Venom (2018)
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Venom Movie Review
Venom is a 2018 superhero film directed by Ruben Fleischer and starring Tom Hardy. It’s one very underrated movie that has its many obvious flaws, but also some strengths.
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“Eyes! Lungs! Pancreas!
So many snacks, so little time!“
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I personally liked the plot. Yes, we’ve seen alien parasites before many, many times and the entire first act of the movie is very problematic. It’s well done for sure, but it becomes quite boring as it’s just another origin story stretched to an unreasonable amount of runtime. He becomes infected basically after forty minutes into the movie and that was just too much for me personally.
But the second act becomes so much better and is the highlight of the film for me as the third act has its moments, but is too bombastic. I personally loved the relationship between Eddie Brock and Venom. That was so well done and it worked splendidly because the dialogue is fun and the humor is solid. I just wish the two of them got more screen time as they were such an entertaining duo and the biggest reason to see this movie.
The second biggest reason to see it is because of Tom Hardy who is simply incredibly likable in this role and very charismatic. He also gave a very believable performance and once again proved his strength in these kinds of roles. Venom himself is so funny. His voice is distorted a bit too much and can be hard to understand, but still he’s so funny with his many instantly memorable one-liners.
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Michelle Williams is also very good per usual, but I wanted more from her for sure. But the fact that she also became infected was unexpected for me and it worked very well, though it was rushed undeniably. But I really liked their relationship and the fact that the symbiote himself was also interested in her. Those scenes were so funny. And the less said about Riz Ahmed’s character, the better as his villain is ridiculously cartoony, one-note and simply way too forgettable. The final fight is also dull, unexciting and he went down way too easily for my taste.
Let’s talk about some of the technical aspects. Venom has decent special effects. Not the best, but certainly not the worst. I certainly do not get that criticism that it looks cringy as it looks quite solid and the design of the symbiote is actually pretty cool. The film is mostly well shot and the score is also pretty good.
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But the overall direction is pretty weak and some other director could have made this movie much better. And here we come to the film’s biggest flaw which is the action. Yes, the action here is so incredibly weak that I was frustrated with it. It has way too much bombastic blowing up and explosions plus the car and motor chases are simply overly abundant. None of the fights were remotely interesting to me and the fact that this is a superhero film where action is very important did not help it. But yes, the humor is so fun and the characters are pretty good that it still worked for me and I did not need Spider-Man or any other Marvel connections.
Venom is actually a solid movie. It isn’t as great as its box office would suggest while it isn’t terrible either as the critics trashed it way too harshly. The action is simply terrible for the most part and uninteresting for me, the villain is disposable and the entire first act, though well crafted, is a dull, overly prolonged origin story. However, the characters mostly worked for me, the humor is very entertaining in the symbiote’s cheesy one-liners, Tom Hardy is reliably terrific in the main role and the relationship between Eddie Brock and Venom is superb.
