Venom (2018)

It has come to a point where I almost immediately expect the majority of the movies that come out to be bad.  I don't mean bad in the sense of The Room or even many of the movies I have seen where the director padded a 45-minute short film with an extra half hour of driving around or walking from place to place.  I mean bad as in big-budget bad, where it is all spectacle, dialogue is basic and plot really doesn't matter. 

Sure, these movies have been around for a long time, but now the majority of them, while made in Hollywood, are not even meant to be appreciated by American audiences.  They are homogenous, neutered and ready to be marketed to China, where it doesn't seem to matter if there is anything remotely resembling art.  From the reviews I had read, and from the way Sony has handled, and continues to do so, its few Marvel copyrights that it keeps in a death grip, that is what I expected with Venom.

Venom is a character that branched off the Spider-Man comics and became a central part of Spider-Man 3.  It's an alien symbiote that starts off as black goo, and in Spider-Man 3 arrives on Earth in a meteor and eventually forms a new Spidey suit that begins to corrupt Peter Parker so that he dyes his hair black and does a silly dance down the street - as well as almost killing people.  When Parker finally rejects Venom it looks for a new host, this being disgraced reporter Eddie Brock who not only welcomes the sense of power Venom provides, but has a bone to pick with Parker for exposing his attempts to discredit Spider-Man.  The symbiote is affected adversely by certain sound frequencies, which is how it is eventually defeated.

Topher Grace was one of the worst parts in Spider-Man 3, which is saying a lot about a movie that ultimately brought a successful franchise to a halt.  Unsurprisingly Grace was not brought back to reprise the role when Venom got its own movie, instead opting for Tom Hardy to fill the role.  Also, since at least when this came out in 2018 it was to have no ties with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there were no references to Spider-Man until after the credits rolled.

Eddie Brock is a muckraking San Francisco journalist with a popular investigative television show.  The reason he is in San Francisco is because of an unnamed "incident" in New York that resulted in him finding employment elsewhere.  Everything seems to be going fine - his show is successful, and he is about to marry his girlfriend Anne (Michelle Williams), who happens to be a corporate lawyer.  However, he is unable to restrain himself when given the chance to interview tech billionaire Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed).  The result is both he, and Anne's, firing, after which she leaves him for using information from her work files. 

Months later Brock is still unemployed and is spending most of his time at the bar.  On his way home one night he is confronted by Dr. Dora Skirth (Jenny Slate), the head of Drake's main research project.  One of Drake's recent space missions brought back extraterrestrial life, with three being brought back to the lab and one escaping containment in Malaysia.  Turns out the creatures are symbiotes and Drake has made several unsuccessful attempts to bind them with humans.  When Brock is discovered investigating the labs one of the symbiotes, Venom, joins with him and helps him escape.  It turns out that they let themselves be brought to Earth and are planning on conquering our planet once their leader, Riot, is able to find a proper host.  

Maybe it was because I went in with lowered expectations, but I found Venom to be more enjoyable than many of its MCU counterparts.  Not bringing Spider-Man into it, or any other Marvel characters, was a good thing, and though I know it was because Sony isn't exactly spoiled for choice it is something that works in streamlining the film.  Venom is a combination of superhero film and a good old-fashioned b-movie monster romp.  While what some of what the symbiotes can do is made clear in the beginning, the story works up to the combining of Brock and Venom, and it makes their relationship a bit more believable.  I also appreciate that Brock and Anne have a bit of a realness about them.  It might be just having the courage to cast actors of my generation (or close to it) in lead roles rather than supporting ones, a surprising trend I have seen in recent years. 

Although Riot is for all intents and purposes the big bad guy, the writers knew what they had in Carlton Drake.  Riz Ahmed plays him with a bit of menace and camp, and throughout he is the true villain.  I know that corporate billionaires (and there is more than a little Elon Musk in the character) are easy choices for moustache-twirling miscreants, but it was clearly much better than some unbeatable creature that wanted to turn humans into snacks.  

The only major problem I had with Venom was that this clearly needed to be a n R-rated film.  The effects are great, but one of the established things from the beginning is that Venom likes biting off people's heads.  I have no idea what executive thought that should be neutered with a PG-13.  This was clearly not a movie aimed at the same audience as the Tom Holland Spider-Man films, but rather at the adults with a sick sense of humor who loved Deadpool.  In fact, this could have easily been Sony's Deadpool, but they decided to pull their punches.  I wouldn't be surprised, given some of the scenes and the fact this is bloodier than most PG-13 films made, that there is a more graphic version waiting to be released at some point.

Although I still can't wait to see Tom Hardy reprise his roll as Mad Max, he is great as Eddie Brock and his dark companion.  It does tease where it will be headed at the end and, luckily, did enough business to follow through on its promise.  I am a bit confused on why Sony decided to add a clip from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse after the credits, especially after doing so much to separate Venom and the Spider-Man films both past and present, but I guess it was an added bonus for those waiting anxiously to see the first introduction of the multiverse in the story.  

Venom (2018)

Time: 112 minutes

Starring: Tom Hardy, Michelle William, Riz Ahmed

Director: Ruben Fleischer