Movie Review – ‘Venom’
After years of trying to get a Venom movie off the ground, Sony has finally given the titular anti-hero his own full length feature film.
Journalist Eddie Brock has a reputation for taking down shady businessmen and corporations. His new project involves Carlton Drake, the notorious and brilliant founder of the Life Foundation. While investigating one of Drake’s cruel experiments, Eddie accidentally merges with a parasitic alien symbiote named Venom – leaving him with superhuman strength and power. And though Eddie may find these new abilities intoxicating, if he can’t control Venom, he may find that Venom is the one controlling him.
The first thing anyone will notice about Venom is the sheer amount of talent involved in the cast. Even if you were skeptical about a Venom movie that had nothing to do with Spider-Man, you have to admit that the cast list did leave you mildly impressed. Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams, Riz Ahmed, and Woody Harrelson are all incredibly talented A-list actors. Casting director John Papsidera should really be commended for getting all these stars together. It’s just a shame that every single one of them were terribly utilized.
No one in this movie delivers a good performance. Tom Hardy may be a better fit for Eddie Brock/ Venom than someone like Topher Grace, but his performance is just so bizarre. Hardy makes a bunch of sporadic movements and facial ticks that make Brock appear like some weirdo who is in desperate need of a fidget spinner. Even before Brock gets infected with an alien parasite, his odd mannerisms made it hard for me to believe that he was ever a professional journalist. Tom Hardy is usually great actor that can lose himself in a role, but I could see right through his acting in Venom.
Meanwhile, Riz Ahmed portrays one of the worst comic book villains in recent memory. Carlton Drake is already a terribly underwritten character, so Ahmed’s portrayal of him is woefully one-dimensional. He feels like a cheesy villain that would have been better suited for a 90s Marvel film – though that is a sentiment that can be used to describe most of Venom. Ahmed was much better in The Sisters Brothers (which is playing in theaters now, if you want to see anything other than Venom).
Harrelson’s appearance is so small and insignificant that it probably isn’t even worth mentioning, but then I wouldn’t be able to talk about how he wears one of the worst wigs in cinematic history. Of course I’m exaggerating, but the wig is still pretty bad. Harrelson’s presence just feels awkwardly shoehorned in, to the point in which I almost wish he wasn’t in the movie at all.
Conversely, Michelle Williams does have a significant amount of screen time, but her character doesn’t have much to do. The screenwriters clearly wanted Anne Weying to have an important role in the movie, but she does little to nothing – other than worry and pine over Eddie Brock. With a forceful attempt to make Weying seem relevant, and some cringe-worthy dialogue thrown into the mix, Williams unfortunately delivers one of the worst performances of her career.
With all that being said, I don’t think the actors are the ones to blame for their bad acting. This was the material they were given, and they did the best with what they got. But Ruben Fleischer hasn’t directed a good film since 2009’s Zombieland, and the three screenwriters attached to Venom don’t have an amazing track record either. Jeff Pinkner, Scott Rosenberg, and Kelly Marcel did a poor job on the character development, and aside from this, their script is just bad. The plot is a derivate origin story that offers nothing new to the comic book genre, and though that doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing, Venom manages to make a simple narrative feel chaotic and all over the place.
Despite having years of development behind it, Venom still feels like a film that was rushed. The final product just seems unfinished. I can’t help but wonder if that has anything to do with Avi Arad demanding to have a standalone Venom movie. He’s been trying to force Venom onto the big screen since Spider-Man 3, and I don’t understand why. If he doesn’t care about the quality of the film, or how Venom is actually depicted, then I have to imagine that he is only interested in the profits that a popular comic-book character could bring in for Sony. The result is a movie that feels half-a**ed. The VFX look unfinished, and even entire scenes seem to be missing – which makes sense, given that Tom Hardy has stated as much himself.
I also wonder if these deleted scenes had any effect on the film’s final rating. Ruben Fleischer and other producers may indicate otherwise, but I’m pretty sure Venom was shot to be a Rated-R film. Or at the very least, it desperately wanted to be Rated-R. There are certain moments that clearly would have benefited from having that R-Rating, but they had to be censored, or edited, or cut back from in order to make that PG-13 rating. It felt as though I was watching a clean made-for-TV edit. To be clear, I don’t think Venom needed to be Rated-R, but the filmmakers were going to “push the boundaries” of their PG-13 limit, then they should have just gone for it.
Currently, it remains unclear if Venom will have a sequel. Word-of-mouth on the film has been fairly negative, but Thursday’s box office numbers were looking pretty good. Either way, if the results are positive or negative, I hope Venom will have no bearing on Tom Holland’s portrayal of Spider-Man in the MCU. I would hate to see Holland go just because Sony still wants to force their cinematic universe to work. If Venom fails, then Sony should just let Marvel make all of the creative decisions with their characters. This way everyone can be happy, especially because no one is asking for a Morbius movie.
Despite all my negativity, I will admit that the best part about Venom is the titular character himself. I (along with countless other fans) have been waiting years to see Venom depicted properly on the big screen, and this time Sony finally got his character right. Seeing Venom go on a rampage and cause havoc is undeniably fun. For being either a voice or a CGI blob, he even has great chemistry with Eddie Brock’s character. Venom’s own development as a character may be a bit rushed, but the fact that I cared about his humanity at all was a nice surprise.
As the launch of Sony’s cinematic universe of Marvel characters, Venom is a failure. It barely holds up well as one singular movie. But as a mindless piece of entertainment, Venom can be enjoyable. Nearly every other aspect of the film feels wrong, but Sony sure did nail the portrayal of everyone’s favorite alien symbiote. He is awesome to watch, and even easy to root for as you watch his character grow, I just wish that this version of Venom existed in a better movie.
