
Bad Marvel movies are few and far between, which is why Sony Pictures is starting its own, separate Marvel Universe. Sony chose the Spider-Man universe character known as “Venom” to debut its new franchise.
However, “Venom” is a bad Marvel movie.
Tom Hardy plays the film’s main character Eddie Brock, an investigative journalist with a popular news show, but gets fired for asking an evil scientist tough questions.
“You’re fired Eddie,” says his boss.
Every person in the audience stared at the screen in disbelief during the scene. Just kidding, the entire film was predictable.
I know that most people are familiar with the back stories of mainstream Marvel superheroes and villains, but this shouldn’t lend an excuse to filmmakers that rather not put more creative effort into building on top of those back stories.
The plot of “Venom” consists of a guy who has everything he ever wanted, loses it all, gets it back, but then stubbornly turns it down.
This also happens to be the plot of a million other superhero movies.
It is a comic book format that worked for the Batman movie “The Dark Knight,” but has been handled clumsily in “Venom.”
Because of the film’s pacing, it translates much better as a stage play rather than a motion picture.
Each scene in the first half of the film felt like a verbal checkpoint instead of a substantial element that added to the overall narrative of the story. If you showed up to the theater an hour into the film, you would not have missed anything.
The antagonist of the movie Carlton Drake, played by Riz Ahmed, was a lost opportunity on the part of the writers. Drake had the potential to be a villain closely connected to Silicon Valley elites, considering the film was set in San Francisco.
Unfortunately, filmmakers decided to write Drake off as another business
mogul-type villain.
The film does not even make an effort to dive into Drake’s past, background or anything else that might have revealed him to be a relatable human being.
Drake is just a random local mad scientist in “Venom.” Fans don’t even need to pay attention to him, presuming that each of the three scheduled “Venom” franchise movies will star a different antagonist.
Though the film lacks in screenplay, it is Hardy’s performance that saves “Venom” from being a total dud.
The scene where he runs around his apartment looking for food to stuff in his mouth in order to satisfy the cravings of the parasite made me nauseous.
He eats so many microwaved pizza rolls that it made him throw up. When the camera pans up to the toilet he was kneeling over, you could see how pale and sweaty his face was.
Hardy’s acting is so good that he literally made himself sick.
The amazing special effects that supplement Hardy’s character of “Venom” helped prove that he could be an amazing Marvel character, it is unfortunate that the rest of the movie fails him.
Admittedly, though “Venom” was a bad Marvel movie, it wasn’t a terrible one. I would be open to watching a sequel, but only if Hardy reprises his role, and
Ahmed doesn’t.
2 out of 5 stars