Among all the complaints made about Morbius in the week that it’s been out, most of them are centered around essentially the same things which displays how even people with little or no knowledge of actual film formulas can recognize a problem in the story. In a time when creatives are heavily dependent on technology to perfect their craft, it makes sense that some filmmakers would rely on CGI, costumes, and choreographed action to make a movie stand out, but as a result the focus seems to have shifted away from impactful stories and the audience has picked up on it.

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Morbius has received painfully bad reviews since its recent release, making it clear that the audience was unimpressed, despite production efforts to make the film appealing to fans of the universe. Most of the ratings– of critics and some audiences– have fallen well under 50% satisfaction. It seems only die-hard Marvel fans were impressed with the structure and action of the story. If the reviews aren’t enough to reveal the failure of the film’s appeal, the memes are.

At 1 hour and 44 minutes long, and with a 75 million dollar budget, makers anticipated the film having decent chances at success. In terms of making back a profit over the amount spent on the film, the movie is far from Sony’s biggest flop but still, it did not bring them the same success as other movies in the Spider-man universe achieved. It’s likely the high praise of the Tom Holland Spider-man films that has left the producers eagerly pumping out stories set in the realm which is inevitably sure to result in some duds.

The negative feedback that has come about since Morbius’s release has been centered around a couple of particular points that seem to especially highlight what’s important for franchises to consider when pursuing multiple stories in a universe. For one, people seemed displeased with the character arc of Morbius and two, Jared Leto’s performance was viewed by many as underwhelming.

There are a lot of fans of the MCU that feel that any of the films that serve as spin-off origin stories for villains are pointless without noting its relevance to the hero. While the story is reliant on the universe, it doesn’t seem to contribute much to it. The structure of Morbius was loosely woven and as a result, many viewers found it difficult to follow or invest interest in. Several reviews have criticized the script for this. While the concept of genre-blending horror and action appealed to many, the story didn’t hold up and the theme of the story suffered even more.

There’s a lot of controversy around Leto as a person, let alone an actor, and that was no different with this movie. This wasn’t the first hero movie that Leto starred in that was negatively received by fans. In fact, a lot of fans are wondering when Leto will cease his attempts to make a successful DC or Marvel character. Leto is a known method actor which some filmmakers have noted they believe sometimes affects his mental states when playing these dark, villainous characters. In the case of Morbius, it affected his physical state, as he had to lose and gain drastic amounts of weight for the role, which undoubtedly, significantly affected his health.

While the original story of Morbius from the comics has the potential to make for an interesting film, given that it’s centered around a character whose problems motivated him to help others but ultimately his pride and fear got in the way and consumed him through his attempts to obtain his goals that backfired on him. However, the structure of the movie and the promotion of it came off as rushed and forced to viewers and critics, which was most certainly a contributing factor to its failure.

Again, the tone achieved through genre-blending has been a trend in superhero films as of late, but structure is a significant part of determining the success of that attempt. Robert Pattinson’s The Batman, released in the same year, incorporates a film noir element into an otherwise traditional superhero story structure and this was received well by DC fans. However, the one prominent component of The Batman– or Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker, in terms of villains– that Morbius lacked is a full character arc.

In superhero films where the story follows particular individuals with powers, especially in origin stories, the character arc is a vital component of the story structure. Morbius, even in the comics, has a complicated character arc because the motivating factor that propelled him into the pursuit of his goals was something that he could not help and the actions that resulted in his powers at least had mostly good intentions. The poorly organized structure of this film only furthers the complications of this character’s arc which results in the audience’s disconnect to the character and film.

Hopefully, Morbius served as a good example of what to be conscious of and in the future, franchises that are as successful and have as large a following as DC and the MCU will consider story elements over the showy elements once again. Both to please the audience and to do justice to the complex characters brought to life by the comics. While the showy elements of a movie are what make it cinematically stand out among other film styles, it is a solid story structure and character arc that make a movie stand out in the hearts of fans.

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