Hollywood is currently undergoing a superhero movie renaissance of sorts. The current hype around superhero movies contrasts sharply to the late 1990s, when these movies were largely not taken seriously. “Venom” makes it easy to remember why.
Aside from the occasional success found in “X-Men” or “Spider-Man” characters, terrible films like “Daredevil” and “Fantastic Four” were widely mocked. Critics and audiences began to pay more attention to the genre after the massive success of “The Dark Knight” and “Iron Man” in 2008.
The latter film even managed to spawn an entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, which today is considered to be the superhero franchise that produces the most consistently quality content, especially after its takeover by Disney.
Other companies have had little success replicating this formula — especially Sony Pictures. Their attempt to spawn a “Spider-Man Cinematic Universe” with Andrew Garfield as the lead failed spectacularly when the second film met poor reception. Disney then made a deal with Sony to obtain rights to use Spider-Man.
Venom is a character who anyone with even a fraction of knowledge about comics would associate with Spider-Man, so Sony’s attempt to create a movie centered only around him left viewers scratching their heads.
Sure enough, this entire movie comes off as a massive cash grab in every way. It is plainly apparent that Sony Pictures only slapped it together to hold onto the rights of at least some of their superhero characters, with no actual concern for the quality.
The plot of “Venom” concerns journalist Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy), who investigates the unethical business practices of a bioengineering company and accidentally becomes bonded with an alien “symbiote.” This forces him to become the anti-hero known as Venom in order to save the world and control the symbiote’s violent urges.
Even a talented cast can’t save a bad script. Hardy, normally an amazing actor, gives one of the strangest and most lifeless performances of his career. Right off the bat, his American accent comes off as bizarre and forced. Considering that he normally does a great job masking his British accent, this is just a telling sign that he was only in it for the paycheck.
The other actors don’t fare much better. Michelle Williams, who plays Anne Weying, has essentially nothing to do, and Riz Ahmed, who plays Carlton Drake, wastes his talent on the most generic and clichéd villain role possible. Without giving away any spoilers, there is also a baffling cameo from a very well-known actor that only serves as setup for a sequel.
That is the biggest problem with this movie in general — it is incredibly generic. Everything about the plot and characters has been done a million times before in far better superhero movies, and the story remains predictable throughout.
Frustratingly, the special effects that went into the design of the Venom character look fantastic and are the only visually interesting parts of the movie. This incredibly cool design wasn’t wasted on such a lackluster film.
Every superhero movie should at the very least have good action, and this movie can’t even deliver on that. Sony Pictures chose to clean the original R-rated version, instead turning it into an underwhelming PG-13 cut.
“Logan” was a wildly successful R-rated superhero movie. It proved that filmmakers can go to very dark places with the genre without losing the interest of general audiences. Venom is a dark character by nature — he eats people — and would have been best served by brutal, R-rated action.
That makes it all the more disappointing that this movie chose to take the safe route, with very tame action scenes. They are not bad per se, they just had the potential to be so much better.
Overall, this movie is a bland, forgettable experience with a handful of laughably terrible moments. It is on the same level of colossal misfires such as “Suicide Squad,” “Fantastic Four” and “Daredevil.”
The ending does set up a sequel, but it is hard to imagine that this movie will do very well at the box office, considering its trailers received a highly negative reception. Only time will tell, but Sony Pictures’ new cinematic universe has certainly stumbled out of the gate.
