In the movie, the story of Venom is familiar enough
to those who know about him from the comics and the 90s animated series. Eddie
Brock (Tom Hardy) is a headstrong reporter. After an interview with famous
billionaire tech titan Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed) goes wrong, he winds up
getting himself fired and dumped by his finance, Anne (Michelle Williams). He
goes on a self-destructive tear for a while that leads him to investigating
some shady practises by Drake's company concerning alien life forms called
symbiotes that fuse with human hosts. Eddie ends up with a symbiote called
Venom that Drake is desperate to get back.
There's a lot wrong with Venom, and I'll get
to that shortly. I'd like to start with the good things though. This cast is
far better than the movie deserves. Tom Hardy previously played Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, but Eddie
Brock is much more of a character. We can understand what he's saying too. I
love seeing Michelle Williams in a superhero movie. She is one of my favorite
actresses and I like seeing her in something fun. Riz Ahmed has a great time
hamming it up as the main villain. Jenny Slate and Reid Scott have supporting
roles that they know how to play as well. No one in the cast elevates the
movie. They play to the level of the script, and that works.
It's almost bizarre how much Venom is a
high-class version of
Upgrade.
The computer chip in Logan Marshall-Green in Upgrade works very much
like Venom when it's fused with Tom Hardy. Both the chip and the symbiote speak
telepathically with their host and take over his body to perform acts with inhumane
precision and control. A lot of the humor in both movies is generated from the
leads looking panicked as they pull off unbelievable feats or with the inner
dialogue with their "partner". It's even appropriate that Upgrade
stars Logan Marshall-Green, who I've often described as an off-brand Tom Hardy.
I didn't care for Upgrade. It didn't deliver enough on the premise
(among many other problems). Venom does all the same stuff as Upgrade,
but with a massive budget. There's a car chase through downtown San Francisco
that beats anything in Upgrade simply because of the resources
available.
Venom has
some massive tonal issues. A lot of people die, most of them pretty horribly.
Sometimes this is treated as a tragedy. Other times it's just a way to show off
symbiote powers. The rest of the time, it's played for jokes. Eddie is outright
a good guy, so that means all the bad stuff is supposed to be Venom's doing.
But then the movie tries to make Venom a noble character too. There's no moral
accountability in the movie, but it doesn't dip in black humor enough to
forgive that. This movie would be much happier with an R-rated cut.
Individual beats of the story don't make much sense.
The way Eddie gets fired in the first place doesn't make much sense. If he's
the kind of guy who would do something that stupid, then there's no way he
would've kept his job as long as he did. He's a character I don't believe
existed before the movie began. Drake's motivation is pretty shaky as well. The
movie literally makes a joke about what's driving Venom's decisions. We don't
get to see enough chemistry between Eddie and Anne to really believe that she
would continue to help him. It's a mess. There's a difference between a hero's
origin story and a villain's origin story. Venom's backstory is a villain's
backstory. There isn't much too it. The strategy in Venom is to fill in
the blanks by mirroring Spider-Man's story. The result is disjointed.
Oh, and while I liked some of the early action
sequences with Venom amplifying Eddie's abilities, the fight in the finale is
awful. It's ugly and hard to follow. It was just a jumble of poorly lit CG
animation. Really any time the movie tries to show us that it's Eddie beneath
the suit looks bad.
I'll be honest. I went into Venom expecting
the worst, and while it was far from perfect, I liked it. It zips along at a
decent pace. It keeps a good sense of humor. It has actors I like playing
simple characters. I found the movie most enjoyable when I treated it like it
was a generic SciFi action movie rather than a Marvel movie. It's generic
enough to work either way. The biggest stumbles were in the origin, so I'd
invite a sequel with open arms, especially after what they tease in the
mid-credits sequence.
Movie Theater LVPs: This was the weirdest movie theater crowd I've had in a
while. Directly next to me, there was a dad who brought a 3 year old kid to see
this. That was a poor calculation on the father's part. 10 minutes in, the
child was repeating that he wanted to go home. The dad kept him pretty quiet
otherwise though, so I didn't really care. There was a mom a couple rows in
front of me who was not having as much luck. All I could hear was occasional
bursts of her telling her kid to be quiet. The kid in front of me was an
oddball. He kept leaning over to inspect the lights on the floor and
periodically stuck his limbs out like he was contemplating doing something
then reconsidering. And no one in the theater knew how to modulate their sound.
No one whispered or even lowered their voice. They all spoke at normal volume.
I don't know what was wrong with the people at that 1:30 Sunday showing. They
didn't ruin the movie for me. They just confused me.
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
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