Review: Venom

“Eddie Brock gets a parasite in his system, and instead of spending the rest of the movie on the toilet, he runs through the second half of the movie trying to avoid disappointing script cuts and silly humour.”

This is Venom without Spider-Man. Nothing in this movie feels part of the Spider-Man world set up in Spiderman: Homecoming. That’s a deliberate thing, as Spider-Man is currently on a sort of borrowing system between Sony and Marvel. Sony makes the solo films, so it seemed when this was all announced that Venom would be able to play with Spider-Man, but Marvel are being a little controlling, and there seems to be some doubt on this. Of course, if Venom makes a ton of money, Marvel may call up Venom’s mum and ask if they can arrange a play date.

An actual picture of Tom Hardy trying to hold this movie together.

Venom isn’t the villain in this, instead he’s an antihero. Tom Hardy takes on the role, and Hardy is no stranger to comic book movies, having famously played the villain Bane in The Dark Knight Rises. Hardy plays physically strong characters very well, but often his dialogue to the point of being inaudible (The Revenant (2015) being the worst of these performances when it comes to diction).

The film opens with a rather lengthy first act that takes its time to give you a mini story arc for Eddie Brock (Hardy), as his life turns for the worst as he can’t help but try to do his job of investigative journalism with no compromises.

The human villain is Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed). Drake is in many ways your typical evil scientist, however, Ahmed keeps him cool and calm and he doesn’t fall into doing a typical villain performance. However, in saying that, he doesn’t do all that much overall (maybe down to some editing, as I feel a lot of this film may be missing).

There’s the usual science labs and hi tech business dealings as a way to advance the plot, a little better backstory than in Spider-Man 3 (and no emo Peter). For some reason, the security seems to have no cameras in the building, and eventually, Eddie comes into contact with the Symbiotes (an organism Drake has brought to Earth). In keeping with these movies, Eddie just happens to be a perfect match for the Venom Symbiotes (each pile of black goo has its own name and personality, and they all speak English), and so the movie kicks up a gear and we’re off into the trailer moments. Cue the thirteen years old’s to wake up at the back of the cinema.

At first, Venom is shown only in glimpses, bouncing out of Eddie but not taking over. He pushes Eddie around and protects him and this is when it works at its best. Hardy’s performance is captivating and when the effects strip back and reveal Eddie, it’s a far more interesting character than the CGI black plastic skinned monster. Not that the CGI isn’t adequate, but there’s little emotional performance from the beast.

However, half way through the movie, Venom really starts to take over, and once another Symbiote (his name is Riot) comes into it, the film trips over itself, as instead of continuing on the dark character driven narrative of the first hour, it tries to please all comers and starts making jokes, piling on destructive action and eventually, one of the worst CGI battle scenes since the Incredible Hulk took on the Abomination. For some reason, we have to view the fight from 16 cm away, rather than being allowed to actually see a lot of what is going on.

Hello, I'm Riot. I'm here to ruin this movie.

The first half of the film worked really well for me. Whilst I’ve heard people say the opening is too slow, I felt it worked well in establishing the world and the characters. As a DC fan, I thought this might be my favourite CBM of the year (or at least second to Aquaman), and half way through I was feeling the love. There is a great motorcycle chases sequence that is quite lengthy, and is exceptionally well done, showing many cool aspects of what Venom can do to get out of tricky situations. There was plenty of action once Eddie and Venom become one and a little bit of humour here and there, but Venom still hiding in the shadows for the most part.

From the middle of the movie, the film started to fall off the rails for me. Once again, the humour started to feel too much, although it is restricted to mostly Eddie and Venom’s interactions. Some of Venoms line’s however were quite childish, which really felt jarring against the dark visuals of the movie.

Rather than a three act structure, the film feels like two parts, with the first half as I mentioned, slow and measured, with some good action and character building. However in the second act the film suddenly goes into hyper speed and feels like it skips over several events in the storyline. Suddenly, we have a battle between the barely seen Riot and Venom, and then suddenly, it’s all over. Cue the sequel set ups.

Remember me? Try not to.

I have heard that around 40 minutes was cut from the movie. Now, the film is 112 minutes, so 152 might have been a bit long, but if it ironed out the issues with the second half, then I’d be all for it, as the pacing might feel more consistent and the story arcs would be more complete.

In terms of performances, Hardy always brings a strong screen presence and this film is no exception. In fact, to say that Hardy’s performance is easily the best thing about this film is probably a fair assertion to make. Michelle Williams continues to pop up consistently, and she’s quite good in this role, but she doesn’t have a lot to do, as again, her relationship story with Eddie is a little short changed and I imagine she might have had a little more development in the original cut.

The CGI on Venom is okay overall. He’s supposed to look a bit plastic like, which means that he will look a bit fake from time to time. But overall, for me it was more that the CGI monster felt out of place within the story. I feel it would have worked better as a more phycological character that enhances Eddie, rather than takes over him and literally wraps him in alien bubble wrap. However, that wouldn’t be the character from the comics.

With mass audiences so accustomed to the formula of Marvel movies now, and anything that is called dark in tone being shunned at the box office (but strangely loved on TV), both DC, Fox and Sony are constantly altering their films in a desperate bid to be more like Marvel, and creatively, the movies are lesser for it. We need variety and the tag line for Venom was ‘the world has enough superheros’ and this film could have been that tonic.

The film should be rated R, or at least MA in Australia. Venom has a lot of horror elements which could have really made an impact on the viewer. However, the film is only rated M, and for the most part, it’s a pretty soft M. This might play well to the box office figures, as more 12 year old’s are allowed to see it, but you can feel the cuts that remove any real gore from the movie.

By the end, I was quite disappointed by the overall result. Not a disaster, there’s certainly enough to make it worth seeing. But an opportunity feels missed and this film will fade from people’s memory pretty quick I would imagine. Overall, most people in the theatre seemed to enjoy it. If you go in with mid-level expectations, then you should find meets those expectations.

If you suffer from motion sickness and is easily effected by shaky cam, this film did affect me, so please be aware.

The five bearded questions:

1. Was it worth a cinema trip? Yes

2. Would I See It Again at the Cinema? If someone wanted to go.

3. Would I buy it on Blu-ray: (only films I really love get bought these days) No 4. Do I Recommend people see it? Yes.

5. Any cheese/ Disney style bullshit?: (such as jokes wedged in at serious moments, because fun!). Yes, there were jokes that felt wedged in. Not quite Marvel / Disney level, but certainly some.