If Sony wants to continue with their small stable of licensed Marvel characters they’re going to have to do better than this schizophrenic effort.
From the ashes of Sony’s failed attempt to re-launch Spider-Man outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe comes Venom, a confusing mix of humor and violence along with an added measure of horrible dialogue.
For the uninitiated, Venom, the character, owes his existence to the Spider-Man comic books. In the 1980s, Spider-Man received an all-black costume from an alien source. This costume could mimic different clothes and provided Spider-Man with better webbing. After a while, the costume was revealed as an alien creature called a symbiote that wanted to bond with Peter Parker. Eventually, it left Parker and found a host with Eddie Brock. The symbiote increased Brock’s physical strength and size. Due to Brock’s hatred of Spider-Man — and the fact that it was rejected by Peter Parker — the symbiote became one of Spider-Man’s most popular foes over the years. He’s even appeared on-screen before in 2007’s Spider-Man 3.
However, this movie version of Venom is legally required to live in a separate cinematic universe from Spider-Man, who now resides with the characters in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe. As a result, adjustments to his origin had to be made. This Venom arises out of a symbiote retrieved from space by Life Foundation, a corporation led by Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed.) Drake is under investigation for using humans in medical experiments meant to find a cure for pancreatic cancer.
The Life Foundation rocket, which is carrying four symbiotes, breaks apart on re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. Three of the four symbiotes are recovered from the ship’s crash site in Malaysia. The Foundation takes them back to their research facility outside San Francisco. The fourth finds a human host in one of the medical staff working at the crash site and escapes without detection.
TV reporter Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is attempting to find a way to confront Carlton Drake during an upcoming interview. Eddie’s fiancee, Ann (Michelle Williams), works for the law firm employed by Life Foundation. While snooping in her computer, Eddie finds legal documents that mention the use of humans in medical experiments. After he confronts Drake with these documents, he loses his job and Ann gets fired from the law firm. Understandably, Ann breaks up with him as well.
Six months later, the fourth symbiote has traveled to San Francisco after switching human hosts several times. Eddie, now unemployed and living in a fleabag apartment, is approached by Doctor Nora Skirth (Jenny Slate,) who works for Life Foundation. She confirms that Drake is using humans in his experiments. She says that Drake is now using humans to test something more dangerous: symbiotes. She offers to smuggle Eddie into the lab so he can see this for himself.
Once at the lab, Eddie surveys the results of Drake’s symbiote experiments. He begins taking pictures of the humans involved in the tests. After taking several pictures, he recognizes one of the people as a homeless woman he’d befriended near his apartment. Eddie attempts to free her from the glass cell in which she’s trapped. When Eddie breaks the glass, the symbiote leaves her body and enters his. Drake’s security shows up and Eddie is forced to flee the lab. He does so in almost superhuman fashion, breaking through doors and leaping fences in his attempt to escape.
Eddie has become a host for a symbiote that calls itself Venom. Venom speaks to Eddie, gives him increased strength and something very similar to (but legally different from) Spider-Man’s spider sense, where he can detect danger before it happens. Eddie must come to terms with his new alter-ego and, of course, he also wants to get Ann back and bring down Drake and his unethical company. And, predictably, that fourth symbiote that traveled from Malaysia is involved somehow.
Despite its legal handicapping, Venom‘s premise is unique and the script handles the removal of Spider-Man from the equation admirably. Unfortunately, the script is less deft when it comes to dialogue. Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock is given a New York accent and spits out lines in a way that sounds as if he’s taken a few too many punches to the face. His conversations with Venom, who speaks in an ominous, booming voice, are darkly funny. When Venom envelops Eddie into his writhing, black, liquid-like body and begins dispatching Drake’s security forces, the movie has hit its high-water point in terms of quality. It’s all downhill from there.
Michelle Williams, in a terrible wig, is almost unrecognizable as Ann. She has no chemistry with Eddie and that hampers the film’s already weak attempt at a romantic connection between the two. Adding insult to injury, Ann behaves so unrealistically that she’s the most unbelievable part of a movie featuring alien symbiotes. None of this is William’s fault. In fact, I felt kind of sorry she had to be a part of this mess.
Director Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland) handles the film’s many action scenes with aplomb but falters when the characters have to deliver dialogue to one another. Aside from Eddie’s interactions with Venom, most scenes between people seem oddly worded and just plain awkward, as if the actors hadn’t quite figured out how to deliver their lines but were forced in front of the camera anyway. Throw in Hardy’s bizarro delivery of his lines and it just gets messier.
Venom is strangely sadistic for a mainstream comic book movie. Venom, the character, frequently discusses his desire to eat people’s internal organs, which I found morbidly funny. He also bites off a few people’s heads. But, the overall tone is much more lighthearted and that makes these darkly violent (and often humorous) moments feel like they belong in another movie.
Add in a relatively uneventful first act, a lame villain, and plot holes galore, and Venom, the movie, really fails to live up to the standard set by the Marvel Cinematic Universe. If Sony wants to continue with their small stable of licensed Marvel characters they’re going to have to do better than this schizophrenic effort.
2.0 out of 5.0 stars
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