VENOM (2018) ****

As a nerd for all things Spider-Man, I’ve been looking forward to this spin-off ever since it was first announced.  The casting of Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock/Venom got my fanboy pulse racing, as did the fact that Zombieland’s Ruben Fleischer would be directing.  Not only that, but they were aiming for a no-holds-barred Venom movie complete with an R rating.  Once it was revealed weeks before release that the film would in fact have a PG-13 rating, my heart sank a bit.  

I think my lowered expectations may have helped considerably.  Or perhaps it was the fact that the previews didn’t really do the film justice.  Whatever reason, I wound up loving Venom.  It is simply the most fun I’ve had at the movies all year.

The secret to the film’s success is Hardy.  He throws himself into the role with a Brando-like intensity that just sucks you into the character’s world.  Hardy starts his performance at eleven and cranks it somewhere up to thirteen by the time everything’s said and done.  He gives Brock a twitchy, broody vibe, one that only becomes accelerated once he’s overtaken by Venom.  In fact, the film makes you wish Universal’s Dark Universe hadn’t bit the dust because Hardy would’ve made a helluva Wolf Man as he plays a person afflicted with the tortures of the damned with humor, heart and a memorably crazy zeal.

There’s a slight change from what we know of Brock in the comics (and from Spider-Man 3).  Here, he’s an investigative journalist who loses his job when he presses Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), the Elon Muskian owner of a high-tech company about his unethical practices during an interview.  Eddie winds up getting fired for that stunt, but when he learns that Drake is using homeless people for his experiments with alien symbiotes, he decides to sneak into the lab to get a scoop.  Naturally, Eddie winds up getting attached to the alien symbiote Venom in more ways than one.

My daughter, who is eight years old and a far more astute critic than I, stated that the film was, in her words, “Like Little Shop of Horrors, but if Seymour and Audrey II were the same person”.  That pretty much hits the nail on the hammer.  There were also moments that reminded me of Splash, All of Me, Aliens, and The Thing.  There’s even an action set piece that manages to combine elements from Bullitt and A Nightmare on Elm Street 5.  What I’m trying to say folks, is that this movie is awesome.

One thing the previews don’t tell you is just how funny Venom is.  I guess I should’ve known with Fleischer at the helm, but this is almost on par with Deadpool as far as hilarity in a superhero picture goes.  As with Zombieland, Fleischer nails the tone perfectly.  It’s a rollercoaster from start to finish with tons of laughs, moments of jaw-dropping insanity, and badass fight scenes.  I especially loved it when Hardy is at the mercy of the symbiote and inadvertently mops the floor with various cops, security guards, and SWAT team members, mostly while apologizing profusely.  Heck, Hardy gets most of his laughs while muttering to himself as bewildered passersby look on.

I know in the comics he’s driven by revenge, but I liked the fact that Venom is kind of a loser in his own world.  Making Venom seem like a plausible underdog is a heady task, but Hardy and Fleischer are up for the job.  Because both Venom and Eddie have something to lose, it makes their bond meaningful, and when they finally decide to team up, it leads to some truly memorable moments.  

One question though:  Is Venom using Eddie for his own purposes, or do they have a genuine bond?  That’s one of the more intriguing aspects of the movie as it moves forward.

There’s enough superhero action here to satisfy the demands of the genre, along with a few moments of squeamish body horror, but it’s more of a thrill ride than the horror movie it was teased to have been.  I know it got cut down from an R rating to get a PG-13, and while some of the action cuts away at the last second, there’s enough face-biting, head-devouring action here to keep this fan happy.  Quite honestly, it didn’t really need a Deadpool level of ultraviolence to be effective.  In terms of “scariness”, it’s about on par with a Jurassic Park movie, which is fine by me.

On top of everything else, it has what is probably the best post-credits sequence of any of the Marvel movies, so be sure you stay put for that.

Overall, I can’t quite say if Venom is better than Spider-Man 3 (a movie I will defend to my dying day), but it’s certainly a lot more fun than Spider-Man 2, that’s for sure.

2018 Comic Book Scorecard:

Venom: ****
Ant-Man and the Wasp: ****
Teen Titans Go! To the Movies: ****
Avengers:  Infinity War: *** ½
Black Panther: *** ½ ,
Deadpool 2: *** ½
Accident Man: ** ½