*Originally written October 6th, 2018*
After the piss-poor marketing and universally negative reviews, I expected the worst from Venom. It had been described as this years "Fan4stic" and "Catwoman". After watching it, that is an absolutely absurd notion. It does very little to break new ground, but for the most part, it's a perfectly acceptable and watchable ride. I 100% guarantee if the exact same film had been made, but under the MCU logo, it would have got an easy free pass from critics. This is far better than half the Spider-Man films and a lot of MCU entries.
We hit a lot of ground covered by several other films. Tom Hardy's Eddie Brock gets a new set of powers, has to deal with that, embraces it and then takes on a bad guy with the exact same powers. It's cookie cutter stuff, but it's done in such a competent manner, that's largely entertaining for the most part.
By far the most interesting stuff going on here is Eddie dealing with Venom himself, who is an actual character within him. Venom really comes alive when it's just Eddie dealing with the sarcastic symbiote inside him. Some of the exchanges between the two are genuinely funny and something I've not seen done much before in comic-book films. We got hints of that with Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy, but devoting a whole film to a character's split personality works far better.
It's just a shame it takes so long to get there. I appreciate them taking the time to build up Eddie Brock as a character while we see him lose his job and fiancee (A thankless Michelle Williams), but they really should have fast-tracked this, as it takes a good 50 minutes or so to get going, or at the very least dedicated more time to Eddie being an actual journalist. None of this stuff is exceptionally terrible, but it is a bit of a slog. Once the action gets going in the second half, things are much more exciting.
I'm still trying to put my finger on Tom Hardy's performance. I'd seen people compare it to Jim Carey, which is just utter bollocks. There is definitely some comedic elements to his performance, particularly some slap-stick stuff towards the middle, but it's nowhere near as abrasive as people have made it out to be. Some of the absurd humour is when Venom actually feels like it has a voice of its own, it's very different to the lame cringe humour of the MCU films and works much better.
Where Venom doesn't work is easily with some of its action scenes and its villain. Riz Ahmed is a fantastic actor, so it was a shame to see him reduced to another cookie-cutter and disposable Marvel villain, he was so unbelievably bland and uninspired. A power hungry billionaire who eventually gets infected with a symbiote and has to go head to head with Venom. There is no time dedicated to actually making this character feel human, he's evil from the opening scene and never gets to do anything of note. Comic-book films have come a long way from 10 years ago in terms of villains, so it's annoying to see them backtracking at this point.
Part of what people seem to love about Venom is the fact he's an anti-hero. This was a big part of the marketing. Which turned out to be a huge lie, he's another superhero, but he has homicidal tendencies as he needs to consume living flesh to survive. We see him eat a couple of people, but never anyone good, it never goes far enough with the "Anti-hero" vibe it so wants.
While the action is completely serviceable (The motorbike chase is the only standout I can think of) it is completely butchered by editing. Things come to a climax in one of the most spectacularly bland finales I've seen from a superhero film in a while. We get two characters with the same powers come head to head in a fight that I can only describe as "Two blobs of CGI ink smashing against each other". In terms of CGI, it all looks very good, I sorta love the design of Venom and there's no absolutely awful special effects that stood out. Good job.
This was also clearly shot with an adult rating, but they got cold feet at the last minute and cut it down. It's hugely noticeable. People are eaten and dismembered to bloodless results, it sticks out like a sore thumb and I'd really like to see an uncut version for home video release. I have to slam the BBFC for rating this a 15 too, aside from some mild moments of body horror, this is a 12A through and through, there is nothing about this to earn its adult rating in the UK. It's embarrassing that it was even considered for this rating.
Venom is not the disaster you expected, nor the great definitive film of the Spider-Man villain you wanted either, it's somewhere in the middle, joining the long list of Marvel films that are perfectly watchable entertainment. There is definitely room for improvement and I'd love to see the cut with "40 minutes of Brock and Venom" footage cut from the film, but for now, it is utterly fine.
6/10 Dans
Venom is out now in cinemas in the UK and a 4K UHD steelbook is available to pre-order from HMV
Watch the trailer below:
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