Review: 'Morbius' lets Jared Leto cut loose as a neo-vampire, but then sucks the life out of him with a mishmash of action scenes.

For awhile, the comic-book action movie “Morbius” — a “Spider-Man”-adjacent character in the Sony-controlled part of the Marvel back catalog — is an interesting enough little thriller, with Jared Leto playing a determined but not-evil scientist who gets the thrills and consequences of playing God.

Then, just past the hour mark, director Daniel Espinosa (who made the Jake Gyllenhaal-starring space thriller “Life”) and writers Matt Salaam and Burk Sharpless settle into the toothless series of chaotic fight sequences we all knew was coming.

Leto plays the title character, Dr. Michael Morbius, a brilliant doctor and researcher, specializing in blood-borne diseases like the one that’s left him on crutches since he was a child. He thinks the breakthrough he’s seeking will come by combining the DNA of vampire bats with the human genetic code.

He’s bankrolled on this by his longtime friend Lucien (Matt Smith), who’s super-rich and has the same disease — and whom Morbius calls Milo for reasons randomly explained in a flashback. He’s aided by his brilliant assistant, Dr. Martine Bancroft (Adria Arjona), who’s suggested as a love interest only because pickings are slim in this script.

Sure enough, Morbius tries his DNA experiment on himself, and immediately he’s hale and hearty, off the crutches and sporting washboard abs. Oh, and he wants to feast on human blood, and took out a crew of mercenaries after his first transformation. He manages to hold off on further urges for red blood, thanks to a supply of artificial blood (which he invented, as the script tells us earlier). But the artificial blood’s potency is wearing off faster and faster, a couple of FBI agents (Tyrese Gibson and Al Madrigal) are nosing around, and Lucien/Milo eagerly wants a taste of what Morbius took.

There are some cool images mixed into the standard action beats — namely, the liquid-like effect that visualizes Morbius’ bat-like echolocation. But the action sequences in the second half are frenzied and random, so much so that a viewer has to wait for characters to stop fighting just so we can see who’s winning.

Odd that playing a man transforming into a vampire feels like a more lived-in, relaxed performance for Leto than his cartoonish Italian fop in “House of Gucci,” but at least he seems to be having fun with it. It’s also enjoyable to watch Smith, the former “Doctor Who” star, sink his teeth (pardon the pun) into a villain role.

Of course, being something with the word “Marvel” in the credits, “Morbius” can’t be satisfied with just being its own thing. Stay through the main credits, as the MCU has trained us to do, and there’s a hint at future franchise movies to come, a beloved actor wasting his talents in armored supervillain garb, and a dull reminder that origin movies like this only exist to set up the next one.

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‘Morbius’

★★1/2

Opens Friday, April 1, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence, some frightening images, and brief strong language. Running time: 108 minutes.