Movie Reviews

Such a shame. Venom had the potential of being a completely badass movie. Except that it’s not. But still, it’s not as horrible as some other reviews have made it out to be. It’s just kinda dumb.

Tom Hardy stars as Eddie Brock, an investigative reporter who is trying to bounce back from a scandal but ends up acquiring an extraterrestrial parasite called Venom. The two of them don’t get along... Venom because he doesn’t like being called a parasite, Eddie because he doesn’t like turning into a lacquer-black monster with huge fangs that rips other people’s heads off.

But as the movie progresses, the relationship between them changes and they soon realize they have more in common than they thought. Both are considered losers on their respective planets and their nemeses - an Elon Musk-like billionaire called Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed) and Riot, a meaner extraterrestrial parasite - end up in the same body. Drake is working on some really expensive space program that is destined to get us off our ecologically doomed Earth by means of a human-alien hybrid. Which seems like a noble enough idea if it didn't involve human experiments on unwilling candidates who all end up dead in what looks to be a very painful manner.

Michelle Williams is in the movie as well as Anne Weying, Brock’s love interest. Not that the writers really do a lot with her character. But hey, wasting a great actress in a movie is just one of many flaws that you will come across as you watch Venom. Sure, it offers a couple of laughs and is kinda fun in a shut-your-brain-down kinda way, but it could have been so much better. Really makes you wonder what this movie would have looked like if they hadn’t cut out those 40 minutes that Hardy talked about in an interview.