Starring: Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams, Jenny Slate, Riz Ahmed, Reid Scott
Director: Ruben Fleischer
Release date: 3rd October 2018
A spaceship on its way back to Earth experiences difficulties and ultimately crashes. The ‘specimens’ on board are mostly intact but one of them is missing… Meanwhile in San Francisco, a hard-nosed investigative reporter named Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) starts looking into the business of a company called The Life Foundation. Unfortunately for him his investigations annoy the wrong people and the company he works for, fires him. He’s lost everything and life is feeling pretty bleak. 6 months later, and Eddie is still struggling to find work. He’s approached by a scientist who tells him that there are all kinds of shady goings on happening within The Life Foundation. Initially he tells her to leave him alone but curiosity gets the better of him and he agrees to look into it. She sneaks him into the top secret lab, but events take a shocking turn and Eddie is left running for his life.
Venom appeared in the Marvel Comics and is most usually paired with Spiderman. He/it is an alien that is liquid-like in appearance and one that must have a ‘host’ body in order for its survival. It made its first appearance in the Comics in May of 1988.
Somehow people were tweeting prior to the films’ release with reviews that were less than complimentary. I just find this totally reprehensible but I guess not a surprise… Films with a profile as high as ‘Venom’ and also one that’s surrounded by so much trepidation can and do court a lot of Press.
I was really looking forward to the release of ‘Venom’ and wanted to go in with a totally unbiased mind. I’m a huge fan of the Marvel Universe and always look forward to a new movie with a lot of excitement. This one has had a good bit of speculation surrounding it in the months before release, but I ultimately found it to be entertaining and a real rollercoaster of a movie.
I loved the action and chase sequences especially, and both were eye widening in their own ways. The relationship between Eddie and Venom is a major part of the whole story, and it appears that they both need eachother equally as much; Eddie is looking for purpose and Venom basically needs a human body to survive. The two gradually bond (no pun intended) as the movie progresses and essentially by the end it’s become a ‘buddy movie’ of sorts.
After much debate with other movie lovers, my advice to you as a movie goer is to watch ‘Venom’ and make up your own mind about it. Ultimately, the way I look at it is that one person’s most hated movie is another person’s most loved. This is one example of a movie that I ask you to watch without any pre-judgement. You can’t please everyone all of the time but I do honestly believe that you should give this one a watch. It’s visually stunning and also on the plus side, at 1hr 52mins long, it’s not as long as a lot of the other Marvel movies have been in the past. It’s a little violent in places to have a 15 rating, but I guess they might have alienated a lot of movie goers if it had had anything higher.
Seriously, go and see it and make up your own mind. I really enjoyed it and hopefully you will too!
Overall: 9/10
