This is definitely one of those rare Venom reviews that doesn’t completely shit on it. Obviously, I am fully aware that my opinion isn’t on the popular side, even the majority of the Geek Outpost team hated it. Like really hated it. However, this is my review and I’m sticking to my guns.
Is it perfect? No.
It’s a comic book movie that manages not to take itself too seriously. Something that I view as a welcome change of pace coming off the high of the last few entries in the MCU. Sometimes you just need to sit in a comfy reclining chair (if your theater is fancy like that) and shut your brain off for a few hours. This is exactly what Venom allowed me to do.
The relationship between Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock and the symbiote known as Venom is truly what makes this movie work. They play off of each other like a dark Laurel and Hardy. They should have called the movie Venom and Hardy (smh, missed opportunity). Eddie is a loser reporter coming off of a breakup and Venom is a bad-ass killer blob of goo from outer space.
How could that not work?
The back and forth dialogue between the two of them kept me laughing and engaged, and the PG-13 rating didn’t seem to be much of a setback. At the core of it all sits Riz Ahmed’s Carlton Drake, a genius who believes killing countless lower-class citizens while experimenting with symbiotes is necessary for the greater good of failing humanity. He’s basically just a better-dressed Thanos, but for the same reasons that Thanos works as a villain, Drake works too.
Venom might have lacked the gore that true fans were hoping for, but it did have an abundance of action and violence. Action that was over-the-top and somehow not completely spoiled by the film’s massive amount of marketing and trailers. Even the supporting cast was solid, manly Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate. Director Ruben Fleischer (of Zombieland fame) did everything that he could to make a fun Venom movie, and I think he succeeded.
