I remember going to the cinema to watch this year’s Best Picture with my best buds – Glink, Mumkey, and Eggy. One of the theater attendants recognized Mumkey and Eggy and was excited to meet them. Mumkey expressed to me how happy he was that a fan spotted him in the wild as he was watching pure kino. We asked this fan, Moses, if he was a listener of Is it Kino (the biggest movie review podcast on Earth). He was not.
When the lights dimmed, the curtains opened, and the people shut up, we entered a world of pure magic. Morbius was 104 minutes of pure, unadulterated joy.
Some people claim that Morbius is a superhero film, or, to use a popular slur – “capeshit.” It is not. Far from it! Morbius is an indie drama about two lifelong friends battling the same debilitating illness. This illness links them and humbles them, so what would happen if they found a cure for their deadly disease? What if the cure was worse than the sickness?
They both go down the dark path to win back their lives, but Dr. Morbius tries his best to follow the straight-and-narrow, while Milo revels in his newfound vampiric powers. This isn’t a boring Marvel movie about world domination or multiverses. This is a movie about friendship.
I pondered how some of my previous friendships had gone wrong. One dear friend grew up and became a cringe soy boy. Another friend went from killing small animals to murdering innocent people. Where were the signs? What could I have done to keep them on the right path?
A question that Morbius asks the audience is a hard one to ask: would we keep ourselves alive at the expense of others? I know most people in Hollywood and Wall Street would say yes without thinking twice, but us flyover Americans have to say yes after some thought. I’m alive because some kid in China makes all my favorite products for me that I depend on. I’m alive because I benefit from the destruction of forests/towns/etc in third world nations.
I am Morbius.
We ALL are Morbius.
The dizzying last fight in which we can hardly see what happens reminds me so much of Gaspar Noé. He used similar disorienting techniques in his masterwork Irreversible. I love seeing this influence by French art cinema in thought-provoking modern blockbusters. It just adds a layer of class to everything.
Everyone will forget the MCU, but no one will forget Jared Leto’s magnum opus Morbius. This is a film for the ages. A piece of true art that perfectly captures the zeitgeist.
A masterpiece.
It’s Morbin time! (contrary to some liars (ralph the movie maker) he does say this in the movie but you’ll only hear it if you say Morbius three times in the mirror before watching the movie)
