The first trailer for Sony's second entry in their anti-hero universe, Morbius, has arrived and unfortunately it looks quite similar to Ruben Fleischer's Venom. Venom was an exercise in truly bizarre tone, acting, everything along with its weirdly nineties action aesthetic that sometimes felt more cheap than it did gritty which I have to assume is what they were going for. Luckily, with Morbius we are in much more reliable hands than Fleischer's one-hit wonder-ness as Morbius was directed by Daniel Espinosa, the man behind the likes of Safe House, Child 44 and Life. And while that sentence may be tinged with a certain amount of facetiousness I have liked each of those films to a certain degree and wouldn't label any of them as necessarily terrible. Safe House was a solid action/thriller as was Child 44 even if it had been hacked apart after sitting on the shelf for years and 2017’s Life was a fun little twist on a sci-fi, Alien-esque flick. So, it’s not really Espinosa that’s the cause for concern here, but more it is the writing team of Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless AKA the team behind such runaway hits as Gods of Egypt, The Last Witch Hunter and Dracula Untold (remember how that cinematic universe wound up?) and although a director can do a lot with an otherwise hackneyed script in terms of improving upon it with a certain stylistic approach and hiring actors that elevate the material-and say what you will about Jared Leto’s Joker, but the guy is a solid actor and puts in the time-what honestly feels most at the expense of the studio mentality here is whatever rich character history that comes along with this particular character from the comics. As someone who doesn’t read comics the only point of reference I have with the titular character prior to this is that of the animated Spider-Man series from the nineties, but Morbius was always an indelible presence in that series given he personified the horror genre to a kid who wasn’t allowed to watch horror movies yet. There’s certainly something Sony can tap into here, but only time will tell if Espinosa and crew dig beneath the surface or if they're simply covering the necessary bases. Of course, there is then the matter of that cameo at the end and what it means both for the future of the MCU and whatever Sony is trying to do here while raising serious interest in the details of the deal Kevin Feige and Avi Arad worked out, but whatever the case may be one thing is clear: Spider-Man: Senior Year is going to be nertz. Morbius also stars Adria Arjona, Jared Harris, Matt Smith, Michael Keaton, Tyrese Gibson, Charlie Shotwell, Corey Johnson, Archie Renaux, Abraham Popoola and opens in theater on July 31st, 2020.
Synopsis: One of Marvel’s most compelling and conflicted characters comes to the big screen as Oscar® winner Jared Leto transforms into the enigmatic antihero, Michael Morbius. Dangerously ill with a rare blood disorder, and determined to save others suffering his same fate, Dr. Morbius attempts a desperate gamble. What at first appears to be a radical success soon reveals itself to be a remedy potentially worse than the disease.
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