'Venom' review

Venom has been a weird project since its inception, and I love how its weirdness has slowly become a defining feature online over the last several weeks. When Sony announced that a Ruben Fleischer-directed Venom story would be heading to the big screen, eyebrows were raised. Why would Tom Hardy agreed to do this? Was the script really good enough to attract supporting stars like Michelle Williams and Riz Ahmed? Why did Sony put this on the fast-track to production?

The whole thing was genuinely baffling- and it only got worse. The first trailer, which was rushed out to play in front of Marvel's Black Panther, featured zero shots of Venom himself, much to the chagrin of online audiences. Subsequent trailers seemed to highlight odd decisions on the part of the creative team, specifically the now-infamous "turd in the wind" line. It felt like we were on a collision course with disaster.

In an amusingly ironic way, it's sorta fitting that Venom will go down as the worst-reviewed smash hit of the year. On a relatively small budget for a superhero film, Fleischer's PG-13 dark comedy/origin story has grossed nearly $400 million worldwide, clearly the most successful film thus far in a jam-packed October. But the actual reaction to the film? That's a different story- Venom received a critical drubbing and has been the subject of online mockery for a while now. I braced for the worst, and what I got instead was a film split evenly between snooze-inducing boredom and all-out stupidity. It's all quite terrible, but there are varying degrees of entertainment value to be found within the story of Eddie Brock's symbiotic infection. 

Hardy stars as Brock, an investigative reporter who plays by nobody's rules, dammit. He was supposedly chased out of New York, so he moved to San Francisco, where his obsessive hunt for the truth continues with a new online show. Eddie is engaged to Anne Weying (Michelle Williams), who works at a powerful, highly regarded law firm. It's just unfortunate that one of Anne's clients happens to be Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), a tech guru with a background in some shady stuff. Eddie is supposed to do a fluff piece on Drake to satisfy his bosses, but when he searches around in Anne's computer and accidentally finds dirt on the businessman, all bets are off. 

This doesn't go well for Eddie. He's fired by the organization that runs his show. Anne loses her job because of the information leak. And then she breaks up with him. 

But what if Eddie was right about Drake? What if he is experimenting on human beings with some kind of alien organism? Whistleblower Dora Skirth (Jenny Slate) comes to the journalist with important information, confirming that Drake is attempting to morph humans with symbiotes. One thing leads to another, and Eddie ends up infected with one of these creatures himself. But where others have been consumed by the symbiotes, Venom actually takes a liking to Eddie. They're a perfect match, and they'll spend their days running around the streets, searching for another (human) snack to eat. An anti-hero is born.

Listen, I seriously cannot overstate the sheer tedium of the first half of this movie. It's boilerplate superhero origin nonsense, only made worse by a script that seems fully disinterested in its characters. It's not outwardly insipid- just aggressively, persistently dull. When I saw this movie, I was coming off five busy days at a film festival. I figured a loud and dumb superhero flick would be an easy post-festival watch, but I had to actively fight to stay awake.

The second half is a different matter entirely. Once the character of Venom enters the picture, things change; out with the lame attempts at body horror, in with full-on comic madness. Venom doesn't suddenly become a good movie, but there are some unbelievably funny moments here. At random points, Venom will just scream things in Eddie's ear, like "HUNGRY" or "FOOD." In one scene, the symbiote reminds Eddie that he has not, as of yet, apologized to his ex-girlfriend for what he did to end their relationship. So the whole scene is Venom giving Eddie romantic advice- it's absolutely bananas. And while the whole "Venom makes out with Eddie!" moment has been taken out of context, there are a few scenes where Fleischer directs this thing like it's a romantic comedy. It's crazy.

But even if Venom is explicitly comedic at times (I refuse to believe some of this stuff was done on accident), that doesn't change the fact that it's a poorly told, visually murky superhero movie. It's impossible to tell what's going on in any given fight scene, as Venom and Riot just punch and smash each other to pieces with no cinematic clarity for the audience. The story barrels forward to a haphazard conclusion, giving little time for anyone to care about what's happening or why. Everything just feels half-baked and rushed. 

Sure, there's a laugh or two to be had here, but with the exception of a committed Hardy performance and a few wacky narrative digressions, Venom is a total mess. In other words, it's the kind of superhero movie that seems destined to go down as a sort of bizarre curio, with future fans and critics looking back and wondering "Wait, how exactly did this get made?"

THE FINAL GRADE:  C-                                             (4.7/10)

Images courtesy of Sony