Venom is a 2018 American superhero film drama based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, produced by Columbia Pictures in association with Marvel and Tencent Pictures. If you like your superheroes light and you are not too concerned about well-developed plots and characterisations, then this is the movie for you!
The best parts about this movie are whenever the titular character – an alien symbiote – interacts with Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy), its human host. There is a manic comic tone that reflects accurately what Venom is like on the comic book page.
The popular Marvel anti-hero is visually portrayed accurately for the most part – if you can ignore the lack of the spider symbol on its body – and the fight scenes initially provide awe and humour. Tom Hardy is excellent in the lead role, it must be said!
However, whenever the movie attempts to flesh out the story around Venom and Eddie Brock, then the movie crumbles and falls apart.
The entire concept of a team of symbiotes coming to Earth to conquer the planet does not quite come off. And it’s never quite explained why the symbiotes bonded with some humans but not with others? Plot convenience??
Worse still, of course, the villainous symbiote Riot is basically a bigger version of Venom and that superhero trope becomes boring fast.
That climatic battle sequence between Venom and Riot is a CGI snooze-fest as blacks and greys meld into the night sky to produce an incomprehensible mess.
It’s always hard not to arrive to the conclusion that with very few exceptions, there are no good movies about Marvel characters that are not made by Marvel Studios. Venom is no exception.
Now streaming on Netflix.
… still there’s more …