Review of Venom (2018) by Raven D — 18 Nov 2018

Venom is one of my favorite comic book characters. I am fascinated by him, and so I was incredibly excited for this movie (less after seeing the first trailer). It hurts me to say it is utter garbage. To get the good out of the way, the Venom voice was great. The fight with Riot was ok. The rest of the movie is just a tragic missed opportunity.

I don't know who Tom Hardy was playing, but it wasn't Eddie Brock. He acts like a complete pussy throughout the movie, and has the voice to match. On top of that, he winces and cries and groans like a 13 year old schoolgirl every time he gets thrown around. When he sees the Venom eyes in the mirror for the first time and yells like a bitch, and hits his head, and passes out in the tub...My God, how embarrassing. I love Hardy, and I love Michelle Williams, but these have to be the worst roles each have ever played. It was incredibly unfortunate to have the man who was Bane play this pathetic character who had almost nothing in common with Eddie Brock, as was having an actress with Michelle Williams' magnetism be reduced to a dialed in performance in a wig.

The soundtrack is truly baffling, and it goes in sync with the forced humor as equally misguided. A Venom movie should be a sci-fi horror movie. If it is going to be a light comedy, then pull it off. If it works, it works. This most certainly does not. It goes from one cringeworthy moment to the next. The climax of the terrible humor comes when Williams' character, after being possessed by an alien entity, transmits said entity onto her ex-fiancee, sees him turn into a monster right in front of her, and then says..."Oh, that's bullshit!", after he runs away. Horrendous. Absolute garbage script and dialogue.

I don't know how they managed this, but the CGI is not even as good as in Spiderman 3. If there is any good in that other garbage movie, it's how they make Venom look. Sure, he's too skinny because for whatever insane reason Topher Grace was Eddie Brock, but he looked slick and menacing. The only time the CGI looked ok was when the Venom head talked to Eddie. Even then, the CGI was not very good on the rest of him in those scenes, much less in the rest of them. And while mentioning Topher Grace, how was it that the symbiotes resemble the bodies of their host, but the villain (cannot remember this forgettable character's name) gets bonded and becomes as huge as Eddie does? How do you have the actor who played Bane play Eddie Brock, who is shown literally lifting weights in the comics, and make no allusion to his physicality? To his drive towards power? Why do you make him talk with such a weak, sissy voice? Eddie Brock is a bully, an asshole, a confident jerk. I saw none of those things here.

Talking about missing character traits and opportunities, not once was his religiousness mentioned. Eddie Brock is a Catholic, and understandably so, believes the symbiote is a demon possessing him. It was so easy to use his religious background and along with it, the themes of good and evil, of power and temptation. Nothing. What a waste.

Tom Hardy does not play Eddie Brock,. Michelle Williams, the villain, his right hand, the female scientist, all are forgettable. It feels like a cheap film altogether, right from the forgettable intro (some infected lady walking off to some lab from the middle of the woods).

To add insult to injury, I stayed until after the very long credits just to watch that shitty animation which isn't even about Venom, or the real Spiderman. Garbage movie. Shame on you Sony for fucking this up.