[TrueFaith77]

22.Morbius (Daniel Espinosa); grade: B

Morbius breaks the MCU rules by being fun. If the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies were fun, they would not exact the full demonstration of consumerist fealty that greets each new release—until now. Fun 1: The action scenes get increasingly exciting, visually imaginative (especially the bat-sonar VFX), and scary, sexy, emotional. Fun 2: The rollercoaster thrills depend on a Robin Wood-like understanding of monsters as simultaneously repulsive and attractive, especially as embodied by Jared Leto’s gaunt body tumescently transformed by bat juice and articulated by Matt Smith: “You pitied me before; you are repulsed by me now.” (Smith and Leto are terrific!) Fun 3: The flashback that establishes the psycho-familial bonds connecting the characters also affords shock and poignancy to the subsequent betrayals (“You gave me my name!”). Instead of MCU films usual spiritually gnostic (Dr. Strange), politically divisive (Civil War), ideologically Fascist (Endgame), cinematically televisual (all of them), Morbius exposes the sentimental underpinnings of MCU Nietzschean entertainment (the significance of Leto and Smith’s mantra: “The few against the many”). Faint praise, but Morbius is easily the best MCU movie. It imparts fun like the spiritually reviving exchange of blood between the film’s lovers. Yes, a fear of sex explains the infantilized Morbius haters.