{"id":1421328,"date":"2022-04-06T08:01:57","date_gmt":"2022-04-06T12:01:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1421328"},"modified":"2022-04-06T08:02:03","modified_gmt":"2022-04-06T12:02:03","slug":"marvels-new-morbius-movie-lacks-heart-and-a-compelling-storyline-that-cgi-cant-fix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/marvels-new-morbius-movie-lacks-heart-and-a-compelling-storyline-that-cgi-cant-fix\/","title":{"rendered":"Marvel\u2019s New \u2018Morbius\u2019 Movie Lacks Heart And A Compelling Storyline That CGI Can\u2019t Fix"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fmarvels-new-morbius-movie-lacks-heart-and-a-compelling-storyline-that-cgi-cant-fix%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1421328&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/morbius2-e1649111093572.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Thanks to the wonders of computer-generated imagery, filmmakers have finally been able to capture on film what was once confined to\u00a0the pages of Marvel comics. Movie audiences can now convincingly see Spiderman crawl up walls or swing from dizzying heights, and\u00a0when the Hulk smashes whatever is in his path, viewers not only see it, but feel it.<\/p>\n<p>The Marvel films have been successful in transporting viewers into a physically plausible superhero world because the CGI was anchored to a solid and compelling script. Such is not the case in \u201cMorbius,\u201d Marvel\u2019s latest cinematic entry.\u00a0The special effects are impressive and the character is convincing as a vampire. But the story is an incomprehensible mess. It is neither a good horror nor good superhero movie.<\/p>\n<p>Because of actor Bela Lugosi\u2019s tuxedoed turn as Dracula in the 1931 film, the still popular image of the vampire is a very human-looking, cultured gentleman whose eyes only turn hypnotic and fangs only protrude when it is feeding time.<\/p>\n<p>Max Schreck\u2019s vampiric turn in the German silent film \u201cNosferatu\u201d (1922), the first adaption of the Bram Stoker novel, is less well-known, but equally good (with some reviewers even saying it is the best vampire film). The film works because Schreck looks like someone who feeds on human blood, hides from the light, and can shape-shift into a bat. <\/p>\n<p>Indeed, Schreck looks like he brought some bat characteristics with him when he tried to shape-shift back. Rodent-fanged, completely bald, rail-thin, and clawed, with horrifying as opposed to hypnotic eyes, Nosferatu still holds the title of the most terrifying vampire thus far on screen.<\/p>\n<h2>Marvel\u2019s Vampire Morbius<\/h2>\n<p>Marvel\u2019s contribution to the horror boom of the early 1970s (the comic book publishers have always, in a somehow charming and endearing way, shamelessly capitalized on trends) paid homage to the idea that a vampire would look monstrous by avoiding Lugosi and embracing Schreck with the character Morbius.<\/p>\n<p>Morbius looked like a vampire, not a James Bond with fangs, with his pushed-in, bat-like nose, permanently protruding fangs, hateful red eyes, and chalk-white skin. The only thing that marred the appearance was the typical Marvel spandex costume.<\/p>\n<p>But Marvel did some interesting things with the character. Unlike the typical vampire, Morbius, a Nobel Prize-winning biologist specializing in and suffering from, of course, a blood disorder, willingly became a vampire, but through scientific means (ingesting vampire bat DNA), not from the bite of another vampire.<\/p>\n<p>Morbius\u2019 tragic backstory \u2014 he cured his human affliction but is cursed by the cure \u2014 generated complexity for readers because he didn\u2019t want to go back to being a diseased human, yet he occasionally hated what he did to survive. Nevertheless, when the fangs hit the throat, Morbius reveled in the feasting.<\/p>\n<h2>New Movie Has Good Acting and CGI<\/h2>\n<p>Sadly, whatever is interesting about the character hasn\u2019t translated onto screen with Marvel\u2019s latest film, \u201cMorbius.\u201d The interesting actor Jared Leto does his best, letting himself \u201cgo\u201d in the vampire scenes. He acts like someone who views human beings as simply \u201cfood.\u201d In several key scenes, Leto even rolls his eyes up like a shark digesting a human being, and he afterward looks properly satiated for the moment.<\/p>\n<p>As with the comic, the makers of \u201cMorbius\u201d don\u2019t afflict the vampire with the usual weaknesses. Morbius doesn\u2019t hiss and recoil from the sight of a cross because, unlike other vampires, he doesn\u2019t worship Satan and fear his opposite number.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Cleverly, the film follows this train of thought. As a human, Moribius\u2019 \u201cGod\u201d is science, and he has used it to play \u201cGod\u201d with himself, with god-like strength and speed as a result.\u00a0Hence he is a truly powerful, almost impervious vampire.<\/p>\n<p>With the wonders of CGI, the filmmakers convincingly show the powers of a vampire. Leto bolts back and forth with superhuman speed, crushes bones with enhanced strength, merges with vampire bats, and slurps, rather than simply drinks, blood.<\/p>\n<h2>Soggy Script<\/h2>\n<p>But Leto is defeated by the story. Instead of focusing on the key character, the filmmakers, Tim Burton-like, shift attention to the villain. Morbius\u2019s \u201csurrogate brother,\u201d Milo, suffers from the same blood disorder. All that is interesting about Morbius in the comics \u2014 the writers\u2019 refusal to pretty up the character \u2014 has been transferred over to actor Matt Smith. Smith, as with Leto, does his best, but it isn\u2019t enough to save a soggy script.<\/p>\n<p>The biggest problem is that the filmmakers try to shoehorn what is essentially a tragic horror movie into your standard Marvel movie, with clearly identified heroes and villains. What made the Marvel comic characters and their adaptations on screen unique was they were treated as humans wracked with inhibitions (pre-\u201cWinter Soldier,\u201d Captain America had \u201csurvivor\u2019s guilt\u201d about him making it through the war and not Bucky) and weaknesses (Tony Stark\u2019s alcoholism) but did the right thing anyway. Marvel zeroed in what was most appealing about superheroes and what made them super: instead of lining their pockets with their powers, they selflessly fought evil.<\/p>\n<p>But the vampire film, even when it tries to attach a tragic backstory, never has been able to present a character that lives on human blood as any kind of hero.\u00a0This was a problem not even the \u201cBlade\u201d movies could solve.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Thus the writers are clearly confused about what kind of film they are trying to make.\u00a0The story zigs and zags, with too many characters and a reliance on too many whiz-bang fight scenes (by now, characters flying into each other is beyond clich\u00e9). As a result \u2014 pardon the expression \u2014 the movie has no heart. One is left to wonder if the filmmakers knew they had a bad story and thought CGI would save the film.<\/p>\n<p>Typically, the film is set up to be a sequel, or an insertion into the Marvel Universe, as Morbius was first introduced in a Spiderman comic. If so, the filmmakers need to go back to the drawing board and realize that for a film, even a vampire one, to work, it has to have a solid, comprehensible story.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  Ron Capshaw is a writer based in Florida.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thanks to the wonders of computer-generated imagery, filmmakers have finally been able to capture on film what was once confined to\u00a0the pages of Marvel comics. Movie audiences can now convincingly<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":611,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1421328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1421328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/611"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1421328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1421328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1421328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1421328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1421328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}