Venom is one of the most difficult films I’ve ever tried to review for anyone. It’s not a bad movie, but it’s objectively not a good movie either. There are several aspects of the film that really work for me, but those go hand-in-hand with an equally long list of things that fall under the tired, old list of comic book movie tropes that no longer work in the post The Dark Knight era. Let’s try and unpack this mixed bag as best we can.
To start with the positives, I have to begin that list with Tom Hardy’s performance as Eddie Brock/Venom. Hardy does a fantastic job portraying Eddie as a flawed character who can’t get out of his own way. It’s Eddie’s interactions with Venom that really are the most interesting and enjoyable part of this film. While this film definitely doesn’t know what it wants to be tonally, I found myself laughing out loud whenever Eddie and Venom were talking to each other, especially the much talked about “pussy” line.
I guess I should have said positive, as in the singular form of the word “positive” because there really wasn’t much past Tom Hardy’s performance that really resonated with me at all. The script left a lot to be desired. I hate when critics assume actors just phone it in with their performances, but Michelle Williams and Riz Ahmed just didn’t have much to work with. As an aside, Jenny Slate will never shake her performance as Mona Lisa Sapperstein on Parks and Recreation for me. Getting back to Venom though, I just didn’t buy the chemistry between Hardy and Williams. To be honest, besides her antics as She-Venom and adjusting the broadcast frequency during the launchpad set-piece, her character was fairly useless. Ahmed’s character on the other hand was the same formulaic, moustache-twirling, one-note bad guy that people constantly complain about with comic book adaptations.
Now for the stars of the movie, the symbiotes. Riot is the symbiote antagonist of this film who ends up hop-skipping his way through different human hosts until he finally ends up with Riz Ahmed’s character, Carlton Drake. I wish this character was more clearly developed throughout the film rather than just appearing towards the end of the second act with the most generic motivations one can think of. I thought Venom was definitely much more fleshed out, however he doesn’t even appear until just before the midpoint of the film. Not that this film needed to immediately establish Venom the second it began, but since he was the primary focus of the entire film (even more so than Eddie Brock I would argue) the film would have benefited from him being introduced much earlier.
In the interest of complete transparency, I watched a whole host of my favorite film review channels in preparation for this review in order to help better understand my own feelings towards this film. What I came to find was even though some points were raised that made the film better, like why in the world Venom’s plan to bring the other symbiotes to Earth changed on a dime in the third act, it still didn’t move the needle much for my overall opinion of this film. I never read any reports during this film’s production that would have suggested there was any studio interference on the part of Sony, but it still doesn’t seem like Reuben Fleischer was able to fully realize his vision.
To summarize, this film is by no means the terrible flop that 2015’s Fantastic Four reboot was, but it is not the type of quality film that comic book fans have come to expect. Tonally, this film is a disaster. It doesn’t know if it wants to be a comedy or horror film at any given point, and while I applaud some of the more outlandish choices that were made visually, it just didn’t come together the way I hoped. The film suffers from a very sluggish first half and never fully recovers. The action set-pieces were all included in the trailers so there weren’t any surprises there either. Overall, this is a fun action movie that doesn’t bring anything new to the table, but if someone asked me if they should see this film, I would definitely say yes. If nothing else, Tom Hardy delivers another excellent performance that carries this film from beginning to end. As for the post-credits scene, I love the prospect of Woody Harrelson as Cletus Cassidy/Carnage, even despite that horrendously corny line to end the scene. If Sony is dead-set on making a sequel to this film, hopefully they fully commit to the character and make the film R-rated.
Final Grade: 5/10
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