Review of Venom (2018) by Artyom B — 04 Oct 2018

I went into the movie with lowest expectations, thinking it was gonna be another Suicide Squad or mediocre like Ant-Man 2, but I was pleasantly surprised. The biggest strength of this movie is obviously Tom Hardy playing off himself, but all other performances were on point. The cartoonishly slimey bad guy, his love interest and her new boyfriend, honestly I enjoyed all of their screen presence and they each served specific function for the movie. Now, the second biggest strength might also be the movies biggest issue for some folks - its tone. For me personally, I didnt want a dark broody movie ala Spawn or Shadow the hedgehog, and this wasn't it. It felt more like a dark comedy with Jim Carrey from the 90's. This movie is very stupid, but in a good way, and I think they know it. Some people say that this is as bad as catwoman or daredevil or a bad dceu movie, which isn't true at all because those movies took themselves very serious. So this felt like a throw back to the tone of the 90's, but not the edgy 90's, which I loved. So this movie will either work for you, or you will reject it like an incompatible symbiotic host. I laughed quite a few times and really appreciated certain immature jokes that felt appropriate for the character, and not dumb pop culture references, which felt out of place like in Doctor Strange.

That being said, the movie isn't perfect either. The final boss battle is hard to make out due to the nature of the characters, one minor sub plot is completely wasted and could have been cut from the movie, there are a few plot holes as one might expect, and lack of R rating really does prevent it from utilizing its full potential , but honestly, aside from those, I had a really good time and the kiss scene was my favourite ;^]?