Venom Review (Spoiler Free)
If I had to sum it up in one sentence…. Saved by the mid-credit scene. It is the best part of the movie. Let’s dive in, how I dive into a glass of milk.. spoil free.
I’ll vent my biggest problem with the movie first. I felt like I saw the entire movie before entering the theater. Strangely it was one of my gripes with Spiderman Homecoming… so maybe this is a Sony thing? Admittedly for Spiderman I was so excited that I sought out every trailer, teaser, and sneak peak I could leading up to the release. Since then I have learned my lesson and now I go out of my way to not repeat that mistake. Over and over again, however, I found myself saying oh this is the scene where he’s going to say, “we are venom”… Oh here’s that car / motorcycle chase… Ah this is when he picks that guy up in front of the car… Well I know this guy will bond with a symbiote and fight venom later. So basically seeing the entire movie via trailer, coupled with no plot twists or big ah-ha moments, I felt like I was just going through the motions. Sony… stop it.
Loved Hardy as Eddie Brock. He doesn’t have the traditional look or mannerisms of Brock, but it is a good interpretation. For the most part Sony stuck with the pre-venom Brock story, minus Spiderman of course. Guy doing well at life, guy fucks up life, guy meets venom. It’s just not Spiderman that gives Brock the push to rock bottom. Although it felt more like rock kinda near the bottom. Rock in the same zip code as bottom. Still, Hardy sells it.
Then there was venom. This round, Venom was much, much improved over what was Spiderman 3. In perspective though, a potato would have been an upgrade over the Venom and Brock from Spiderman 3. I was happy that Venom is its own persona, completely independent from Brock, and truly alive. They got that correct this time. It leads to some, but not too much, trouble between Venom and Brock to find a way to co-exist. I feel like they could have upped the anti on this and have the two struggle a bit more. Venom’s abilities stray a bit from what I am accustomed to and I have already expressed my displeasure for the lack of the iconic white spider. That said, I am not exactly sure how much it bothers me because if the symbiote never bonded with Peter Parker first, then it wouldn’t inherit those traits from him. So I guess it is ok.
The love interest... she was kind of forgettable. I feel like she was there out of obligation because every hero or anti-hero needs some booty.
As the MCU has set the standard of the superhero movie landscape, you can see Sony trying to inject the trademark MCU humor. (Much like DC and the Justice League thing, but not nearly as bad, or forced) With me personally most of the jokes were misses, but a few of them did get a laugh out of me.
The villain in this one is meh... Honestly I don’t even remember his name and I never really felt threatened by anything he did or fromthe story. The big end battle was kind a blur. Figuratively and literally... I didn’t know what the fuck I was looking at. The biggest moment, when they are majestically flying through the air and rip each other almost completely out of their symbiotes was already in the trailer so seeing it again, it had already lost its luster.
Overall the movie itself is sufficient. I really like Hardy. The story is straightforward, a decent adaptation, but lacked some sizzle. As I feared, when it was over I was left missing spiderman. Still, it’s worth going to see even if you already watched the cliff-notes (a.k.a. trailer) I give it 3 symbiotes out of 5 symbiotes.
The mid-credit scene however made me not even care about the mostly yawn of a movie I just watched and had me drooling for the next installment. I’ll dive into more detail in another entry, to keep this spoiler free as promised.
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