Review of Venom (2018) by Mrmoviebuff — 05 Oct 2018

The main problem with this movie, 'Venom' is, like its main protagonist, it's at war with itself. Constantly schizophrenic and having no clue when it wants to be a horror movie, a comic-book action movie, or a dark comedy movie.

Either way, none of these combinations of different genres work, and it becomes tonally jarring. Tom Hardy (a fantastic actor) takes on the role of Eddie Brock, a respected news reporter who lives happily in San Francisco with his girlfriend, Anne (Michelle Williams).

He plans on marrying her, and their relationship is soaring new heights. Until one day, he tries his best to report on some suspicious lab activities hosted by Dr. Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed). Drake has harnessed some strange collection of symbiotes which have been discovered in space, and experiments with them on a different range of animal and even human hosts to see if it can improve their health in any way.

We see many times that many humans seem to reject the substance, as certain symbiotes need to right host. One day, as you may have seen in almost every superhero film ever, Brock accidentally walks into the restricted sections of the lab, and finds himself exposed to the substance.

He feels constantly sick, and not like himself. Before he knows it, he can hear a voice in his head telling him things like "Hungry!", and other forms of advice. This voice is Venom, and the two set up a deal-like relationship to get what they both want.

As I've said above, the movie struggles to switch between genres, it doesn't pick the right moments to be scary, funny and action-packed. Hardy is also punished by a bad screenplay which, at one point, tells him to sit in a lobster tank like it's a bathtub.

It sounds strange when taken out of context, but believe me when I tell you this. The main issue with this film is that, it feels like a superhero film made in 2003, but for some reason was released in 2018.

It is very outdated with the formula and cliches it chooses to follow. The villain is boring and disposable and the action scenes are shot too close, the CGI looks unfinished and awful, and the editing is too quick you cannot see anything.

It's underwhelming. NOTE: There are two extra credits scenes in the film, stay for the mid-credits scene, as I'm sure many Venom fans will want to be surprised watching, and then after that, get up and leave.

DO NOT stay for the post-credits scene as it has nothing to do with this movie. I won't say what it is, but just look it up after you've left the cinema. Overall, 'Venom' is outdated and flat.