From the opening credits to the after-credits clips, Morbius feels like a lazy paint by numbers comic book film. Everything about it feels rigid and forced. Every line of dialog feels like a note in an email between executives. This is supposed to be the latest step toward Sony's promise of a super villain team-up of Spider-Man villains, but honestly it just feels like a threat.

Jared Leto is Dr. Michael Morbius, a brilliant geneticist with a debilitating and life-threatening genetic blood disorder. In a life-long quest to cure his condition, Dr. Morbius seeks to splice the human genome with that of the vampire bat. In this universe, the vampire bat is one of the most vicious predators in all of nature. The result is a cursed condition where he must consume blood to maintain his identity as well as to fuel his new set of unbelievable superpowers.

The overall feel is of a movie that was made after watching the worst of the Disney Marvel movies and taking only the most shallow of notes. The basic plot is fine, I suppose, but the writing is so lazy that it never bothers to meaningfully transition from one story beat to the next. There's no introspection on the character or their relationship to the world. Morbius has nothing to say about the world.

This is a film that is devoid of purpose and meaning. A hollow shell that exists just to exist. Franchise maintenance come to life.

I feel bad for Jared Leto, because his performance is fine. He can't save this schlock, but he does very much prop up his little part of it. He's put so much effort into interesting portrayals of comic book characters that I'd really like to see him included in something with writing that is worth a damn.

By the time it was over I just felt sad. It all ends with a promise of more to come. Teasers of how this ties together with Spider-Man. Villains conspiring together to rule the world. It's the same formula you've seen over and over again for inserting teasers for the next film in the link at the end. It's just that by the time this one is done I feel dread instead of excitement.

I don't care if Marvell gets any of these properties back. I just want whoever is responsible for this stream of trash from Sony to stop. Stop forever. No more Venom movies. No sequel to Morbius. No Sinister Six movie. Just stop. Please.