Venom

(spoiler free)

It’s fair to say that Venom’s first live action appearance in Sam Raimi’s ‘Spider-Man 3’ wasn’t the cinematic debut fans had hoped for when it came to this iconic Spider-man villian. Over a decade after this disappointing big screen introduction Sony have decided to try again, this time giving the baddie his very own film, ‘Venom’. However, with Spidey far from his first home at Sony and happily relocated in the Marvel Cinematic Universe could this standalone villain lead film really work?

With a troublesome promotional period and venomous online response before the film’s release admittedly expectations aren’t going to be very high, this will probably work to the films advantage though and help audiences to have some fun with what’s been produced. The story begins more solidly than is maybe expected, albeit with some questionable chemistry between Tom Hardy (Eddie Brock) and Michelle Williams (Anne Weying). The opening scenes set the film up as an intriguing sci-fi/horror with heaps of potential. However as soon as Venom shows up everything just goes a little (a lot) crazy. As the film proceeds the less attention paid to the plot the better but if you’re able to embrace the utter insanity of it all there’s definite fun to be had. It’s mad that this is the case though as when broken down most of its individual elements really don’t work. It’s not scary enough to be effective as a horror and the humour rarely lands creating a mismatched tone throughout. Despite this there are some well executed action sequences that help to distract from the tonal mess the screenplay creates and bizarrely enough re-watches might actually work in the films favour.

Speaking of messy though, the CGI is pretty atrocious. We know that Venom is a comic book character so a certain cartoonish appearance could have been excused however the visuals here just aren’t good proving that not everything from comic books can work on the big screen. There are some other issues with the villain too, the dialogue is often hard to make out and the character seems inconsistent from incarnations we’ve witnessed previously. Nonetheless, it’s Hardy’s performance as Venom’s human host, Brock, which keeps this movie afloat. Hardy is such a popular and likeable actor and the film is really lucky to have him as his performance matches the insanity of the narrative consistently entertaining the audience. He’s a great presence on screen and it’s actually the times the film focuses on Brock rather than Venom which are more engaging, many lesser established actors would have got lost in this role but Hardy remains a constant throughout. Otherwise, the cast is a mixed bag – Riz Ahmed is a solid adversary in the shape of Carlton Drake, a ruthless inventor harboring a dangerous god complex. Jenny Slate contributes well as scientist Dr. Dora Skirth but is somewhat underused, she might have been better served in Michelle William’s role as she struggles with her admittedly underwritten role as Brock’s love interest resulting in a rather underwhelming overall performance.

With all things considered there’s no denying that ‘Venom’ is a bad film. It’s plagued with issues throughout including but not limited to problems with several aspects of the titular character, a narrative that fails to decide on or effectively juggle a mixture of tones and unconvincing performances from some of the cast. However, by some miracle the whole thing manages to be weirdly fascinating. Tom Hardy commits to the leading role in attention grabbing fashion and he’s thoroughly watchable in this bat shit crazy attempt at a b-movie style comic book adventure.

Written by Hamish Calvert

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Rating – 5/10

Question: Who is your favourite Spider-Man villian?
(Leave your answers in the comments section below!)

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