I am conflicted, almost as if there are two people in my brain, one of them is who I should be and what I generally want to be, and the other is a person who likes Venom.
You see, its not that part of me hates Venom, the new movie from Sony Pictures with Tom Hardy playing Eddie Brock and telling the origin story of how he obtained the symbiote for whom the movie is named. No, no, there is no part of me that hates this movie. It’s really that part of me…hates how much I like it. It’s the fact that I feel no shame for how much joy this movie brought me.
Venom is a based on the Spider-Man story line of comic books, and there are just so many things I could start writing about that go off on comic nerd tangents, so I’ll just stick with this; Venom is a bad guy, or a least he used to be, in the comics at least, and recently, in the comics, he’s become a good guy. And Marvel really likes the way that sells, and Sony really likes to hold onto whatever Marvel sells.
So, Sony and Marvel make the agreement that Sony gets to make a Venom story, but only if he’s a good guy, kinda. And that’s the main reason why I didn’t want to like this movie. I don’t want to support a company who has rights to creative material for a character they don’t understand. I hate the idea of giving people more money for something that I know I could do better…I mean, what they could do better.
But let’s go through the very simple formulaic story of Venom. Spaceship comes from space, bad things come out of it. Government cleans it up, forgetting one of the bad guys. The ooze that’s been caged is transferred to a science-y place and we see them do bad stuff with it. Think of any generic bad guy scientist… and you just thought of what these guys do.
Then we jump over to Eddie Brock played by Tom Hardy, and I’ll say this, he does a good job of playing…Tom Hardy in a Marvel movie. Not for one second did I think, “Oh, that is so Eddie Brock”, mostly because there is no such thing! Eddie Brock is a side character. He is a humanizing element to a glob of black goo. So, to see Tom Hardy play a character that I like, and who leads well, was surprising.
We follow him as he ruins his career, then sneaks back into the place where he first ruined his career (and lost his fiancée) and releases the Venom goop.
We then go though a very short period of adjustment and go right into the meat and potatoes of a superhero movie third act.; The thing that gave the guy superpowers has led to another person having super powers and they must fight or else something bad happens, blah, blah, blah…
OK, if it seems like I’m being harsh, just understand that it’s because I DON’T WANT TO LIKE THIS MOVIE! But I do…
The relationship between Brock and Venom is wonderful. It’s funny and has the beginnings of something that could be life changing for both of them. The fight scenes were interesting and kept me intriguing. Also, the visual effects were pretty good.
I have learned that I like simple things from Marvel, and Sony, and if they don’t go out of the way to hurt the fans, then I usually walk away pretty happy.
I could go on about plot holes, and inconsistencies, as well as “some” lazy writing. But then I couldn’t talk about that part where Venom takes over Brock’s girlfriend makes them make out, and why would I skip out on that?