LoginDo have a fondness for superhero films. 'Venom' also had talented people in the cast, Tom Hardy and Michelle Williams have both done great work in their careers, it looked interesting and found myself really fascinated to watch an origins story of one of the most interesting anti-heroes in the superhero universe.
Watched 'Venom' with reasonably high expectations and with the willingness, as always, to judge the film for myself and form my own opinion. Was aware that it was not well liked by the critics, but part of me was really hoping to disagree with the thought that could a film with so much potential be worse than it actually looked? Have to agree with those that were left disappointed, while also not finding 'Venom' to be that bad. Am not though going to join in the irritatingly excessive critic bashing from people who really need to start learning the difference between fact and opinion.
'Venom' does have good things. It is at its best in the scenes and chemistry between Eddie and Venom, which had fun and tension. It is when Venom arrives on screen too when the film properly starts to generate interest, after too long struggling to invest in the first act. The darker elements of the film are actually quite well done, having a dark grit and creepiness. It looks reasonably good, well designed and shot with slickness and atmosphere.
The music has pleasant moments and fits well while there is some exciting action, especially the car chase sequence. Some of the effects are terrific. Tom Hardy is intensely charismatic, with Eddie/Venom being interesting and well contrasted characters, far more believable than Topher Grace in 'Spiderman 3'.
However, the rest of the cast don't fare so greatly. Michelle Williams has never had a flatter character than here and is basically wasted in a development-free plot-device role. Riz Ahmed is far too anaemic for the one-dimensional villain that's both cartoonish and insipid. Of the characters, only Eddie and Venom engage and intrigue, the rest are flat. While some of the effects are terrific, others are terrible especially in the latter stages with the biggest offender being the rushed and clumsy climax.
It is the script and story where 'Venom' fails most. The script is really clunky, especially with the forced and goofy humour that can be misplaced (Venom's disgust at taking the elevator was the one moment passing as funny) and the villain spouting dialogues and speeches that mean nothing. The less too about the soapy and cliché-ridden scenes featuring Hardy and Williams the better, they are bland and don't serve much point, and the Life Institute scenes should have had more clarity. Unfortunately, these scenes dominate the first act and makes it feel rather dull and "taking too long to get going". The story is tonally disjointed, too many tones that are very variable on their own and don't gel together, and very clunky. This is not a case of the film not trying, to me it came over as trying too hard in catering to everyone and throwing in too many ideas and elements and executing them very variably and too safely. For a story intended to be dark and violent, this seemed rather tame and held back.
Summing up, a disappointment but not that bad. 5/10 Bethany Cox
Venom Reviews
Not so venomous
Posted : 2 years, 1 month ago on 22 March 2022 08:36
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Venom review
Posted : 5 years, 1 month ago on 14 March 2019 01:56
"Venom" is something of an unfortunate film that just so happens to not be incredibly dull and feature a big, gooey monster that the public loves because of this it seems to have gotten a pass from many people but certainly not from me. Though I don't revile it, the film certainly left me feeling like I'd wasted two hours of valuable time on something uncertain of itself and incredibly vacuous.
The movie deals with intrepid, but cowardly, reporter Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) who bonds with an alien parasite that was brought to earth by what basically amounts to an evil Elon Musk. It is, at it's core, an origin story that really just serves as a setup for sequels more than anything.
First things first, if you're expecting something loyal to the comics you won't find a scintilla of it here. That is absolutely fine by me so under no circumstances believe that painted my opinion of it. I actually think the Venom character in the comics is pretty much all show and no substance and could use some major retooling. Well, he is in fact reworked in this movie, it just so happens that this job is approached in the most generic way possible.
The movie's biggest issue is how shockingly predictable, bland, and dated it is. When the final credits rolled it all began to make sense. The entire time I was thinking "this is like an Avi Arad superhero movie" and, sure enough, he was a producer on this just like he was on the ham-fisted, weak, pre-MCU Marvel movie offerings of the early 2000s. The setups for future scenes are so obvious that when they happen they are robbed of any impact because, quite simply, you expected them the very moment they were so transparently hinted at. The humor is not only horrendously bad but already feels like it won't hold up by the end of the year. Hell, it does't hold up upon first viewing. Most, glaringly, the entire story arch is your run of the mill origin framework, complete with paper thin romantic interest and cookie cutter corporate villain.
Another huge issue with the film is its apparent lack of self-identity. At times it feels like it's a sci-fi film, at others like a horror film, sometimes it's a "wacky comedy", and doing a woeful job of putting all this mush together is the arching superhero movie framework. None of these styles ever gel entirely and the film goes from one to the other without much resolve to give any of them sufficient substance.
"Venom" is also an ugly film. The cinematography can't even be called bland as it's more washed out and lifeless and, since the mood doesn't match this aesthetic, it feels out of place. To add insult to injury, the effects in this movie are so obviously reined in as a cost-cutting measure that you kind of feel robbed having seen a movie called Venom but rarely ever seeing him. This could all work if they built up anticipation for Venom's appearance but the films scattershot nature and predictability only make you hope that Venom's arrival or sudden appearance will save you for the purgatory of non-descript "blah" that the film serves up.
I digress because the effects deserve a bit more criticism. This is a superhero film about a character that is incredibly visual. The least you could do if you're so hell bent on making the movie as generic as possible is offer up spectacular effects and action. Alas, they don't even bother with this. The bulk of the effects are the equivalent of early 2000's cheap CGI. In fact, I would say they're worse because they made zero effort to make them blend organically with their surroundings. Almost every effect looks poorly superimposed over the real locations or people. It never looks like Venom is IN Eddie Brock but more cheapl laid over him. When Venom is fully himself he just looks like a big, gooey mass of unrealistic slime that fights another bucket of ooze. These effects might of been impressive circa 2004. Now, they are utter garbage.
The character work in this movie is also vexing at times and downright phoned in at others. It's not that the actors are bad, it's that their characters are so weak that you feel like you're watching fluff. The only exception is Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock/Venom. If one thing kept me interested in this movie it's Hardy. Hardy is one of our best actors and I wish i could say that my interest in him was because he was the diamond in the rough of this flick, alas that is not the case. The reason i was so interested is because his portrayal of Brock is so confusingly, jarringly strange that you can't help but look on like you would as you pass a car accident. From the strange choice of accent to his intentional AND inadvertent comedic displays, Hardy remains interesting enough to make you hang around till the end. I wish that was praise but it's really not.
Ultimately, "Venom" is exactly what we've come to expect from from Sony. Superficial, low effort, generic nonsense meant to appease popcorn munchers with no investment in good or even entertaining movies. No R-Rating could of saved this mess because the flaws are inherent in it's script. I wish it was even slightly good enough to warrant a rewatch but it left me so empty that it won't even get that in the near future. "Venom" is the type of comic movie we've evolved from long ago and for good reason....this type of movie is just bad. 3/10
The movie deals with intrepid, but cowardly, reporter Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) who bonds with an alien parasite that was brought to earth by what basically amounts to an evil Elon Musk. It is, at it's core, an origin story that really just serves as a setup for sequels more than anything.
First things first, if you're expecting something loyal to the comics you won't find a scintilla of it here. That is absolutely fine by me so under no circumstances believe that painted my opinion of it. I actually think the Venom character in the comics is pretty much all show and no substance and could use some major retooling. Well, he is in fact reworked in this movie, it just so happens that this job is approached in the most generic way possible.
The movie's biggest issue is how shockingly predictable, bland, and dated it is. When the final credits rolled it all began to make sense. The entire time I was thinking "this is like an Avi Arad superhero movie" and, sure enough, he was a producer on this just like he was on the ham-fisted, weak, pre-MCU Marvel movie offerings of the early 2000s. The setups for future scenes are so obvious that when they happen they are robbed of any impact because, quite simply, you expected them the very moment they were so transparently hinted at. The humor is not only horrendously bad but already feels like it won't hold up by the end of the year. Hell, it does't hold up upon first viewing. Most, glaringly, the entire story arch is your run of the mill origin framework, complete with paper thin romantic interest and cookie cutter corporate villain.
Another huge issue with the film is its apparent lack of self-identity. At times it feels like it's a sci-fi film, at others like a horror film, sometimes it's a "wacky comedy", and doing a woeful job of putting all this mush together is the arching superhero movie framework. None of these styles ever gel entirely and the film goes from one to the other without much resolve to give any of them sufficient substance.
"Venom" is also an ugly film. The cinematography can't even be called bland as it's more washed out and lifeless and, since the mood doesn't match this aesthetic, it feels out of place. To add insult to injury, the effects in this movie are so obviously reined in as a cost-cutting measure that you kind of feel robbed having seen a movie called Venom but rarely ever seeing him. This could all work if they built up anticipation for Venom's appearance but the films scattershot nature and predictability only make you hope that Venom's arrival or sudden appearance will save you for the purgatory of non-descript "blah" that the film serves up.
I digress because the effects deserve a bit more criticism. This is a superhero film about a character that is incredibly visual. The least you could do if you're so hell bent on making the movie as generic as possible is offer up spectacular effects and action. Alas, they don't even bother with this. The bulk of the effects are the equivalent of early 2000's cheap CGI. In fact, I would say they're worse because they made zero effort to make them blend organically with their surroundings. Almost every effect looks poorly superimposed over the real locations or people. It never looks like Venom is IN Eddie Brock but more cheapl laid over him. When Venom is fully himself he just looks like a big, gooey mass of unrealistic slime that fights another bucket of ooze. These effects might of been impressive circa 2004. Now, they are utter garbage.
The character work in this movie is also vexing at times and downright phoned in at others. It's not that the actors are bad, it's that their characters are so weak that you feel like you're watching fluff. The only exception is Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock/Venom. If one thing kept me interested in this movie it's Hardy. Hardy is one of our best actors and I wish i could say that my interest in him was because he was the diamond in the rough of this flick, alas that is not the case. The reason i was so interested is because his portrayal of Brock is so confusingly, jarringly strange that you can't help but look on like you would as you pass a car accident. From the strange choice of accent to his intentional AND inadvertent comedic displays, Hardy remains interesting enough to make you hang around till the end. I wish that was praise but it's really not.
Ultimately, "Venom" is exactly what we've come to expect from from Sony. Superficial, low effort, generic nonsense meant to appease popcorn munchers with no investment in good or even entertaining movies. No R-Rating could of saved this mess because the flaws are inherent in it's script. I wish it was even slightly good enough to warrant a rewatch but it left me so empty that it won't even get that in the near future. "Venom" is the type of comic movie we've evolved from long ago and for good reason....this type of movie is just bad. 3/10
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Venom review
Posted : 5 years, 5 months ago on 2 December 2018 03:48
Me acabo de ver la película Venom con mi hermano, y si les digo la verdad y de corazón, la pelicula no es mala, pero no es la gran cosa.
Lo que si diría que me encanto, fue el propio personaje symbiote Venom, se tira unos comentarios que simplemente te termina cayendo bien.
Lo que si diría que me encanto, fue el propio personaje symbiote Venom, se tira unos comentarios que simplemente te termina cayendo bien.
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Venom review
Posted : 5 years, 6 months ago on 2 November 2018 06:36
i will be do this fast because i don't have so much time
the movie is not so good well I didn't want to watch this but sometimes I need to watch things I don't want to see
it's more the movie exceeded my expectations and it was still bad
history is full of errors it is easy to see these errors
in itself also the story does not attract attention
in if the movie is bad
even so, it is far from being the worst movie of superheroes
the movie is not so good well I didn't want to watch this but sometimes I need to watch things I don't want to see
it's more the movie exceeded my expectations and it was still bad
history is full of errors it is easy to see these errors
in itself also the story does not attract attention
in if the movie is bad
even so, it is far from being the worst movie of superheroes
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A good movie
Posted : 5 years, 7 months ago on 4 October 2018 09:47
I already saw this movie but since I’m going to see the sequel tomorrow in the movie theater, I though I might as well watch again the previous installment first. Well, even though this movie turned to be pretty much destroyed by the critics, eventually, even if I have to admit the story was nothing really amazing, I actually enjoyed the damned thing thanks to a really solid performance from Tom Hardy and thanks to Venom himself. Indeed, once again, Hardy really nailed it and delivered one of the best performances I have seen in a super-hero flick in a very long time. Basically, in spite of the material, he managed to make the most of it and he gave us an average guy, in fact, even a loser according to Venom himself, and it was just so refreshing after years of being served over and over again the usual righteous main characters we always get in this genre. Concerning Venom, this character was also so much fun. Basically, they took pretty much the same concept used in the Hulk but they vastly improved it. I mean, imagine if the Hulk, instead of being silent, would be talking all the time and arguing with Bruce Branner. Well, that's basically what happened in this movie and the end-result was very often quite hilarious and seriously entertaining. Unfortunately, even though Eddie Brock and Venom were pretty awesome, the rest of the movie was pretty much a really generic, rather slow and boring origin tale which was too bad so I'm not sure if the whole thing will work as a franchise. Eventually, they definitely will have to take some risks with the next installment to make it really interesting. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, thanks mostly to Tom Hardy, I thought it was a fun flick and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.
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