Morbius
Columbia Pictures | Release Date: April 1, 2022 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
35
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 55 Critic Reviews
Positive:
7
Mixed:
25
Negative:
23
Watch Now
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
Film ThreatBenjamin FranzApr 28, 2022
Seek this out if you like superhero films that are especially dark. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattMar 30, 2022
Swedish-Chilean director Daniel Espinosa (Life) gives it all a dark sheen, and shoots the pair's inevitable confrontations less like traditional comic-book clashes than something from The Matrix. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleMar 30, 2022
Against all odds, Morbius is an intelligent, human story. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriApr 1, 2022
Freed from the shackles of elaborate world-building or jokey, family-friendly tentpole-dom, this is a tight, brisk little over-the-top thriller, with plenty of atmosphere, effective jump scares, and a couple of genuinely moving performances at its heart. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla DargisMar 31, 2022
Morbius is a ghoulish, suitably downbeat tale of madness, hubris, suffering and weird science set in a world that offers little solace. And while most of it is as predictably familiar as expected, it does something unusual for a movie like this: It entertains you, rather than bludgeons you into submission. Read full review
70
Vanity FairRichard LawsonMar 30, 2022
The curious fun of Daniel Espinosa’s film is in how it embraces the gothic mythology that inspired it. Morbius does eventually become a cluttered slugfest, as all things must. But for much of its run it is a stylish, intriguingly toned story of a man trying to thwart mortality. Read full review
70
Screen DailyTim GriersonMar 30, 2022
This horror-action picture offers modest genre pleasures and a consistently spooky vibe, resulting in a film that has been designed chiefly to ensure future sequels, although the story includes enough emotional shading and robust set pieces to be an engaging standalone feature. Read full review
59
Paste MagazineJesse HassengerMar 30, 2022
Yet there’s some kind of invisible force here, hurrying things along in the hopes of a future team-up, making sure this feature film arrives more undead than alive. Read full review
58
Original-CinJim SlotekMar 31, 2022
You do get the sense that Swedish director Daniel Espinosa really wanted to make a horror film instead of the usual super-hero origin-story-punctuated-by-carnage. Read full review
58
ConsequenceLiz Shannon MillerMar 30, 2022
Morbius, at best, will be remembered as the latest effort on Sony's part to make its nascent Sinister Six franchise happen. And, like "fetch," it's hard to see that happening. Read full review
55
CNNBrian LowryMar 31, 2022
As Marvel movies go, "Morbius" is more a sip than a gulp, a relatively small-boned Jekyll-and-Hyde tale that moves another Spider-Man villain into the spotlight. Significantly better than "Venom" but still somewhat lacking in bite, this origin story perhaps inevitably grows more pallid toward the end but until then proves just tasty enough to merit the giving it a shot. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliApr 4, 2022
Morbius is the kind of bland, by-the-numbers origin story that shows comic book movies at their least innovative. Read full review
50
TimeStephanie ZacharekMar 31, 2022
How you feel about Morbius will probably depend on how much you have invested in the Sony-Marvel pie slice, and on your feelings about Leto, who perhaps isn’t so much a serious actor as one who takes himself very seriously. Still, his performance here has a quietly vibrating vulnerability; he seems to have made at least a small emotional investment in this film, as if to keep it from sliding into total special-effects-laden soullessness. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyMar 31, 2022
Even at 104 minutes, practically a short by superhero-movie standards, Morbius feels draggy. Read full review
50
PolygonJoshua RiveraMar 31, 2022
Smith’s dynamism painfully underlines the lack of imagination and energy elsewhere in the film. Read full review
50
The Seattle TimesSoren AndersenMar 31, 2022
Smith, on the other hand, throws himself avidly into his work, communicating a, uh, biting malevolence and sick glee in his portrayal. The picture only truly comes alive when he’s masticating his scenes. Otherwise, “Morbius” is dead at its center. Read full review
50
IGNMatt DonatoMar 30, 2022
Morbius is unspectacular in ways that waste the potential of what could be an intriguing hybrid of sinister horror and superhero thrills. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperMar 30, 2022
The great Jared Harris does what he can with an underwritten role. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comKatie RifeMar 30, 2022
The only really surprising—and, therefore, the most disappointing—thing about Morbius is the fact that it’s an honest-to-goodness horror film. But only for a few seconds. Read full review
45
CNETRichard TrenholmMar 31, 2022
Jared Leto stars as a sulking, skulking vampire in a bloodless and boring comics adaptation desperately riding the coat-tails of the Marvel movie powerhouse. Read full review
42
The Film StageEthan VestbyMar 31, 2022
Despite being almost objectively terrible, Morbius is sort of hard to get truly mad at. It’s a low-effort enterprise to the bone, like everyone’s dragging their feet around starting a franchise—the transparency of which might be clear to even the most casual moviegoers. Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubTodd GilchristMar 30, 2022
Director Daniel Espinoza stacks vampire cliches with horror classic visuals in a lackluster, but hardly disastrous, Spider-Man spinoff. Read full review
42
IndieWireKate ErblandMar 30, 2022
The film occupies a strange no-mans-land of the sprawling Spider-Verse, not charming like the "Spider-Man" films, not funny like the "Venom" films, and certainly not technically impressive like the animated "Into the Spider-Verse." Read full review
40
Total FilmJordan FarleyMar 31, 2022
Morbius may be a living vampire, but this supervillain origin story is dead on arrival. A rote, lifeless and cynical attempt to expand Sony’s Spidey-Verse. Read full review
40
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeMar 31, 2022
Most ruinously, there is too much Jared and not enough Matt. No harm to Leto, who wears less makeup as a vampire here than he did as a human in House of Gucci, but he appears to be taking the silly role absurdly seriously. It’s not Willy Loman, dude. Read full review
40
EmpireSophie ButcherMar 31, 2022
Despite solid performances and flashes of promise, Morbius is a flat, forgettable affair, failing to deliver an anti-hero origin story we can really sink our teeth into. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerMar 31, 2022
Morbius does what it's supposed to, nothing more, and barely that. If only this living vampire had more of a pulse. Read full review
40
The TelegraphRobbie CollinMar 31, 2022
Leto throws himself into the role with a steely commitment that would be easier to understand if the film surrounding him weren’t so thuddingly generic. Read full review
40
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyMar 30, 2022
‘Spider-Man’ spin-off is too flavourless to even be the wild, untethered disaster some were secretly hoping for. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyMar 30, 2022
It’s just a shame this opening salvo takes itself too seriously to have much fun with the mayhem, despite the potential in Smith’s devilish turn for amusing interplay between the antagonists. Read full review
40
Screen RantMolly FreemanMar 30, 2022
Despite a fine performance from Jared Leto, Morbius is a painfully mediocre superhero origin story, delivering a shallow recreation of better movies. Read full review
40
SlashfilmChris EvangelistaMar 30, 2022
Morbius is the type of movie that fails to justify its own existence. Read full review
38
Movie NationRoger MooreApr 1, 2022
But I can’t remember a Marvel movie that went to less trouble giving us an “origin story,” that put more effort into tying the tale into this corner of the Marvel “universe,” and that had less going for it. Read full review
38
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsMar 30, 2022
In “Morbius” the actor’s willful disinterest in figuring out the rhythm of a scene, what’s important in it and how to bounce off his scene partners — well, it’s acting in a vacuum. What he needs is a director who can steer him away from his favorite scene partner, i.e., Jared Leto, long enough to activate the material at hand, even if it’s just a third-tier Marvel franchise hopeful. Read full review
38
USA TodayBrian TruittMar 30, 2022
With Leto flying and jumping through New York City as a do-gooding bloodsucker with moral “Should I feast on my fellow man?” quandaries, “Morbius” is a lifeless slog with no real bite. Read full review
38
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiMar 30, 2022
The cacophonous ending sets up a sequel, but I hope it never sees the light of day. Actually, considering it’s about vampires, maybe I do! Read full review
35
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeMar 30, 2022
We can confirm that Morbius is, really and truly, a movie. Granted, it’s not much of a movie, but it’s a movie nonetheless. Read full review
33
ColliderEmma KielyMar 31, 2022
The central problem of Morbius is a lazy and uninspiring script. No weight or depth is given to any character. There’s little humor and when it tries to make a tongue-in-cheek joke, it fails miserably. Read full review
30
We Got This CoveredScott CampbellMar 31, 2022
Morbius is a huge step backwards for Sony's Spider-Man Universe, and the worst Marvel-branded movie to come along in a long time. Read full review
30
VarietyOwen GleibermanMar 30, 2022
Morbius is a movie in which it’s clear that no one ever sent the script back for a rewrite with the instructions, “Please add a script.” As in: Add spice, add dialogue, add something so that the movie plays like more than a barely colored-in diagram. Read full review
25
The AtlanticDavid SimsApr 6, 2022
Morbius is little more than an irritant, a grumpy, one-note CGI beastie who spends most of his movie pondering whether he should go full supervillain. Read full review
25
ABC NewsPeter TraversApr 1, 2022
Jared Leto goes the extra mile to bring a minor-league villain from Marvel Comics to the big screen, but this botched horrorfest about the so-called “living vampire” is less deserving of a sequel than a stake through its heart. Read full review
25
The Associated PressMark KennedyMar 31, 2022
The filmmakers — director Daniel Espinosa, hobbled by a meandering script from Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless — simply do not know what to do with this creature once they’ve given us his backstory. Read full review
20
VoxAlex Abad-SantosApr 7, 2022
With a lack of humor and deadly exposition, Morbius propels itself into an absolutely wild third act, perhaps the unintentionally silliest finish I’ve seen this year. Read full review
20
ScreenCrushMatt SingerApr 6, 2022
Morbius is like watching an incompetent juggler throw six knives in the air and then get stabbed by each of them on the way down. Read full review
20
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeApr 4, 2022
[An] incoherent, vampire-themed Marvel offcut. Read full review
20
NMELou ThomasApr 1, 2022
None of the characters have meaningful motives – and they’re so thinly drawn that they’re almost transparent. Read full review
20
Time OutCathy BrennanMar 31, 2022
Compelling characters are the lifeblood of a good superhero story, so it’s tragic that a film about two warring vampires in the Marvel universe is utterly bereft of them. Read full review
20
Little White LiesHannah StrongMar 31, 2022
I have to hope that sooner or later the bubble will burst, and a film as insulting to audience appetites and intelligence as this will be some sort of larger lesson for Hollywood. Probably not though. There’s always another D-tier comic book character waiting in the wings for their spin-off moment. Read full review
20
The GuardianPeter BradshawMar 30, 2022
It really is an amazingly pointless and dumb film: the good/bad setup between Morbius and Milo is muddled and cancelled by the not-especially-compelling moral struggle within Morbius himself. Both Leto and Smith have to keep doing the evil demonic face-change growling thing, and it is intensely silly. Let’s hope the extended Spider-Man universe extends far enough to include something more interesting than this. Read full review
20
Rolling StoneDavid FearMar 30, 2022
If it’s not the worst of these films, it’s certainly the most anemic — and even die-hard fans are apt to feel completely drained by all of it. Read full review
16
The PlaylistJason BaileyMar 30, 2022
The nicest thing I can say about it is that it’s short. Read full review
12
ObserverEmily ZemlerMar 31, 2022
This movie is as lifeless as the bodies Morbius drains and throws on the floor. Read full review
10
Los Angeles TimesRobert DanielsMar 31, 2022
Daniel Espinosa’s Morbius, a misbegotten, artistically bankrupt bid by writers Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless to fuse a gothic horror edge to the MCU, is the nadir of comic book cinema. Read full review
5
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzMar 30, 2022
It is charmless, incoherent, ugly and so aggressively stupid that it defies any attempt to shove it into the desperate “guilty pleasure” box. Read full review
More From This Movie

35 Critic Reviews

6.8 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL