Wednesday, 3 October 2018

Venom - The scoop and digest

Topher Grace first portrayed title character in shit storm that was Spider-Man 3.

Ruben 'Zombieland' Fleischer overcomes troubled production history to finally give anti-hero a standalone film.

Tom Hardy - Eddie Brock/Venom
Michelle Williams - Annie
Riz Ahmed - Carlton Drake/Riot

Summary

A space shuttle crash-lands in East Malaysia and alien lifeforms escape.

In San Francisco, investigative reporter Eddie Brock is fired for sticking his nose into the affairs of Life Foundation's corrupt big cheese Carlton Drake.

Venom fuses with Brock, giving protagonist superhuman powers.

Body hopping whore Riot eventually settles on Drake, who plans to take over the world by bringing an army of bastards back to Earth.

You can guess the rest...

Wasted potential

Opening is boring, plot is stupid and tone is messier than a baby's nappy, but despite all that - it's strangely entertaining.

Fairly predictably, Hardy carries entire film and renders support redundant.

Other than to make us laugh, parasite and self-proclaimed loser serves no purpose.

There's way too much banter, but some quips do land.

Venom calls Eddie a pussy for taking lift instead of jumping from tall building.

Ha ha ha!

Apart from a decent highway chase (with appalling stunt double), action is way below par.

Consumer advice promises violence and horror.

So I expected a bit of a goregasm.

But...

Heads do get eaten, but always off screen.

Therefore, 15 certificate makes no fucking sense.

T-1000 wannabe Riot hardly lives up to his name and incinerated when Venom destroys fleeing rocket during incredibly rushed climax.

Stan Lee cameos as Dapper Dog Walker towards the end.

Mid-credits

Brock visits Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson) in San Quentin, who promises Carnage when he escapes.

Scene is pretty uncomfortable.

Post-credits

Meanwhile, in another universe...

We get five minutes or so of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

How incredibly odd.

2 comments:

  1. Fair enough review. It was entertaining however and that’s what we pay our pennies for. I didn’t feel out of pocket.

    I thought Tom played his character well and Michelle seemed to fit the usual female counterpart as good as any other female supporting role. I thought that partnership worked.

    You could argue that Venom should have been a more evil kind of character and I guess that would have made it a slightly better film but in reality, Marvel need to maximise the cinema attendances so dropping ratings to a U.K.15 made sense.

    In all it was a good movie once it got going. Potential for a sequel? Maybe.

    Not sure what Sony are intending with their other project though. I am neither interested or convinced it’s a good idea.

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