I finally got around to watching the infamous Morbius. I went into it expecting something really bad and found a reasonably enjoyable, if forgettable film. I also sat through Madame Web which turned out to be a lot better than I had seen online, so many memes and criticisms were either made up or just on the bandwagon, honestly it was worth a watch.

Morbius – A sick scientist spends a lifetime learning about genetics in order to cure himself and his best friend. The method he uses is to splice human DNA with that of a vampire bat, turning himself into a bloodlusted vampire monster whose hunger could overwhelm him. The friend eventually uses the vampire bat “cure” and gives in to the hunger straight away, this gives us a hero and a villain. We’ve got vampire versus vampire with both having similar motivations to survive, only one is angry at humanity while the other wants to avoid casualties. Classic good against bad origin story with the hero struggling against its own dark side. Acting is fine with Leto and Smith both giving decent performances with characters that are good enough.

The vampire makeup is creepy looking without falling into scary territory. The action is largely done using blurry colours for the special effects of speed or sonar or whatever the weird explosion that sometimes happens is.

Acting is fine with Leto and Smith both giving decent performances with characters that are good enough. The vampire makeup is creepy looking without falling into scary territory. The action is largely done using blurry colours for the special effects of speed or sonar or whatever the weird explosion that sometimes happens is.

What the movie really needed was a Spider-Man or even Blade to hunt Morbius because the only people that seemed bothered about anything were a pair of policemen that didn’t get enough screen time to have any real significance. Even a bit of time to turn them into something more important to build on the extra plot thread would have been nice and possibly helped pack the film out and make the ending feel less rushed.

There’s a post credit scene connecting Tom Holland’s Spider-Man’s Vulture to Morbius, possibly starting a version of the Sinister Six.

Morbius is actually not that bad. It doesn’t go for humour, managing to stick to a dark and serious tone. It needed something extra to make the movie that bit more memorable but it’s entertaining enough and if there’s a sequel I’d look forward to it. Just an average movie about vampires (plus vampire movies are rarely good anyway).

Madame Web – Cassie Webb is a paramedic who develops time powers which are basically a supercharged Spider Sense. This movie is an origin story for the Spider-Man character set in 2003, it’s not about heroes in the usual sense as the story is a bit more thoughtful. The acting by Dakota Johnson is pretty good too.

Three characters are seen in a dream killing the character Ezekiel who becomes an evil Spider-Man in order to murder them before events come to pass, which means murdering helpless teenage girls. Cassie sees the future and uses it to protect the girls with various vehicles being her weapons of choice. Cassie has more of a stake in the story as Ezekiel murdered her mother as she was born.

We get a minor subplot about the Parker family, which sort of forces a stronger connection to actual Spider-Man.

There’s also a twist on the great power comes great responsibility line, changing it to when there is great responsibility, great power will come. It sort of flips the dynamic from forcing the character to act for good to doing right being the source of power.

Bad things next. The teenage girls were annoying more than anything, seeming a bit over the top in how they were done, probably bad writing to blame. The early parts of the movie are messy and confusing. Madame Web is an old woman in other versions which the actress didn’t fit, although being an origin story there was room for change. The pacing of the movie could be a bit slow at times, but that comes with the attempt at being deep and dramatic.

Madame Web isn’t woke, it isn’t a girl power movie and it doesn’t stick to the usual superhero formula. I think the biggest flaw with this one is that it has a fairly niche target audience (being people that want more than goofiness and high action with a bit more thought, often people that don’t watch Marvel) and while it could have been better it got a lot of unnecessary hate. Not an amazing movie but better than some that I’ve seen.