Review of Venom (2018) by Yash B — 07 Oct 2018

I had my doubts about the stand-alone "Venom" from the moment it had been announced. I primarily felt this way because I personally feel the ideal story with the titular character has to have some sort of conflict with Spider-Man.

However, I went into the movie with an open mind, and while there are entertaining aspects in the movie, there are also plenty of problems. Starting off with what worked, I felt the strongest part of the movie was the inclusion of Tom Hardy.

Even in his weaker films, he's usually always great, and this movie is no exception. I also found plenty of mindless fun in the second half and thought the action was fast-paced and mostly fun. However, these actions scenes play out as I expected them too and didn't really bring anything new to the superhero genre.

Despite the few things that work, the movie never surpasses just being an average experience due to two striking problems. The first is that the exposition is painfully boring and the movie is a drag until around the halfway mark.

The second major issue is that the dialogue is cheesy at times and the script is messy and the story has many moments that didn't make a lot of logical sense. If you're looking for mindless action scenes, the second half is fine but as a whole, "Venom" is a waste of a good cast and kind of a misfire.