Following the abysmal portrayal of the Joker by Jared Leto in that scattershot of a film from David Ayer called Suicide Squad, Leto has been on the bad side of comic book movie fans. Only a tiny fraction of delusional people thought gangster-pimp Joker was a good thing. Sony and Marvel decided to give Leto a second chance in the Sonyverse rendition of the web-slinging web-head as Morbius.

The spin-off film is based on the sickly yet adroit genius played by Leto, as it follows his exploits from finding a cure for his rare blood disease to turning into a full-on, blood-sucking vampire.

The trailer is a little bit of a mixed bag for me. Parts of it appears as if the cinematography was inspired by Theo van de Sande’s work for the 1998 outing of Blade, while at the same time the action sequences and effects come across as rather ho-hum.

You can see what I mean with the trailer below, courtesy of IGN.

The comment section couldn’t help but talk about all of the Easter egg references sprinkled throughout the short two minute runtime of the trailer.

The very end sequence featured Michael Keaton’s Vulture from Spider-Man: Homecoming, and we had just some small snippets of Doctor Who’s Matt Smith walking through what looks like a subway terminal, and then there was the very obvious graffiti art of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man with the word “Murderer” scribbled across it.

Now the reason I’m of two minds about this film is because the first-half of the trailer came across as something more akin to the first-half of Doctor Strange. Marvel’s dimension-hopping, reality-altering, time-manipulating magician had an interesting beginning that was more character-driven than event-driven. The second-half of the film devolved into a cheap chase around a McGuffin.

I can’t help but feel that Morbius will start out well, themed heavily around the plight of Leto’s character and his desire to get fixed, but there’s also that sinking feeling that once he turns into the blood-sucking monster, everything will potentially fall apart.

You know what really would have been cool? If the movie stayed small.

If the real battle was themed around Morbius’ blood-lust and trying hard to fight it, but eventually succumbing to his desires and killing a few people. The bodycount can stay small, but the real thrill would have been the manhunt for the killer led by Matt Smith.

Now that could have been an interesting film, and maybe in some ways this iteration of Morbius is that. But based on the trailer so far it looks like it starts out on steady legs but gets flaky during the latter parts. I could be wrong, but that just seems to be the formula these days when it comes to some comic book movies.

You can look for Morbius to hit theaters this summer.