Morbius (2022)

  Finally getting around to another film with artificially inflated reviews.  Like Madame Web, this doesn't deserve the amount of hate it got.  It definitely doesn't deserve the amount of ironic praise, either.  

Born with a rare unnamed medical condition, Michael Morbius (Jared Leto) became a Nobel-winning biochemist.  His invention of artificial blood saved countless lives, but couldn't cure his or his rich friend Milo's (Matt Smith) fatal disorder.  With the clock running out, Dr. Morbius tries an experimental cure on himself, accidentally winding up with the powers and bloodlust of classical vampirism.  He considers it a failure but Milo sees it as the opportunity to finally live instead of just exist.

Do you know what the cardinal, unforgivable sin of this movie is?  It's not the script, the leads, or the CGI.  This movie makes vampires unsexy.  Vampires.  Completely unfuckable.  I don't know if there is a greater crime.  Hell, even TWILIGHT tried to make vampires Morman-sexy.  

I fully believe Jared Leto is an insufferable asshole in real life but I don't hate him as an actor.  So please take that into account when I say he gave a sexier performance as the Worst Joker than he did as the Living Vampire. (Yes, I did read those comics.  What?)  Matt Smith doesn't do it for me in general but I recognize that he's conventionally attractive.  Not here.  Totally neutered his appeal.  Don't even get me started on Adria Arjona.  This movie did her so dirty.  

Despite the in-universe joking, Morbius isn't trying to be Venom.  It desperately wants to be Batman Begins but much like their characters in American Psycho, Leto just winds up in a plastic tarp next to Christian Bale.  

The script is weak, feels like a second-draft written right up to deadline and cribbed from every (good) vampire film, novel, and TV show ever made.  It's not funny but it can't be horror or drama because it doesn't have the balls so it exists in a weird limbo.  Anyway, it's streaming on Disney+.