Hardy plays Eddie Brock, a respected investigative journalist, who lives a shaky life with his fiancée (Michelle Williams). On one occasion, he learns confidential information related to the Life Foundation, led by Carlton Drake (Reese Ahmed). Ed’s attempt to confront him with the facts he learned ruins his life – he loses his job and his fiancée leaves him. After a while, Eddie comes into contact with the foundation again, this time through a worker who is appalled by the experiments that take place during the research. During the visit, Eddie comes in contact with an alien symbiote and their symbiosis becomes Venom…
The symbiote is an alien in a practically liquid state, which needs a host in the form of a human in order to survive. By merging him and Eddie, a superhero is created who is far from a classic hero – he has a rather nasty attitude, insults, feeds on parts of the human body and is thrilled with the fact that he is capable of carrying out huge violence. Venom is part of a plan that would serve all of humanity as food for symbiotes. The authors do not hesitate to demonstrate his murderous endeavors, especially when the team tries to capture his host.
I will draw a parallel between Venom and Deadpool. Both characters are anti-heroes, except that Deadpool is hilarious and his constant commenting and sarcasm makes every scene funnier. In addition, details such as a child’s watch or his relationship with a blind black old woman who is his roommate contribute to Deadpool’s comic impression. Venom, on the other hand, has a comical line, but not nearly as strong as Deadpool. The source of the comedy is mostly the discrepancy between Eddie and the symbiote, as well as the attitude towards the violence he commits. Among other things, and because of those details, I don’t really understand why Deadpool is an R-rated film, while Venom is a PG-13.
Venom works great as a villain, which he was at the beginning of his Marvel career. In addition to Spider-Man, who is a hero in the classical sense, we had a positive character in the story, while there is no friendly hero in the film Venom. Even Eddie Brock is not a benefactor, because he is arrogant, selfish and abuses the confidential business information of his fiancée in order to fulfill his goals. An alien symbiote completely overwhelms him and takes away his free will, and the rules are now set by someone else. That is why we are not sure whether we should be afraid of Venom or hope that he will save us.
I got the impression that the quartet of screenwriters simply did not know how to present the villain as the protagonist, so as a result we have a hero who is bad or good depending on how the scene unfolds. Although he is not a hero in the classic Marvel sense, in moments when screenwriters bypass his essential nature, Venom is at times a highly moral type. Another atypical thing about superhero movies is that Tom Hardy, unlike his charisma and attractiveness, doesn’t give his character too much sympathy. His constant discussions with a voice in his head, as well as skepticism about the alien’s plans, are one of the main choices of the comedy.
I didn’t even expect the elaborate story to be the quality of this film – the plot is simple, the characters aren’t elaborated and we get an ending that won’t completely satisfy us, with the announcement of new sequels. In essence, the film relies on Hardy’s appearance, action scenes and special effects, in which we observe Venom’s spectacular body changes. As who knows how many times, it is not clear to me why it takes four people to write such a routine, somewhat chaotic script, where we observe a villain who wants to save the world and where no scene is something we have not seen before.
