Review of Venom (2018) by Alessio A — 05 Oct 2018

Ok, this is my opinion/review on this movie:

1) It's not a total failure (but just for the cgi and the special effects), nor even a masterpiece for sure! Mostly, it's a generic comic-book movie with a lot of action, bad and nonsense dialogues and jokes, and cgi all over the movie. It can easily stand alongside other movies, like the more recent Micheal Bay's Transformers!

2) The writing in this movie is so lame and the plot is highly predictable! It develops pretty straightforward, with a slow and quite boring first act that actually fails to deliver what is the right motivation behind the characters actions (except for Eddie Brock and his symbiote). And speaking of the motivations, no real background on the symbiotes is provided and also the reason why Eddie Brock and Venom symbiote decide to stay together and do "some good" has a more grounded reason. In the comics, Spider-Man is that reason, but in this movie he is nowhere to be found! In the comics, it was the common hatred for Spider-Man and Peter Parker that forced Eddie to bond with the symbiote and it was Spider-Man that pushed Venom to become an anti-hero! In this movie this motivation can be summarized with 1 word: survive! After the first act, the movie becomes an endless stream of heavily cgi-ed scenes, that reach their climax (of course) in the (expected since the first trailer!) final battle between the "hero" (Venom) and the "villain" (Riot). Riot, the "classic" 1-dimensional villain you will remember only for the special effects used to create him, but nothing more! And I also have to say that, speaking of the post-credit scenes, well all the rumours about the "other" main Venom villain were totally true! No particular twist to mention.

3) As many stated, the tone of the movie is a real mess! When it was announced this movie was supposed to be an "horror" like comic-book movie. They also said they wanted Venom to be their own "Deadpool". Well, it is none of them! The closest thing to an horror movie in Venom are the symbiotes appearances and some violent actions, that however, in many scenes are simply teased. And speaking of the comedic aspects... Jesus! You can laugh at some jokes, but most of them are not funny at all and really play no purpose in the context of the scene (like the Whedon forced jokes in Justice League). Tom Hardy inner dialogues with the symbiote have a comedic vibe, but to me this is a problem, cause they strip the character from a dramatic aura that a character like Eddie Brock (the one that I knew from the comics at least) should have! And I agree that a much more serious tone and with the Rated-R, this movie would have been much more believable.

4) Speaking about the cast, well it's pretty obvious that Tom Hardy is the one and only star of this movie, from the start to the final act. And this was quite expected since the only thing they had to say to promote this movie was "Tom Hardy is playing Eddie Brock. He is a great actor". However, in my opinion, this is not his best performance! He gives his best in his inner dialogues with the symbiote, but as I stated previously, the comedic tone of those dialogues ruin the Eddie Brock character. The supporting characters, Riz Ahmed (Riot) and Michelle Williams (Eddie's girlfriend), are potrayed by 2 good actors, but honestly, they do no add anything to the movie. Especially Riot (another generic villain would have served the purpose as well)!

5) If you're a comic book fan, you can enjoy the action on this movie and the Venom character, dreaming that maybe one day you will see him facing Spider-Man. If you're not, I don't know! So I am waiting to see what the box office will tell us.

In the end, even if I tried to stay positive about this movie, I would say that Sony missed once more a great opportunity! My vote for this movie: 2/5.