What a bloody mess.

As it edges ever closer to the $2 billion mark at the global box office, it’s fair to say that Spider-Man: No Way Home has been quite the success story. As the film industry – and the world at large – picks itself up off the floor following the COVID-19 pandemic, the triumph of No Way Home proved not only that Spider-Man remains a bankable big screen draw, but that theatrical distribution is very much here to stay.

Regardless of your feelings on Spider-Man, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or comic book movies in general, there’s no denying just how crucial No Way Home’s success is. It means an industry on the precipice can, for the time being at least, breathe a sigh of relief and look to the future once again.

Yet, as ever with Hollywood, such success brings with it a worry that the right lessons are being extracted, and in the case of Sony Picture’s Universe of Marvel Characters – otherwise known as SPUMC (no laughing at the back) – the right provisions were being made to secure a viable future for both Spider-Man and his many side characters.

However, judging by Sony’s first post-No Way Home SPUMC release, Morbius, I wouldn’t hold your breath.

Suffering from a rare blood disorder and on death’s door, Dr Michael Morbius (Jared Leto) is driven by a burning desire to cure himself and save others from enduring the same fate. As his attempts to find a cure grow increasingly desperate, Michael feels he has finally found a breakthrough, but while at first it seems like a radical success, a darkness inside is unleashed, one that threatens to consume him entirely.

There really are no two ways about it. Morbius isn’t very good. Not at all.

If you came out of No Way Home buzzing and with renewed hope that Sony could breathe life into their Spidey-centric corner of the ever-expanding MCU, Morbius will bring you crashing back down to Earth. Without Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios around to hold their hand, and without even the fun goofiness of Tom Hardy’s Venom there to cushion the blow, it’s readily apparent that Sony do not (or simply will not) understand the characters at their disposal.

Left to their own devices, Sony have taken all the wrong lessons from the success of No Way Home – and the Tom Holland era in general – and pumped out an outdated, uninspired mess that rides the coattails of its Spider-Man connections while refusing to invest the requisite effort into making it all work. The result is the very antithesis of everything the MCU has worked so hard to build.

To put it bluntly, Morbius is a lifeless, bloodless husk of a movie. In a move to reap MCU-level rewards without putting in any of the legwork, Morbius is devoid of character, energy, or charm, as it throws the most basic of plots and ancillary Spider-Man characters at us without giving a good enough reason for us to care.

Painfully generic, the film would’ve felt tired and predictable twenty years ago, so its release in the current climate, where comic book movies must offer something unique to stand out in a crowded marketplace, only works to magnify Morbius’ failings. And boy are there some failings.

Chief among them is a plot that couldn’t be more by-the-numbers if it tried. Of course, underneath it all, there will always be similarities between superhero movies, yet the evolution of the genre has been such that going beyond the basics is an absolute must for a film to appeal, and Morbius misses this boat entirely.

Anyone with even a passing knowledge of superhero movies will flag Morbius’ plot points from a mile off, as the film’s embarrassing inconsistencies and clunky editing provide the only real (unintentional) surprises along the way. The film operates as a superhero join-the-dots exercise, culminating in not one but two of the most ill-conceived and downright confusing post-credit scenes you’re ever likely to come across.

The result is a formless blob of a plot loosely thrown around some truly terrible writing that lacks any semblance of innovation or inspiration. Penned by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless (whose credits to date include the questionable delights of Dracula Untold, The Last Witch Hunter, and Gods of Egypt), Morbius’ script collapses under the weight of its cliches, failing miserably to find a way through the clunky narrative in one piece.

Inject some solid action into all this mediocrity and there’s a chance Morbius might have gotten away with it, yet the film’s visuals do absolutely nothing to smooth over the cracks. Messy and outmoded, the movie’s overall presentation is at best bland and at worst downright wince-inducing, as its liberal use of cheap, tacky CGI frequently underwhelms.

As a pleasant surprise, things don’t actually begin too badly, with the effects used for Michael’s ‘sonar’ powers looking decent, however, the film’s complete overuse of this visual quirk quickly turn it from interesting to intensely annoying. From here on in, things rapidly spiral, as action scenes, including the obligatory final act punch-up, swiftly descend into an obnoxious, indistinct cacophony of CGI clutter, as director Daniel Espinosa completely loses his grip on Morbius’ visuals.

Behind this impenetrable mess of computer-generated fog, the film’s cast do little to take the edge off things. While Matt Smith looks to be having fun and does his best with the weak material he’s given, the rest of the cast are just…there really. This, of course, includes Jared Leto himself, who gives his most reserved showing in quite some time, yet, while such restraint from a man who frequently revels in overacted nonsense is certainly a blessing, when the best thing you can say about his performance is that it’s not The Joker or Paulo bloody Gucci, you know things are bad.

Much like the rest of the film, no one is glaringly awful, however, it all combines for a distinctly generic, thoroughly boring muddle that will not live long in the memory. As an otherwise talented cast sleepwalk their way through proceedings, you’d be forgiven for following their lead, and when a Spider-Man-adjacent film arrives hot on the heels of a euphoric cinematic experience like No Way Home, the disappointment bites just that little bit harder.

While it’s certainly not the worst comic book movie going, Morbius really isn’t far off. Lacking any of the quality of the MCU Spider-Man films, or even the goofy charm of the Venom outings, the film offers little of note, and way below the level of quality – or indeed fun – one expects from a modern superhero movie. From beginning to end, Morbius feels utterly generic, thoroughly outdated, and oddly bloodless, and given that Sony appear to be learning all the wrong lessons from the success of No Way Home and the MCU in general, it may be time for Marvel Studios to at least consider severing ties with SPUMC for the greater good.