Written by Jeff Pinkner And Scott Rosenberg And Kelly Marcel
Directed by Ruben Fleischer
Eddie: "All right, fine, I'm sorry. So, what do you want to do now?"
Venom: "The way I see it, we can do whatever we want."
With the MCU having their way with everyone's favourite Web slinger and Tom Holland proving successful in that role, of course Sony weren't going to sit back and let the rest of the IP do nothing. This line of thinking has been a blessing and a curse for them.
With Sony garnering success with Miles Morales in the Spiderverse movies, for live action, the idea was to play around with some of Peter Parker's known villains turned antiheroes for ideas. Starting with one of his biggest rivals made sense.
Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) was a smart mouth journalist who rubbed people up the wrong way but seemed to have the charm to fall back on. He also had a loving girlfriend named Anne Weying (Michelle Williams) but when Eddie pissed off the wrong guy aka, Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), his relationship with Anne soon ended.
Eddie's mistrust of Drake however ended up being justified as the latter had found an alien parasite from space and he wasted no time callously using unwitting subjects to experiment on with it. One of the parasites named Venom attached itself to Eddie when Drake's scientist Dora Skirth (Jenny Slate) let him investigate the Life Foundation. Needless to say, this was where the movie picked up.
Eddie's symbiotic relationship with Venom definitely provided a source of comedy, battle of wits, a team up with Anne and her new man, Dr Dan Lewis (Reid Scott) and of course, the wrath of a very annoyed Drake. Oh and when Eddie wasn't trying to calm Venom's almost insatiable appetite, there was also another parasite named Riot that took control of Drake with similar results.
While this movie certainly has the entertainment factor, it's the big battle where things went off the rails. Carlton Drake isn't particularly intimidating to begin and his possession of Riot isn't as well thought out as it could've been. The fights between Venom and Riot alone are surprisingly rushed in a rather flat third act.
On the plus side, once the big fight was dealt with, Eddie managed to get back into Anne's good grace and strike a compromise with his new best friend. We even got a scene where the pair help snarky convenience store owner, Mrs Chen (Peggy Lu) from getting robbed without killing.
- Mid credit scene had Eddie make a prison visit to serial killer Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson) who promised "Carnage".
- Post credit sequence was a long clip for Spider-Man: Into The Spiderverse.
- Stan Lee had a brief cameo near the end of the movie, walking g a dog and talking to Eddie.
- John Jameson (Chris O'Hara) appeared at the start of the movie to introduce the symbiote into things.
- Standout music: Enimem's Venom and Pusha T's No Problem.
- Chronology: There's a six month time jump during the movie.
Venom definitely has an entertaining factor that for the most along with a lively lead performance from Tom Hardy does carry this movie more than it should. The third act is a letdown with Riot being a poor counter villain and the love story with Anne does feel a tad tacked on. Saying that, the fun factor does outweigh logic gaps and certain creative choices.
Rating: 7 out of 10
No comments:
Post a Comment