Venom (2018 review)

3 outta 5

Venom is a movie that could easily be called dumb, cheesy and corny. But that is not necessarily bad. Cheesy is still be enjoyable even as the horror movie serious elements clash mostly with the comedy elements. This is a bit strange because director Ruben Fleischer deftly mixed horror and comedy in Zombieland but this time around the correct mix proves elusive. As far as Marvel comic movies goes, it isn’t as awesome as an Avengers film but it’s certainly better than any crummy Fantastic Four movie. Venom is off on its own in a really weird, slobbering murderous alien way.

Reporter Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) seems to have it all with a beautiful lawyer fiancé Annie (Michelle Williams). But when he’s called in to do a puff piece on businessman Drake (Riz Ahmed) Brock asks some tough questions about Drake’s research and gets himself and his fiancé fired. Eventually, a scientist (Jenny Slate) reveals that Drake is killing people with his research into mysterious alien symbiotes that merge with humans. Accidentally, Eddie merges with an alien that slowly drives him mad, talking in Eddie’s head and using its superpowers to wreck Drake’s goons. Soon Eddie is not just himself but instead the giant monster Venom.  And Venom isn’t the only alien symbiote out there as another alien, Riot, is advancing on Eddie’s hometown. 

Venom had a go before as an abbreviated 3^rd act final villain in Spider-Man 3. This movie is without Spider-Man himself as due to a bit of complicated rights issues between Sony studios and Marvel so Spider-Man is off with the Avengers. This is an attempt at Venom without Spider-Man which does work but it is weird because it takes out a hugely important chunk of Eddie Brock’s origin. There a vague attempt to make Eddie be obsessed with the evil businessman Drake but without Spider-Man it’s pretty weak. Also Eddie is more of an opportunistic, amoral jerk originally but here he is a journalistic crusader for justice. It makes the character less complicated but happily Hardy is legit great.

Sometimes it feels like Hardy is in a comedy and everyone else is in a drama but that’s fine because he is the best. A lot of Venom’s performance is just Hardy’s growling voice-over as he interjects random asides as Eddie mutters at him to shut up. The movie is at its best when it’s a buddy action comedy movie except the two mismatched buddies just happen to be sharing the same body. Heck, there’s even a moment when Eddie “breaks up” with Venom which often happens in the buddy action genre.

Venom actually tells Eddie that on his planet he’s “a bit of a loser” but on Earth he’s trying to stop the other evil alien symbiote because he sympathizes with Eddie. Hardy is pretty funny as he freaks out discovering his powers, downing tons of food and randomly snarling. There’s one scene where Eddie ends up at a fancy restaurant and starts acting crazy which is actually very funny although the musical cue unfortunately plays it as menacing. The design of Venom is great as he’s huge, slobbering and freaky, much better than he looked in Spider-Man 3, although it is missing the iconic white spider design because there’s no Spider-Man in this Venom.  

The Venom stuff is so good it’s kind of annoying it takes the movie basically an hour to get to it. There is a bit too much of Eddie and Annie’s relationship at the start. Williams is a fantastic actress who enlivens a nothing part although Eddie’s true love is really the alien symbiote.  She gets in one fantastic scene where Annie gets awkwardly close to Venom and Williams has a hilarious punch-line. Ahmed as the evil scientist businessman is pretty generic but, like Williams, Ahmed makes a lame part a bit better. Slate’s random exposition scientist lady delivers random plot information and disappears.   

Venom is not rated R but it really wants to be. The other alien, Riot, advancing its way across the globe has some really creepy possession human scenes that could have use more gore.  There is a lot of heads being eaten but it’s not really shown, just talked about. Still the action is nicely big and loud. The first scene when Eddie is taken for a ride by Venom across the city has cool moments, especially the big reveal of Eddie going fully Venom at the end.  Some other good bits involve Venom versus a SWAT team and the finale of Venom versus Riot features giant monsters trying to impale each other. There is a sequel bait mid-credits scene which is enjoyable just for the casting of a potential sequel villain. It’s not subtle, nothing in this movie is, but it’s a great promise for fans.  

This Venom is sort of all over the place but the character is sort of insane and all over the place anyway.  It is a more true to the source version of the character than Spider-Man 3 but it’s missing the essential piece of Spider-Man. Yet when this movie is just about a human and his wacky bloodthirsty alien buddy, it’s enjoyably whacked.