'll pick our favorite answer and draw that person a Dynamic Duel No Prize that we'll post to social media. Be sure to answer before April 9th. But I think that does it for all the news for this episode, so let's go ahead and get into our main event.

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where we review the latest Sony Pictures Spider-Man Universe film, Morbius.

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Okay, so Morbius came out this past week, finally, after being delayed several times from its initial July 2020 release date, largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Like Venom and Venom Let There Be Carnage, the film is part of Sony's Spider-Man universe that is adjacent to the MCU and indirectly associated with Spider-Man. When the Morbius film was first announced, I was bummed because, let's be real, Sony doesn't know what they're doing.

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and they're only holding onto the Spider-Man film rights to make money, not because they care about these characters or about making great movies. So in this film kept getting pushed back. Honestly, I didn't really care. And my anticipation for it was nonexistent. Oh, yeah, dude, you think yours was nonexistent. Mine was like beyond negative nonexistent. Like if this film never came out, I would have been thrilled. Like I would joke.

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that the movie was gonna be amazing and make trillions of dollars. And I was doing that ironically, because honestly I didn't have any faith that this film was gonna be good. My expectations could not be lower unless I guess they were yours. Right. But I think that was definitely to the movie's benefit, because not only did I find that the movie was not terrible, I thought it was actually pretty decent, similar to how I found the first Venom film or the new Mutants. So despite what I thought the movie would be and how many critics are coming down on it,

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I would in fact recommend the movie if you have even the slightest inclination to see it. To me this is like a perfect streaming film, like don't pay extra to see it at least. But check it out on streaming if you want to waste a couple of hours of your life. I mean also check it out if you like vampire movies or if you like Jared Leto or Matt Smith or great visual effects or if you're a fan of Morbius as a character. There are plenty of reasons.

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to watch this movie. And if you haven't seen it, I would suggest stop listening to this review because we're going to be discussing spoilery plot points from the movie, see the movie first, then come back and compare your thoughts with ours. Now I'm not going to say that this is a great film by any means, but in this day and age, it does seem like people will trash something as a dumpster fire if it doesn't absolutely blow them away. And I'm like, let's be realistic. Quality is a spectrum. It's not black or white. There are plenty of middling films out there.

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that could be worth your time depending on what your tastes are. Now Morbius is not Avengers Infinity War, but it's not Catwoman either. And I honestly think people who know the character of Morbius in the comics would be hard pressed to come up with a much better film for him given his backstory. Honestly this is probably almost as good of a Morbius film as you're gonna get where it has a PG-13 rating and no Spider-Man involvement. Because we both know changing either of those things would have made this better.

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Yeah, totally. I mean, I've seen so much hate online for this movie. A lot of it for me, honestly. But after having seen it, I I don't get the hate from people who have seen the movie, I guess. I mean, the movie reminded me a lot of a superhero film from when I was a kid, you know, in the 90s and early 2000s. Just check your brain at the door kind of entertainment, right? We get into debates over the value of entertainment all the time.

18:03
To me it comes secondary to story, but Marvel fans can't seem to get enough of it. Which is why I'm wondering why so many Marvel fans have turned on this film. Like what kind of film were you expecting with a character like Morbius? Well I mean, the movie does have a lot of issues. We'll definitely talk about them as we go through this review. I'll start off by saying that the marketing of the film was an utter shit show. Oh totally. Not only did the trailers fail to get people excited for the movie,

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they didn't adequately represent the movie. A lot of what you've seen in the trailers ended up on the cutting room floor, including a lot of Jared Harris's role, Tyrese's role, you know, there was no bionically enhanced arm here, and the meeting between Morbius and Michael Keaton's vulture, which I know a lot of people were anticipating. Yeah, it really makes you wonder what this movie would have looked like if it came out before No Way Home. Right, they may have resulted in a lot of the changes here. Now, I try not to hold the marketing of a film against the final product.

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But it's clear that this movie got edited a lot. And that may be a good thing after all, considering the movie was actually better than the trailers made it out to be. I'm guessing the studio identified and removed some of the film's early problems, which is good, but yeah, it's cut up. And the movie is not long either because of that. It's only about an hour and 44 minutes and it moves at a pretty brisk pace. And in a way, I would almost describe this film as the anti-The Batman.

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where nothing lasts longer than necessary. And I think a lot of people that did not like the Batman will probably really like this film. Well, I think a Venn diagram of people who think that and also like ate paste as a child is like a perfect circle. Ha ha ha.

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I guarantee you they do.

19:54
Uh, no, I mean, I don't think the movie is quite as dumb as you're portraying it. You know, when I did a deep dive of reading into the character of Morbius during our duel episode where we pit him against Manbat, I found that Morbius is one of Marvel's most, if not the most tragic character because not only has he experienced a lot of the tremendous loss and unbearable circumstances that a lot of heroes go through.

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Specifically, he was like a good man and doctor who became a monster compelled to kill. He can't control himself, he can't cure himself, and because of his healing factor, he can't die, not even from traditional weapons due to his technically non-supernatural status. So he lives as this pitiable soul in the comics who tries to make the best of his situation by combating evil. And I felt that if this movie was going to be any good, it really had to convey that tragic theme.

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of being forced into essentially committing murder in order to live. And while elements of that were here, I think this film addressed the issue mostly indirectly. The only innocent people he killed were on the boat, and their innocence kind of is up for speculation given that they were mercenaries. Yeah, the film basically went out of its way to tell you that, hey, these guys probably deserve to die. Yeah. Yeah, they're not good guys.

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But to the film's credit, it did introduce some interesting devices to Morbius's mythology. One of which was like the synthetic blood. And that kind of served as like a ticking time bomb in the movie, where once that temporary solution had run its course, he would become the uncontrollable murderer. But also in this movie, if he didn't drink the synthetic blood and he drank real blood, he would also become uncontrollable, like go into this bloody drunken rage.

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So it was tricky. And then of course, in this film, he also developed a means of killing vampires like himself with that iron rich anticoagulant, which was pretty nice because he never came up with that in the books. So while like this wasn't quite the story of an uncontrollable killer, it did bring some interesting ideas to the table to sidestep that. And the consequences of his failure still felt very real.

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I think the film did a good job introducing what Morbius would be like if things were taken to their worst. You know, we had Milo as an example. Yeah, absolutely. He was essentially what the consequences would be. And it's just a cold, ruthless killer. Morbius did not want to be that. And though he has resorted to drinking the blood of innocents in the comic books from time to time, you know, he started out as a Spider-Man villain after all, his whole arc has always involved trying to prevent that. He feels extreme guilt over those vampiric actions.

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So at least they captured that in this movie. But I think what surprised me most about this film was the quality of its special effects, actually. Because I didn't think they'd be very good from the trailers. Specifically though, in the quality of its body effects. The visual effects that were around during the time of Captain America, the first Avenger, we've gone way past that. Because in that movie, like the pre-serum Steve Rogers, sometimes looked like Chris Evans disembodied head on a scrawny dude's shoulders, you know? Wait, like Bobblehead?

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Yeah, yeah, the scenes of like Jared Leto like laying on the table in the freighter. That was seamless. I was like, dang, like Jared Leto must not have eaten for like a few months to do that scene. You know, and he's done stuff like that for roles, but it seems like he may not have to do that ever again because the special effects are so good here. They can make actors bodies look like whatever they want to. He went from an emaciated guy in the beginning to like a male underwear model without really any suspension of disbelief. Oh, yeah, totally.

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I think the seamless and subtle way Morbius and Milo would transform into their vampire forms was also really impressive and kind of disturbing even. Like Matt Smith's vampire face in particular was the stuff of nightmares for me. Like so much so that when the camera would linger on it, I'd get uncomfortably creeped out. But also, I think that's as far as the great special effects went. I don't know if I would agree with you in saying that this film's special effects were that great. It was a little cartoonish. I think they could have taken it a step further.

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Well, I mean like when they weren't actively flying around and smashing into things. I think their look was really well done. Let's go ahead and move into the character breakdown. Starting with Michael Morbius who is played by Jared Leto. And let me start off by saying I can't stand Jared Leto. The guy is pretentious as fuck. He almost ruined the concerts that I went to at Red Rocks. I won't get into it, but he was really drunk and made like the audience sing all the words to his 30 seconds to Mars songs. Yes, I don't have too much against the guy. I feel like

24:31
You've been hanging that over his head for as long as I can remember. Honestly, though, I thought he was perfect for this role. I thought he did a fantastic job as Morbius. Yeah, I mean, the guy can act no matter how I feel about him. You know, outside of the Joker, I should say. I think he's a fantastic actor and, you know, he has the accolades to prove it. From Rokuiem for a Dream and Dallas Buyers Club. I was very satisfied with his performance here, and I really liked him in the role as much as I didn't want to.

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He just has a very subtle acting technique that is pretty effective, I think. I think it helps in the fact that Jared Leto is a literal vampire, and the fact that he's 50 years old and looks like he's 29. Yeah, he's definitely been drinking the blood of innocence or something like that. Yes, yes. There's no other explanation. Now in regards to the character, I think Morbius is probably one of the easier characters to get right in terms of motivation, because it's very straightforward. You know, he develops...

25:26
the experimental bat treatment because he wants to live essentially, and then he becomes a pseudo vampire and fights evil because it's the only way his conscience can tolerate his murderous nature. Here it's more about stopping one evil, in particular his best friend Milo, who took the serum he developed and so he feels some responsibility in stopping. So the main storyline is easy to understand where he's coming from, but at the end of the movie...

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It wasn't quite clear what his plan was in regards to his thirst now that the synthetic blood was ineffective, or what his plan in general was, whether it was to look for a new treatment, or become an anti-hero, or what. Now yeah, the movie really started and ended with Milo. Once that whole arc was wrapped up, the movie ended pretty abruptly. Yeah, for sure. I guess, ultimately, he's joining the Sinister Six, but like, who knows what their goals are outside of defeating Spider-Man?

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who I'm not even sure exists within this universe. Well, Morbius seemed to know who he was. Yeah, he didn't question it. But also he didn't really say anything to the vulture at the end of the movie besides interesting. Isn't this weird? It was a bizarre edit of like a last minute reshoot or something, it was bizarre. We'll probably talk more about the end credit scenes later. But back to Morbius, I thought the portrayal of his powers was interesting. Like they substituted his enhanced senses in the comics.

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with echolocation, which is not a power that Morbius has in the source material, even though it probably should be. You know, in the books, he can smell things very acutely, he can see in the dark and in various wavelengths, but in the film, it was all about sound, which gave him this radar sense, which I think totally works thematically due to his bad nature. And I think they probably should adopt that power for him in the comics. Yeah, Marvel seems to have pretty good synergy between their movies and their comics.

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if they didn't go this route. Yeah, I think it would be totally apt. And I thought it was interesting how they portrayed the echolocation visually in this movie, where everything kind of moved with a smoke trail and the things that he focused on seemingly gave off like a sort of smoke signal. I thought it was pretty neat and very unlike how Daredevil's radar sense has been visually portrayed. I didn't like the way this was portrayed. Just making everything cloudy didn't make sense to me because sound isn't really like a cloud.

27:50
I think they could have done it differently, but at least it's different, you know, from from anything else we've seen. I think it didn't 100 percent click with me until like toward the end of the movie when he was gliding through the city to save Martine. And like he could kind of sense her blood visually floating through the air, like he was sensing it as the sound waves bounced back to him. And that's how he was perceiving it. It was almost like she smelled or something like that, you know, like you could smell her blood, maybe. Yeah, something like that.

28:18
The smoke kind of represented multiple senses in that regard. In the movie posters and stuff like that, we saw like these waves emanating from him. I thought that would have been cooler. Well, we did see that briefly when he was first explaining his echolocation. We saw like the sound waves go out and then come back. They use this interesting visual cue where his eyes got cloudy whenever he would use echolocation. Oh, and his ears rippled too. Yeah, they became like furry or something. Gross. It's weird.

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I don't know if they needed both of those visual cues, but, uh, cause the ear thing was just kind of gross. It's like, Ooh, my ears are tingling. I do like the way this movie explained the science of his bat serum. Cause like in the books, you know, it was just like bat blood and electroshock, but here he was like vampire bats evolved into the only animals that feed entirely on blood because of some kind of enzyme they have and blah, blah, blah. Yeah. I totally thought that the science behind this movie,

29:15
was much easier to understand and accept than the science from the comics. Yeah. I love the vampirism angle that they took for this movie. It was really well done, I thought. For some reason, I always like when they mix science with the supernatural, kind of like Blade kind of explained why vampires need to drink blood and stuff like that. But essentially in this movie, his treatment was like a chimeric merge of human and bat cells that made this feel more like the Island of Dr. Moreau, but on a much more practical level.

29:45
Yeah, I love all the different adaptations that they made to make the character more modern and accessible. If it was like the instead of being a stowaway on a ship, like he had to go out and do this experiment in international waters. I thought that was cool. Yeah. Yeah. I love the synthetic blood. That was really cool. And I love the look of the synthetic blood, like how it was blue. You know, it was like this is the good stuff and the red stuff is the danger stuff. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Let's go to move on to Lucian, AKA Milo played by Matt Smith. I thought Matt Smith.

30:15
I didn't know what to think about him before this movie, because he had a very small part in the trailers, but I thought he was a lot of fun here. I wasn't expecting him to be any good at all, but he turned out to be actually one of my favorite parts of the movie. He almost saves this movie with how sinister of a villain he is. Oh totally. I knew he was probably going to be my favorite part of the film going into it, and he absolutely was. Yeah. I mean he killed a lot of people here, and he did it with like this sense of superiority and glee.

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So you could totally see why he needed to be stopped. But the fact that he and Morbius were best friends, almost brothers since childhood, it threw an interesting dramatic element in there. Yeah, they also made him the benefactor of Morbius's research. So it kind of threw another interesting twist in there as to like who really owned the research and was he entitled to that serum? Yeah, for sure. It was a kind of relationship that you don't see too much within these superhero stories. Like even going back to when they were kids, I think Morbius...

31:10
first called him Milo as like this way to detach from this new kid who probably wasn't gonna live long as a friend, you know? And the nickname stuck and towards the end of the movie when Morbius finally killed him at the end, Milo was like, you can't kill me, you gave me my name, you know? I thought that was kind of deep, you know? There was like some palpable weight to the tragedy of it. Yeah, you almost get the sense that Morbius was like responsible for Milo's life in a way. Yeah. He definitely promised to cure him and to save him.

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So when that ends up going bad, it's very heartbreaking that he had to take Milo's life. Yeah. And I think that aspect, you're right, did save the film and did add some extra gravitas and some extra thematic weight that the film otherwise would not have had. It is hard to know why Milo turned evil though, other than being corrupted by his newfound power, which I think on its own is never a great motivation. Well, it did explain that he was perhaps bullied a bit more than Morbius was in their childhood.

32:09
He was upset his whole life that he was not able to do what others were able to do. He felt like, you know, others were superior toward him or felt superior toward him. And finally, he was able to do everything everyone else could do and more, you know, feel like what it's really like to be alive. And I think he was just really taking out all those years of resentment for people who were able to do things that he couldn't do on Innocence. Yeah, totally. I guess his goal in the film was to torture Morbius.

32:36
by killing the ones he loved in order to convince him of their new, like, primal nature. But it's hard to understand what his plan was beyond that. I guess he wanted him and Morbius to just rule over others as seemingly more evolved beings or something. That wasn't clear. And it is hard to know when and how Milo took the serum though. Because I don't remember a shot of him actually taking one of the vials, do you? No. No, that was kind of cheap, I felt. Actually really cheap. It did make for a nice surprise though later on in the movie.

33:06
where he walks in with a bag of blood and it's like, oh, that's nice, you know, he's like helping his boy out with a bag of blood. And then he walks out without his cane and everything like that. That was kind of like a shock. I was like, wait. You actually thought that was a really well written and well done reveal. Like once you understood the significance of that cane, like it really got you. Yeah, for sure. I do have to say that like this kind of sold me on Matt Smith as John Constantine. I can see that. With like the trench coat and like the hair.

33:34
And the accent, I think it could work. He could totally pull it off for sure. But he has that real creepy bone structure about him too, you know? I think that's why he'll be good in the Game of Thrones spinoff. Right. What's interesting about the Milo character is that in the comics, Morbius's best friend was named Emil. And he was a healthy kid, a neighborhood best friend, who became a scientist just like Morbius to try and save him. And you know, he helped him administer his initial bat serum, and he was the first person Morbius killed right after turning into a vampire.

34:04
In this movie, though, Milo was like an amalgamation of Emil from the books and Loxious Crown, who was a hydro-scientist that became the villain Hunger, who was another pseudo-vampire like Morbius. But turning Morbius' friend into the main villain was, I thought, a great change from the source material. I thought it worked really well. Yeah, I like this more than what you explained in your Morbius bio. Yeah. Let's move on to Martine Bancroft, who was played by Adria Arjona. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that last name right.

34:33
But I don't think I've seen Adria in anything before, but I thought she was perfectly fine here as a Martine. She didn't really have much to do in the story except assist Morbius. I feel the movie dropped the ball on their romance. Because you know in the books, Morbius and Martine were actually engaged when Morbius first took his bat serum. And here, they barely had any romantic relationship except for like a kiss late in the movie and then the kiss right before she died, quote unquote died. I think it would have been more tragic.

35:03
when she died in his arms and he drank her blood and everything, if that romance had been better established. Oh, absolutely. Like, why not make them romantic partners right off the bat? I don't get that. Maybe it's not professional? I don't know. I don't know. I don't think I have too many qualms about professionalism or ethics in this film, you know? That's true. Plus, it's not like, you know, a married couple can't be colleagues. That's entirely true, yeah. That's totally valid. In the comics, you know, Martine eventually became more than just a pseudo-vampire. She became a real vampire turned

35:33
by Dracula and Morbius had to stake her through the heart despite loving her. So it'll be interesting how they treat Morbius and Martine's relationship going forward if the Morbius franchise continues. I mean we'll definitely see the character again. I wonder if we'll end up seeing another Morbius movie again though. Yeah, who knows. We'll see. There aren't too many other characters to talk about in our character breakdown, but let's go ahead and move on to Simon Stroud who is played by Tyrese Gibson and Al Rodriguez who is played by Al Madrigal.

36:01
You know, the FBI agents here were pretty generic, but at least they seemed fairly competent as investigators. Tyrese's character, Simon Stroud, I don't remember him having a cybernetic arm in the Morbius comics I read. I could be wrong, but I am really glad that they cut that whole element from the film since it seems like it would have essentially been needless. Yeah, it seemed like they cut a lot of him out. It definitely seemed like there was a lot more to the character than what we saw, even with like the scar across his neck and stuff like that.

36:30
It felt like there was stuff missing for sure. Do you feel like the movie suffered because that wasn't in the film, though? No, not at all. Honestly, I'm not even sure his character was necessary. I think I liked Agent Al more. Yeah. And considering there was like very little humor within the film, I almost could have used a little bit more of like a buddy dynamic between the two investigators. Maybe. Maybe. Finally, let's move on to Dr. Emil Nicholas, who is played by Jared Harris. Jared Harris, fucking brilliant actor.

37:00
completely wasted in this role, or rather in this cut of the film. You know, the trailers seem to imply that he was sort of a mentor to Morbius, like advising him regarding the ethics of his bat serum treatment, and then later on influencing him to become a hero. But that was all edited out here, and you know, he basically just served as the father figure to these two characters. But I don't think you needed an actor of Jared Harris's caliber for what turned into a pretty small and relatively unsubstantial role. Right.

37:29
His death was pretty tragic, although I'm really wondering why Morbius didn't go into a bloodlust when he came to rescue him. I'm surprised he didn't drink his blood like he did Martins, you know? It was so strange, like his death scene was one of the rare instances in which we actually saw blood in this movie. For a vampire film, it was relatively bloodless. Like I remember on the ship scene, there was a part where Morbius straight up slashed this dude across his throat. And the dude's like going, oh, like...

37:56
expecting there was gonna be like blood squirting out in the special effects or something like that. Nope. And maybe there was practically, but you know, either way they either cut it out or just didn't include it. And he's like holding his throat and just kind of like falling to the ground. No blood. I thought it was kind of funny. I wouldn't have minded if it was rated R. Like I think if you're gonna do a villain movie like Morbius, a character who does kill and a character that is involved with blood, why not make it rated R? Producer Avi Arad, he just likes those PG-13 dollars. Yeah, he's a douche.

38:26
I think all vampire movies should be rated R essentially, just like, cause if you can't show the blood, you're getting away from one of the main themes of vampires, you know? Right. Yeah, totally. That does it for the character breakdown, let's go ahead and move on to the story highlights. Now the film starts off in Costa Rica where we see Morbius and a local team set up a trap for a shit ton of vampire bats. Now I remember from the trailers I thought this was like the process that would, you know, turn them into a part bat creature, but...

38:53
No, it was just them capturing bats. It was very dramatic for what it was though. Oh, totally. I guess he cut his hand to like wake them up. Yeah, so they could smell his blood. It was all very ritualistic. You'd think that they'd just grab some donated blood or something to get the same effect, but. Or just fucking wait for them to fly it out of the cave at night. I don't know. I guess the pilot did seem pretty spooked about staying there too long. Yeah. From there, the film flashes back to Greece when Morbius was a child staying at the hospital.

39:21
I thought it was an effective flashback scene, like it really set up well the relationship between him and Milo, aka Lucian, and how much they cared about each other, like how he wrote him that note, and then that note meant everything to Lucian. We get a brief scene of Morbius winning the Nobel Prize and then turning it down, and at the hospital we see that Morbius is testing out a serum with bad DNA. He meets with Milo because the tests are successful, and he goes and administers it himself in international waters.

39:50
on a ship with a bunch of mercenaries. It was kind of weird, like how all these mercenaries were just walking around the ship with their guns and everything like that. Like they were expecting an attack of some sort to happen at any moment. Yeah, were they like pirates? Yeah, it was strange. Like that one mercenary guy who discovered Morbius, like hanging up on the ceiling like a bat, he walked in with like his gun drawn and everything like that. I'm like, who are you expecting to shoot in this situation? You were working with a couple of doctors, like the fuck?

40:17
Well, they didn't even explain that they were mercenaries until like after they were all dead. I thought they were just like crew members just carrying guns for some reason. I was like, what? I thought there was some kind of like security detail, which, you know, they were. But yeah, strange. It was kind of like a good monster movie kind of scene, though, when he killed all those guys. I think it wanted to be a good monster movie scene. It was fine for what it was. So Morbius abandons the boat by jumping into the water, and I guess.

40:43
Swimming to shore because he can swim faster than the Coast Guard can pull them back to Long Island Fucking swim. It's a long fucking swim for sure, but you know, he's superhuman now I guess so he knows he could pull it off. He looked at himself in the mirror is like yeah, I can make this swim I got this See these apps these are made for swimming So he swims back to his lab and then starts testing his symptoms he finds that he has these superhuman powers and

41:12
he begins testing the limits of his thirst. Milo pays him a visit and sees that Morbius has essentially cured himself, although Morbius sees it more as a curse. You often have to wonder in movies like this, like why didn't Morbius just tell Milo right off the bat, like, dude, I'm drinking blood, it's not cool. I don't want this for you also. Like he was so vague. It's like, just be honest. Well, Milo already knew that. He's the one that got him the blood to drink when he had isolated himself in that room.

41:41
That's fair. That's fair. Milo knew what he was getting into. He knew what he was going to turn into. Maybe he even wanted that. He just wanted those abs. He was like, yeah, I had to drink blood, but also I could wash my clothes on my stomach. There you go. I would do it for those abs. Sure. Crazy. So the FBI begins investigating the boat incident and they deduce that Morbius was on the boat and that he's probably involved.

42:09
There's a scene later where a nurse gets attacked in the hospital hallway, which I thought was actually pretty damn effective. It was definitely inspired by David F. Sandberg's Lights Out movie. Oh yeah. But it was good, it was creepy. It was the creepiest scene in the movie, yeah. Did you jump? Oh, hell yeah. Yeah. Did you jump? Hell no, hell no. Shut up. You know you did. It was pretty effective for sure. But Morbius gets captured by the police after a brief chase.

42:38
and Milo visits him in jail and leaves a blood bag for him and leaves his cane behind to signaling to Morbius that he had also taken the serum and doesn't need the cane anymore. Morbius breaks out of jail to confront Milo about what he had done and the two fight within the subway, which I thought was a pretty good scene. Yeah, honestly, it was a pretty cool scene. And by this point in the film, I was still waiting to hate Jared Leto. And I really recognized at this point that like, hey, this movie isn't as terrible as I thought it would have been.

43:06
Yeah, I think I realized that about halfway through as well. Morbius flees their encounter and meets up with Martin and tracks down a bunch of counterfeiters to create a new secret lab for himself. I thought that was kind of weird because I don't think there's a whole lot of similarities between the equipment used to counterfeit hundred dollar bills and to create medical serums. You know, like, yeah, I mean, the whole thing with him even finding the counterfeiters, like them showing up to the restaurant was extremely convenient. Yeah. That and the fact that he could use their equipment.

43:36
Meanwhile, Milo goes to a bar and gets into a bar fight and ends up attacking his assailants as they left. The investigators end up finding the footage and release to the public that it's a different vampire that is attacking everybody. Emil Nicholas confronts Milo and ends up getting killed by him. As he's dying, Emil calls Morbius, who goes over and sees him die in his arms, and realizes at that moment that Milo has also killed Martine. So Milo's just killing everybody. Yeah.

44:05
I mean, the scene with the detectives looking at the CCTV, I thought that kind of resolved that whole arc a little premature. Like you didn't really see those guys again. Well, not until the end when they were chasing Morbius and Milo as they were fighting in the streets down in the sewers. But they weren't necessary to the story. Right. After that point. But, you know, we're like at the end of the movie here, Morbius flies over to Martine and kisses her. She bites his lip, which I thought was kind of kinky.

44:32
She ingests some of his blood and then he drinks her blood and I guess that whole process is what ends up turning her into a vampire. I'm still wondering why she bit his lip. Like why? Because she's into that shit, you know, don't hate, don't hate. It's like, oh I'm dying. I just gotta get some of that flavor. She's passionate and kind of violent and that would really hurt, I feel like. So after he drinks her blood we get round two of Morbius versus Milo. This time the fight goes down into the sewers.

45:00
After crashing through a whole bunch of buildings and stuff like that. I thought it was actually a pretty good fight though, but Morbius ends up summoning this whole army of bats again He can't do that in the comics, but here he used them as almost like this Telekinetic force to hold Milo down as he injected him with like a vampire poison that he created Yeah, this whole thing had me rolling my eyes big-time. Why really like he controls bats now he could

45:29
Communicate with bats and talk with bats well They kind of set that up when he was like in his cylinder where the bats were and he was like kind of bonding with them Yeah, they're my brothers. I guess but it is weird considering that Morbius had the ability to control bats, but Milo didn't why is that like I thought they had the same powers? Yeah Oh, that's that's very valid like why do they see Morbius as a brother, but not Milo but I mean Milo had powers that Morbius didn't have either like the whole like

45:59
Scream shockwave thing. Well Morbius didn't do that, but I think he probably could have it was just like a using the echolocation offensively Yeah, I think so too. I do think that Morbius looked pretty fucking badass though when he was controlling those bats I just like the character design. I feel like they were trying to rip off Batman Of course, you would think that like why wouldn't you think that? Batman used bats against his enemies in Batman Begins and Morbius also used the bats to cover his escape from the sewer if you noticed

46:28
Yeah, of course I noticed that. I was like, okay. That's essentially the end of the movie. We see him flying overhead and we see that Martine is turning into a vampire. I was legit surprised how this movie ended. I was like, what? Like, that's it? I knew there was some end credits scenes or mid credits scenes, I should say, but I was like, wow, they like really just closed the curtain on us. Yeah, it was fairly abrupt. So it's like the fight ended, he flew away, done, credits. Totally anti the Batman.

46:58
Yeah, there could have been some resolution there for sure. Especially considering how absolutely horrible these mid-credit scenes were. The first one actually started out pretty cool because we saw the rift in the sky from Spider-Man No Way Home. And then Michael Keane kind of like gets transported into a prison cell. And his reaction to this is so fucking bizarre. He's like, I hope the food's better here. Like, really? That's your reaction to getting transported to a new cell, a new universe or something? Wouldn't you be like,

47:27
What the fuck? Where am I now? Where am I? I'm not supposed to be here. Nothing like that. So weird. And in the trailers, we know that there was a scene where Morbius and the Vulture actually met while being transported by police and they had a conversation. They heavily edited that footage just to show police taking him out of the cell and putting him into a car as a news report states that they don't know where this guy came from. And since they have no record of his crimes, they're going to let him go. I'm like, OK. And then it ends. That was pointless.

47:55
But then there's another mid-credits scene where it starts off basically kind of like a car commercial and Morbius is driving through the countryside and then he pulls over, gets out of his car, and then the Vulture flies over to him. Now I'm not sure how Adrian Toomes managed to get a hold of this new wing suit, considering it was the Tinkerer that made it for him, but he has a new suit here and he basically tells Morbius that he's not sure how he got here, he thinks Spider-Man is involved, but he thinks they should team up to do some good.

48:23
and do some good, it makes me wonder if they're actually trying to make the Sinister Six a group of good guys, or if quote, doing some good, actually means something a little bit more sinister. So little context. It was a horrible end credit scene, like in a way that doesn't even get me excited for what the future holds. In concept, I am very interested in a movie that would combine this version of Morbius with Tom Hardy's Venom, and Michael Keaton's Vulture. I think that would be a cool movie. I don't know who else they would add to the Sinister Six.

48:52
other than Craven, who's gonna have his own film that's coming up, and I have no idea what they plan on doing with the group as a whole, but at least it would be cool to see the actors work together. Well, it's like, yeah, I mean, they set up the Scorpion in Spider-Man Homecoming. I don't think he would have traversed the multiverse since he didn't know that Peter Parker was Spider-Man the way that the Vulture did. Even that was kind of weird. Like, it's like, okay, you know who Spider-Man is.

49:19
So for some reason you're transported to another universe? It's like some people slipped through accidentally, kinda like how some other characters slipped through into the MCU. I don't know, like they did a really piss poor job of explaining it. It was just really bad. But we'll see how it all shapes up. I don't think that this franchise is gonna die. I think they're gonna keep on building this Sinister Six kind of team up and try to bring in Spider-Man into the mix. But that does it for this Morbius movie. I think overall...

49:49
I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I did find it entertaining. There are a lot of issues with the movie. It is by no means horrible. It's by no means good. It's very much in the middle. It's a middling film. And for that, I give it three stars. Oh good, I was so afraid you were gonna say like five stars from my review of the Batman. I mean, the Batman should have got three stars too, but you know. Shut up. No, I think this was a perfect three star film.

50:16
The film is really basic and you know, it was entertaining. It has very little going for that beyond entertainment value. Maybe that's not entirely fair because I actually really did like the angle between Morbius and Milo, but I don't think it was enough to warrant a rating beyond three stars. Yeah. Yeah. Ultimately, it's one half star lower than like the first Venom film or something like New Mutants or Blade 2 or something like that, mainly because

50:45
it's obvious that this film was chopped up in the editing process. And because of that, there were some story issues and some general awkwardness regarding the cut. And those other movies didn't really have that as much. But that does it for this review. Let us know what you thought about Morbius by writing to us at dynamicduelpodcast at gmail.com or by visiting us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. You could find the links to all of our accounts by checking out our show notes or visiting our website, dynamicduel.com.

51:13
And on our site, you can also find a link to our Patreon page where we offer ad free episodes of this show via custom RSS feed, bonus content, including top 10 episodes and bloopers, monthly live movie watch alongs, collectible pinsets and access to our Discord server. Again, check it out right after this episode at patreon.com slash dynamic duel linked in our show notes. Our lowest tier is only $2 a month. Our next episode is episode 275 of this podcast.

51:43
For a while, you'll know that every 25 episodes now, we are doing a big team duel. And next episode is one of those team duels. This time, we are pitting the Arkham Asylum inmates against the Sinister Six. Perfect timing with this Morbius review. Yeah, it's almost like it was delayed to be just in time. But no, we're talking about characters like Joker vs. Green Goblin, Penguin vs. Vulture, Bane vs. Craven the Hunter, and more.

52:12
So definitely tune in next week. It's going to be an awesome time. It's our first villain team duel. Yeah, it's going to be a blast. It's going to be awesome. But that does it for this episode. We want to give a big thanks to our executive producers, John Spies, Ken Johnson, John Storosky, Zachary Hepburn, Mitchell Phipps, Dustin Belcombe, and Levi Yeaton for helping make this podcast possible. And we'll talk to you guys next week. Up, up, and away, true believers.