Venom

“The world has enough superheroes.

The evolution story of Marvel’s most enigmatic, complex and badass character – Venom! Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is a broken man after he loses everything, including his job and fiancée. Just when his life is at its lowest, he becomes host to an alien symbiote which results in extraordinary superpowers – transforming him into Venom. Will these powers be enough for this new lethal protector to defeat great evil forces, especially against the far stronger and more weaponized symbiote rival, Riot?”

The film opens as a spaceship from the Life Foundation crashes in East Malaysia after discovering some kind of symbiotic life form on a comet. Retrieving all the organisms but one, the rest are carted off to a research facility, with one surviving astronaut infected by the missing symbiote that jumps from host to host trying to make its way to the rest. Next, we are introduced to Eddie Brock, a ‘journalist’ in a loose sense of the term, who looks like he woke up and went straight outside to annoy people until they tell him something interesting. Apparently, this appeals to the most prestigious news agencies that allows him a luxurious and independent lifestyle with his fiancée Anne (Michelle Williams), whose firm represents Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), the owner of the Life Foundation and coincidentally Eddie’s next interview. Also coincidentally, while Eddie is up getting a drink in the middle of the night, he glances at Anne’s computer as a confidential legal email comes in regarding several wrongful death lawsuits filed against the Life Foundation. Being a good investigative reporter and good boyfriend, he breaks into her computer and illegally reads confidential documents just in time for his interview in which he confronts him about it. Instead of becoming the hero he thought he might, his actions get him fired, his fiancée fired, and a broken engagement.

Six months later, testing on the symbiotes continue with Dr. Dora Skirth (Jenny Slate) in charge. When Carlton Drake is shown a symbiote bond with a rabbit for the first time, he immediately insists upon human trials, something that no scientist or anyone with a brain would agree to, but of course do in this film. Eddie is drinking himself into a stupor most nights while shuffling about the city, handing out 20’s to homeless people even though he can barely afford to live himself, still out of a job. As the homeless people in the city start to disappear, Dr. Skirth appeals to Eddie to help her get evidence of the atrocities Carlton Drake is forcing her to commit. With a chance to get the man who ruined his life, Eddie jumps at the chance and is smuggled into the lab, rather easily I might add. After collecting evidence and pictures, he recognizes the homeless woman he gave money to and breaks her out of containment, himself becoming infected by a symbiote and triggering an alarm. During his escape he discovers he has new abilities that aid him in running from the guards. These abilities continue to manifest themselves, as the symbiote begins speaking to him in his head, helping to protect him from wave after wave of Life Foundation goons. Eddie must try to figure out what’s happening to him while trying to control it from going on a murderous rampage throughout the city.

Venom is such a confusing film on so many levels. First and foremost being the fact that Venom is a villain, given its own standalone film to basically make him into a hero. I’ll forgive the fact that this can’t have anything to do with Spider-Man, that’s a fact of business and property rights. It’s unfortunate, but that’s the way it is. What’s hard to ignore is the obvious attempt of Sony to capitalize on what remaining property they have which are basically useless without having the subsequent hero that the villains they still own do battle against. Having a Venom film without Spider-Man takes away the main substance of what Venom is. The story tries to replace Peter Parker with Carlton Drake for the focus of Eddie’s rage. But instead of rage that takes over Eddie and allows Venom to really be destructive, it’s more of a mild disgust, which diminishes the core of the character significantly. Eddie’s not a man trying to quell his own rage, he’s only trying to control Venom’s, which seems to be done pretty easily.

Generally, I enjoyed most of the characters in the film, all except for Carlton Drake. It’s inconceivable that anyone would follow this guy’s instructions. For an antagonist that supposed to command all these scientists to commit horrible atrocities in the name of science, and all these goons to get killed on a whim to collect some slime, Carlton Drake has an amazingly small presence on screen. Whether it’s the actor or the writing, or some kind of combination of both I’m not quite sure, but it’s a major low point of the film. Another thing that’s hard to get past is the amount of plot holes in this film and the ridiculousness of some of the sequences. How can there be no cameras at all in the Life Foundation Lab? Why didn’t Eddie just text the pictures to his boss instead of needing to put his phone on his desk? Most importantly, why wasn’t Eddie ARRESTED at the end of the film? There are so many more, but if you can suspend disbelief and accept some really outlandish things, then you might not care as much as I did.

Forgetting all the issues with source material, the plot holes, the horrid antagonist, the film itself is quite entertaining. I particularly enjoyed the conflict inside Eddie and how they bicker inside his mind, both trying to work together to find some kind of harmony with each other. All the action sequences are extremely well done, with great special effects and Venom abilities. Sony definitely has taken a step in a new direction here, and although Venom has shown compassion and an aversion to senseless killing in the comics, turning him into a pure anti-hero made for an interesting film, and we’ll see if that’s enough to warrant subsequent sequels and the creation of his own universe.

Video

Venom is presented in 1080p High Definition Widescreen 2.40:1. The transfer looks really good, with no issues or problems noted. There is a wide array of different locations and settings, with each one providing a great balance in color. Light plays an interesting part in the film, as the level of light often indicates the tone of the film at that point. Some great cinematography and beautiful shots throughout the film give Venom a large scope we’d hope to see in a big budget superhero film.

Audio

The audio is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. Why they didn’t opt for a 7.1 or an Atmos track is beyond me, especially for a fast-paced action film, but for what they give us it sounds great, with great levels between surrounds and center channel. I didn’t necessarily notice the lack of extra surrounds in the film, but having that bit of extra audio information coming at me would have been nice. The score sounds equally as good, providing some really powerful moments in the film.

Special Features

Some cool extras on the disc, as well as a couple of deleted scenes which I actually really enjoyed. Here’s what you’re going to see:

• Venom Mode
• Deleted & Extended Scenes
• From Symbiote to Screen
• The Anti-Hero
• The Lethal Protector in Action
• Venom Vision
• Designing Venom
• Symbiote Secrets
• Select Scenes Pre-Vis
• Music Videos
• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Sneak Peek
• Previews

Venom may be a bit confusing for some people to understand thanks to the shifting backstory, exclusion of everything Spider-Man, and tone of the character, but if you can put all that aside and try to see Venom for the first time here in this film, you may just be entertained. We’ll see how the future of the character unfolds and maybe they can pull something better together on the next go-around.