Perhaps it was always doomed. With lengthy covid-related delays and a tagline that rather confidently declares “A New Marvel Legend Arrives”, Morbius is a film that quite possibly set itself up for failure. For the best part of 15 years, the cinematic and small screen output of the Marvel Studio machine, in spite of all its supposed cash-driven criticisms, has set the benchmark for interconnected world-building: myriad character arcs and timelines weaved together in a vibrant display of superhero multiverse spectacle.

Sony’s contribution to the party, on the other hand, has been mixed at best. Its latest offering, starring Jared Leto as the eponymous vampire antihero, does little to enhance its reputation. Rather, it stands as an abject lesson in lacklustre plotting, where minimal character development meets jarring visual style in a tepid, messy slice of generic genre fare. 

Leto plays Dr Michael Morbius, a brilliant pioneer in the field of rare blood diseases who himself suffers from one such condition, giving him a shorter life expectancy and the inability to walk without crutches. Twenty-five years after leaving the care of mentor Nicholas (Jared Harris in a criminally underserved role) and the other side of a hefty dose of biochemical hokum, Morbius unearths what is a potentially world-changing breakthrough: by fusing human and bat DNA, he is able to find a cure to his illness. The serum he produces, however, doesn’t come without side effects – namely, superhuman abilities and certain blood-sucking tendencies which, unsurprisingly, cause chaos to ensue. 

What is surprising, meanwhile, is that all of this appears to be played entirely straight by Leto, whose recent turn as Paolo Gucci in Ridley Scott’s House Of Gucci was widely panned despite earning him both a Critics’ Choice and Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. Thankfully, those opposite him here lean a little more into the inherent zaniness of the premise, with Matt Smith, in particular, hamming it up with sinister charm as Morbius’ similarly-ailed childhood friend, Loxias ‘Milo’ Crown. 

Elsewhere, Adria Arjona and Tyrese Gibson are given very little to do, with a script from co-writers Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless that seems insistent only on jumping hastily from one action set piece to the next. Jon Ekstrand’s roaring, pulsating score is one of the few saving graces in what ultimately manifests as a film light on everything other than a series of unremarkable, barely discernible, bang-crash CGI scuffles. Sadly, Morbius is one vampire flick that’s difficult to truly sink your teeth into.  

Dir: Daniel Espinosa (15, 104 mins)

Out Thurs 31 Mar

words GEORGE NASH