|
|
VENOM (2018)
Director: Ruben Fleischer Cast: Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams, Riz Ahmed, Jenny Slate, Reid Scott, Scott Haze, Ron Cephas Jones, Melora Walters, Woody Harrelson MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:52 Release Date: 10/5/18 |
|
Review by Mark Dujsik | October 4, 2018 The sentient alien parasite calling itself Venom is far from a hero. In its natural form, the creature looks like a crawling puddle of black goo, and it can only survive by constantly feeding on living things. As such, when it arrives on Earth with a few of its fellow alien puddles, Venom and its ilk require human hosts to aid in their hunt for food. If that doesn't work, the parasite feeds on the organs of any unlucky people who end up with one of these creatures inside them. It's a nasty creature, and since it can talk, it has a pretty nasty attitude, too. Venom is, at its tamest, given to insults and, at its most malicious, almost delighted in its capacity to dole out tremendous violence. The thing has a tendency to bite off heads, as well. One of its earliest lines has the creature suggesting to its host that they decapitate a bunch of dead or unconscious henchmen. Venom imagines that a pile of bodies in one corner and a pile of heads in another would make for quite a sight in the human host's apartment. The point, again, is that Venom isn't a hero. This movie takes a lot of devious joy in that fact, as the alien, called a "symbiote," kills or viciously incapacitates a bunch of people who are trying to capture its host and, by extension, it. By the way, Venom is also part of a diabolical plan to turn Earth into a home for its fellow symbiotes, using all of humanity as their sustenance. What can be done with a character like Venom? As a villain, the alien monster would be just fine. That's how he began, after all, as one of Spider-Man's many foes (Some may recall its brief appearance near of the end of one of the superhero's films). In Venom, there isn't a friendly, neighborhood web-slinger or a hero of any sort to be found. Our protagonist is Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy), a selfish jerk of an investigative reporter. Eddie isn't a good guy, either. One supposes that, compared to an alien life form that feeds on its hosts' vital organs and chomps off heads and plots to conquer an entire planet, he's not too bad. That idea of "not too bad" is basically how the movie's quartet of screenwriters (Scott Rosenberg, Jeff Pinkner, Kelly Marcel, and Will Beall) get around the essential nature of Venom. It's an easy out for a story that doesn't have a legitimate hero in the comic-book sense of a good guy going up against bad guys. Venom is no hero, but he'll do in a pinch—and with a healthy dose of moral equivalency. Mostly, though, it feels as if the filmmakers don't have the nerve or don't know how to give us a true villain as the protagonist, and the result is a character who's inconsistent—bad or good, entirely depending on the requirements of the plot. Venom's eventual takeover of Eddie's body takes a lot of explaining, so we'll just skip most of it. After a disastrous interview with business magnate Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), Eddie is fired and dumped (for good reason) by his fiancée Anne (Michelle Williams). He's contacted by Dr. Dora Skirth (Jenny Slate), one of Drake's research scientists, who has ethical concerns about her boss' recent studies into the alien symbiotes. Eddie investigates and ends up infected by Venom. Drake sends his team of expendable goons to find Eddie/Venom. Wisely, the screenwriters and director Ruben Fleischer don't take any of this too seriously. At times, it's almost a mismatched-buddy comedy about an unlikeable loser and the murderous alien in his head, as Venom's voice provides running commentary, advice, and rebukes to its human host's understandable skepticism of the alien's plans. Hardy doesn't particularly try to make Eddie sympathetic, but the actor does give the character a bumbling quality that's almost endearing. It's a strange performance in the realm of superhero—or, in this case, supervillain—movies, because Hardy simply goes for broke with the comic potential of a man arguing with a voice in his head and becoming the puppet of an alien being. All of that potential, though, is really only attained by Hardy. The rest of the story follows the familiar path of any given superhero movie. In between, there are some clever action sequences, involving Venom's viscous form, which creates tentacles and other appendages that spurt out of Eddie's body (The fights are amusing, with Eddie scolding the alien as it pummels people, and a chase sequence has the alien's extensions helping a motorcycle sharply turn, suddenly leap, and launch into the air). By the end, though, all of it becomes fairly routine, with a toned-down Venom who wants to save the world, a villain that's a minor variation on Venom, and the weird sight of two, gooey CGI creatures battling each other. We mostly expect the last two things, if only because they're the custom of such movies. We don't expect that Venom would so hastily undermine its decidedly wicked alien, just so it can fit into the mold of the movie's kin. Copyright © 2018 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
Buy Related Products Buy the Soundtrack (Digital Download)
|
(for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and for language)
