By George Haerle
For The Daily World
Why did we need a Venom movie?
It seemed like a completely unnecessary dip into the superhero mythos pool to grab whatever could be fished back up — an obvious cash grab and bad idea all at once when announced. And without the inclusion of Spider-Man (Venom’s longtime nemesis, and vice-versa), it started to look like “Venom” was going to be a crash landing.
But it turns out to be a glorious crash that somehow manages to make you smile and laugh as you watch the burning fuselage like a bonfire inside a Dumpster.
After a space mission goes awry, several parasitic alien life forms are acquired from the wreckage. One of the organisms latches itself to Eddie Brock (played by Tom Hardy), a journalist investigating the corruption of the company that has captured the aliens. It’s essentially similar to the character’s origin in the comics, albeit without Spider-Man’s involvement.
The movie is subpar in nearly every department: It has a million little plot holes, the CGI is mostly terrible, the action is relatively uninspired, and the musical choices are odd, including a terrible original song for the film by Eminem during the end credits. Michelle Williams is given almost nothing to do as Eddie’s fiancée, and Riz Ahmed plays a mustache-twirling Elon Musk-gone-bad antagonist to join the muntitude of underdeveloped, two-dimensional Marvel villains not named Thanos.
The list goes on: The third-act fight between Venom and the other alien creature, Riot, is a complete mess of muddy, gooey CGI that makes it impossible to interpret what is going on at times. It feels like swaths of footage were probably edited out, as the movie skips along almost too fast, and explanations for plot points and the creature’s behavior seem to be lacking.
It’s not a good movie by any means — but wow, is Tom Hardy entertaining in it! So much so, it warrants a watch at the very least.
Hardy plays Brock and voices Venom, and the interaction between the two is just absolute fun, especially the almost slapstick results as Venom takes control of Eddie’s body. Despite the previews framing the film as a dark superhero flick, it’s more of a comedy creature feature.
Hardy’s performance, physical comedy and multitude of facial expressions are so entertaining, in fact, that it almost completely distracts you from how shallow and poorly edited everything else around him is. It’s amazing he’s not getting significantly more lead roles after “Mad Max: Fury Road,” but if anything “Venom” solidifies him as a lead performer. Not only is Hardy’s portrayal of Eddie Brock a riot to watch at times, his voicing of the Venom creature is also great. Though the voice is digitally altered, the line delivery and snarky, hungry and outright goofy alien goo that latches itself to Brock is as much of a character as its host.
The possibility has been alluded to in film industry news that a crossover/face-off between Tom Holland’s Spider-Man and Hardy’s Venom is possible. If so, this would be the money-making equivalent of a sold-out event boxing match for comic book movie enthusiasts, as Hardy now owns the Eddie/Venom character as much as Holland owns Spider-Man.
Also, director Ruben Fleischer has alluded to an R-rated cut — and Hardy, whose performance is already a hoot, has mentioned that his favorite and funniest 40 minutes of the film were edited out. If that’s true, a fuller and extended version of “Venom” could be a completely different experience, and might be the better option to wait for.
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“Venom” is currently playing at the Riverside Cinemas, 1017 S. Boone St. in Aberdeen.
George Haerle holds a bachelor’s degree in creative writing for media and lives in Cosmopolis.
