Morbius is a 2022 American super-hero film based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, produced by Columbia Pictures in association with Marvel Entertainment, Arad Productions, and Matt Tolmach Productions, and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing as the third film in Sony's Spider-Man Universe (SSU). Directed by Daniel Espinosa and written by the writing team of Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless, the film stars Jared Leto (who also served as an executive producer on the film) as Dr. Michael Morbius, alongside Matt Smith, Adria Arjona, Jared Harris, Al Madrigal, and Tyrese Gibson. In the film, Michael Morbius and his surrogate brother Milo (Smith) become living vampires after curing themselves of a rare blood disease.
TRAILER
PLOT
At a hospital in Greece, 10-year-old Michael Morbius welcomes his surrogate brother Lucien, whom he renames Milo; they bond over their shared blood illness and desire to be "normal". Seeing Michael's potential, their adoptive father and hospital director Nicholas arranges for Michael to attend medical school in New York while he focuses on caring for Milo.
25 years later, Michael publicly declines a Nobel Prize for his work with artificial blood. His colleague Martine Bancroft discovers he has secretly captured dozens of vampire bats from Costa Rica in the hope of splicing their genes with his own to cure his condition. Michael receives funding from Milo to outfit a private mercenary vessel in international waters with his equipment. While the cure works, it transforms Michael into a vampire who kills and drains the crew of their blood after they attack him out of fear. Once his bloodlust subsides and he regains his senses, a horrified Michael erases all CCTV footage of his experiment before contacting authorities and jumping overboard.
Michael returns to New York and discovers he now has superhuman strength, speed, and echolocation, with his vampire bats treating him as one of their own. To control his bloodlust, he subsists on his artificial blood as it gradually ceases to satisfy his needs. FBI agents Simon Stroud and Al Rodriguez investigate Michael's victims and deduce his involvement. Milo learns that Michael is cured but becomes furious when Michael refuses to cure him as well. While checking on a hospitalized Martine, Michael finds a dead nurse, drained of her blood. Believing he was responsible, he attempts to escape before being arrested by Stroud. In prison, he is visited by Milo and realizes Milo took his cure and killed the nurse. Michael escapes to confront him. An unrepentant Milo urges Michael to embrace his powers as he has. Unwilling to hurt his brother, Michael flees.
Michael meets Martine, acquires a new lab, and develops an antibody against vampirism to stop Milo; he also plans to use it on himself. Stroud and Rodriguez find footage of one of Milo's attacks and, believing Michael's vampirism to be spreading, release it to the media. Nicholas recognizes Milo and pleads with him to stop. Angered by Nicholas' perceived preference for Michael, Milo mortally wounds him; Michael arrives too late to save him while Milo also mortally wounds Martine. Martine dies in Michael's arms, forcing him to drink her blood. Michael summons an army of bats to restrain Milo and inject the antibody. Milo dies and Michael flies off with the bats, mourning his loved ones and embracing his identity as a vampire. Unbeknownst to him, Martine is resurrected, having ingested a drop of Michael's blood as he fed on her.
In two mid-credits scenes, Adrian Toomes is transported to Michael's universe from his own. Surmising that Spider-Man is somehow responsible, Toomes approaches the fugitive Michael and suggests that they form a team.
Rating: 10 Stars
