Marvel released one of their newest projects, “Morbius,” on Friday, April 1. Despite most Marvel films doing incredibly well once they hit theaters and the box office, “Morbius” is a different story. This movie received a 16 percent from Rotten Tomatoes and a 5.2/10 from IMDb. 

Many fans, including myself, were shocked by the low ratings and reviews that the film had received. However, after watching the movie, it was easy to understand why it received its rating. Although the film was based on the comic books, some are disappointed by how the live-adaptation came to the big screen. 

From the moment that the promo for “Morbius” hit social media, many fans set the bar very low. To me, it seemed as if there was no reason for fans to hype up a consistently overdone plot. However, once I saw the trailer I was immediately intrigued. One of the first things that jumped out to me was the outstanding cinematography. The darker aspects of “Morbius” heavily contrasts other Marvel films, which can be seen through both the lighting and costumes.

Michael Morbius (Jared Leto) was affected by a lifelong blood borne illness and dedicated his life to medical research. His work mainly focused on the creation of synthetic blood; however he wanted to further his projects by finding an actual cure for this disease. Morbius makes a trip to Costa Rica and secretly captures over a dozen vampire bats. His theory was that he could hopefully splice the genes of the bats with his own to cure his condition. As one would expect, Morbius’s expirement goes awry, causing him to gain all the qualities that a bat would have. His new abilities include: superhuman strength and speed, night vision, echolocation, and the need to drink blood on a regular basis in order to survive.

The basic plot of the film was if the “Twilight” series met the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). I think that the image that the producers had in mind did not pan out as well as they would’ve hoped. While the idea of a new hybrid superhero always seems exciting, albeit cliche, the execution just didn’t meet the expectations. 

Personally, I think that the vision for this film had potential; however, upon execution, it lacked in many departments. The animal-human hybrid superheroes have become quite overused in the superhero community. Some examples include: Wolverine, Spider-Man, Ant-Man, Beast Boy, Vixen, Animal Man and Aquaman. Even though this concept has been thoroughly timeworn, the idea of a human/bat hybrid hero is not as lackluster as the rest.

Although this has not been one of the strongest films produced by Marvel, there are still many more movies to come this year that are for sure to be worth the wait. 

Contact Anna Baustert at [email protected]