Netflix users, at last you can proudly say, with all sincerity and accuracy: It is morbin’ time.
Yes, the critically reviled (yet weirdly internet popular) Morbius, starring Jared Leto as Marvel Comics’ living vampire, is now streaming on Netflix. Newly debuted on streaming, it has already rocketed to the #1 movie on the service in the United States, as evidenced by the top ten list currently available on Netflix’s homepage:
Yes, Morbius, which grossed a total of $73.8 million in domestic movie theaters — approximately nine percent of the earnings of Sony’s previous Marvel film, Spider-Man: No Way Home — is currently the top film on all of Netflix (at least in the United States), where it is more popular than Netflix originals like the Kevin Hart and Mark Wahlberg comedy Me Time, as well as other popular hits like This Is 40, Despicable Me 2, Collateral, Scarface, and Despicable Me. (Why are the Despicable Me movies so popular on Netflix?!?)
To what can we attribute the film’s popularity on Netflix? Perhaps people have seen the various Morbius memes and GIFs on social media. They weren’t willing to pay $15 to see the movie in a theater — nor should they have been, this film was, really really bad — but they are curious enough to want to watch it on Netflix where they’re already paying a monthly subscription fee and it doesn’t cost them an extra penny to watch it.
If you are one of those people, be warned: The memes are amusing, the movie is not. Here was the opening paragraph from my review back in April:
Morbius was released into theaters on April 1, so I have to ask: Are we sure it isn’t some kind of elaborate April Fools’ Day prank? At the very least, it feels like one. There are very few times in my life I have seen a film this poorly performed, this awkwardly written, this obviously taken apart and reconstructed in the editing room. It may be about a vampire but it feels more like the work of a cinematic Dr. Frankenstein; sutured together from bits and pieces of different storylines and characters that don’t fit, and then zapped into unholy, disjointed life.
So beware: It may be morbin’ time, but that will be 104 minutes of your life can never get back. Proceed with caution.
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