A Reel Review: VENOM

In the last 18 years, studios have fallen over themselves to bring comic-book properties to the big screen, with most of them focusing on caped and armored superheroes. In the last few years, a little sub-genre has spun-off; not of more superhero movies, but super-villain stories. These efforts have been less-than great so far, with most of them not having much of a purpose other than making cash based on the title alone. The search for a good villain story continues, with director Ruben Fleischer and Sony Pictures’ adaptation of VENOM. 

Disgraced journalist Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy), becomes infected with an alien parasite which calls itself Venom, which has its own consciousness and gives Eddie super-human abilities. The parasite was brought to Earth by corporate overlord Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), who is using human experimentation with other parasites…only to find out that the parasites have plans of their own. 

Taking bits and pieces from movie genres such as monster flicks, body horror, buddy-comedy, and good old-fashioned superhero lore, VENOM switches gears early and often. The early goings spend time with Eddie introducing him as a hard-hitting, crook-exposing TV journalist, and when he becomes infected with the talking parasite that calls itself Venom, the film switches to a horror flick (albeit a mild PG-13), and Eddie sees his life unravel; including the loss of his career and fiancé (Michelle Williams). Eddie and the Venom become an odd-couple of sorts, with he and the parasite arguing with each other and helping each other out in an effort to expose Carlton and prevent the other parasites from carrying out their plans.

It’s a decent enough plot, but VENOM flat-out falls apart in the execution. Characters are thinly drawn with any development limited to one page of the script, and there’s little reason to care if anyone wins or loses. The film also seems to have had some major issues in the editing booth. Scenes start in weird places in mid-conversation, and it’s clear that pieces of the film are missing. Characters appear in locations out of nowhere, and obvious gaps in the film’s own logic are everywhere. 

Director Ruben Fleischer also has a lot of indecision with tone, as the film can’t decide if it wants to be taken seriously or as a yuk-fest. The Venom parasite, when it fully embodies Eddie, wants to eat people, but its banter back and forth are laughable even during the parts that supposed to be taken seriously, and the muppet-like voice of Venom is ridiculous. Venom drastically also changes its mind out of the blue; one minute it wants to infect the world, the next it wants to save it. It’s just as big of a mess in the writing as it is in the script. The CGI is cartoonish and un-convincing, action sequences are a lot of noise with way too much shaky-cam, and there is an overall lack of energy (the first hour is an intolerable bore). 

Tom Hardy gives his all as he always does, but the material he is given to work with is silly and uninspired, and he suffers for it. Riz Ahmed is a bore as a standard bad guy, and Michelle Williams serves zero purpose. 

By the time the finale arrives, which is a headache-inducing noise-fest of CGI blobs smashing into each other, it’s clear that VENOM is just another entry in the super-villain solo-shot genre that doesn’t know what to do with itself. Not only does this accomplish nothing, but it feels like it was written and assembled by blindfolded monkeys with broken typewriters. Nothing to see here. 

BOTTOM LINE: Fuck it