The review embargo for Morbius lifted last night, and, well, the response to the movie has not been kind. While Venom and Venom: Let There Be Carnage ended up with "Rotten" scores by the time all was said and done, it's fair to say both movies garnered a mixed response rather than fully negative.
Morbius, on the other hand, is not faring well at all on Rotten Tomatoes.
As we write this, the blockbuster currently has a 20% score based on 64 reviews. Even looking through the "Fresh" verdicts, Sony Pictures might struggle to find any decent pull quotes for this one unless they plan to throw "Morbius is surprisingly an okay film" or "Logic and plot flow are generally treated like civilian casualties" into a TV spot!
It's a real shame Morbius has ended up disappointing because the Living Vampire has real potential. With an Oscar-winner like Jared Leto playing the character, we'd much prefer to be buzzing over the prospect of seeing him square off with Tom Hardy's Eddie Brock down the line instead of sharing this news with you, but the movie is a real letdown.
Reading through the reviews, it seems Sony just went in the wrong direction with this one, and the fact that Morbius was written by the same scribes working on Madame Web is now cause for concern. It shouldn't be this hard to create a shared universe featuring the amazing characters who inhabit Spider-Man's world, but there appears to be a real lack of understanding about Marvel at Sony.
"Jared Leto’s transformation makes for compelling viewing," we said in our review, "but the Living Vampire can’t elevate a disappointing story that serves as a powerful, dare we say terrifying, reminder that Spider-Man is better off (and safer) in the MCU with Marvel Studios."
Morbius is now playing internationally and arrives in the U.S. later this evening.