Yes, yes... I know I'm late to the party. Venom was released months ago and is even out of the cinemas! But I hadn't seen it until two days ago, and when I heard a colleague of mine refer to it as a Horror flick, I knew I absolutely needed to write a review.
First, Venom is not horror. At least not in my book. It's just a superhero movie. I know it was originally created to be R-Rated and all those parts were edited out (we didn't get to actually see Venom biting of heads! How sad.) but even if they weren't, I'm not sure I would have classified it as horror. Not that Superhero movies can't be horror flicks (next year's 'The New Mutants', for example), but Venom just had too many scenes which made me burst into hysterics. Yeah it had some which might supposed to have been scary and I guess they tried to play Riot's infection as a kind of possession, but that's not all makes a movie horror, right? For one, we knew what the big bad creature was right from the start. That greatly reduced the anticipatory suspense that's a key part of the horror genre.
Well, I'm not a big expert on horror movies, so that's just an opinion. I'll leave the authority to @janenightshade and @noughtshayde.
So, how was the movie?
Well, it wasn't bad. I won't say great, but definitely not bad. I think most of the characters would have done with a lot more building... we barely knew anything about them. In fact, the only character we actually knew was Eddie Brock himself. Still, this was almost made up for by the awesome performances of the cast. Tom Hardy was superb! I sincerely don't think any other actor could've nailed the role the way he did. As for Riz Ahmed, I was very much impressed with his portrayal of the outwardly cool and charming but really crazy, cruel, cold and obsessive C.E.O Carlton Drake.
As for the story, Venom's infecting of Brock had a few holes. Like, why on Earth had he let Eddie remain in the driver's seat after he infected him? Why did he help Eddie escape? If he really knew all Eddie knew (as he claimed), he should've known Carlton Drake was his ticket to bringing his people down to Earth, even more than Riot. And while he claimed later that Eddie changed him, at this point, there hadn't been time for any 'changing'. Also, there was never any explanation for Anne's sudden turn. Venom couldn't have explained from the body of the dog, could he? And if he had infected Anne and had to stop to explain, he couldn't have gotten to Eddie on time, unless he forced her to begin moving ang explained on the way. In which case Anne would have still been very doubtful when they arrived. Oh, and while Venom claimed to hate fire (which, from the comic, kills symbiotes), the only time that affected him was in the final battle. In others, he calmly walked through fires like a badass. Sigh.
Then, the tone. God help me, the tone!!! Totally inconsistent. The producers should have just left the movie to be R-Rated. Logan was, and still is a smash hit. Removing the R-Rated scenes and cuts totally ruined the tone. From dark and gloomy and almost scary to bright and cheery, and then to comic and hilarious... what??? This was the main element that destroyed the movie. It was almost as though it didn't know what it wanted to be. And if it doesn't, how would viewers?
While the tone destroyed the movie, it did have one redeeming factor: the fight scenes. No, not the last one which was just there, but the others, especially the first-- the bike chase. And the fight in the lobby of the network, nicely begun with Eddie's call for 'Mask' and Venom's quick reply:'Copy'. Or to think of it, maybe they weren't that great. Good effects defintely, but the main attraction to me was watching Eddie learn how to work with Venom in such situations.
Come to think of it, maybe the movie was bad. Critics certainly hated it, but it might be because the buildup and hype to the movie had us all hoping for much more.
I do hope for a sequel anyway. The mid-credits scene with Woody Harrelson was cool...ish.
What did you think of Venom? Let's know in the comments!
Upvote, Comment, Resteem Follow me @petermarie
