Movie Review: "Venom" Spends His First Film Eating Human Heads and Furiously French Kissing

I hate to start on the defensive, but reports of Venom’s suckiness have been greatly exaggerated.

Reviews have been eviscerating, and even its star, Tom Hardy, is lamenting the fact that his favourite parts (like his "mad puppeteering") were left on the cutting room floor (to the embarrassment of co-star Riz Ahmed, who just got his first franchise paycheck and doesn’t need Tom blowing up his spot).

Still, I feel a bit like Joey Tribbiani eating Rachel’s meat trifle in Friends: It’s not what it could have been, sure, but Tom Hardy? Good. Riz Ahmed? Good. Giant-tongued space monster Venom? Goood.

Directed by Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland)—with a script credited to Jeff Pinkner, Scott Rosenberg and Kelly Marcel—Venom is the first standalone flick based on Spider-Man’s long-time comic book nemesis. This being a Sony film, you won’t see the other members of the Disney-owned Marvel Cinematic Universe, despite Spidey having recently crossed over himself. In fact, you won’t actually see Spidey either, which admittedly leaves Venom with a lingering "Where’s Poochie?" sensation.

Here, Hardy plays Eddie Brock (previously portrayed by Topher Grace in Spider-Man 3, never forget). He’s an investigative reporter based in San Francisco who loses his job—and his lawyer fiancée Anne (Michelle Williams)—after attempting to expose the shifty operations of her client, the smooth, Elon Musk-evoking inventor Carlton Drake (Ahmed), presumably named after two infamous dancers.

Yet, Eddie was onto something, because Drake’s lab houses alien symbiotes, which he’s attempting to hybridise with humans. One of them—called 'Venom'—escapes and winds up inside Eddie, existing as a voice in his head and sometimes emerging as a ravenous, all-consuming black goop. Venom basically holds Eddie’s body hostage, using him to complete an intergalactic takeover of Earth. That is, until he develops an affinity for our planet, where he realises he’s comparatively superpowered. Back home, he confides, he’s a "loser". Since he’s got more going on for him here, he may as well help stop the invasion, feeding on bad guys.

There’s your heroic drive: the toothy Venom enjoys eating human heads so much, he’s trying to keep our planet as is.

Fleischer’s Venom is basically "What if The Fly as a superhero?" I appreciated its anarchic spirit, which takes more inspiration from horror flicks than anything in the MCU, though it sometimes pulls its punches and skews towards convention. There is nonetheless a maniacal spice to both the title character and his movie. Hardy jumps in with both feet, letting his body be pulled in all directions, chattering away with his reckless alien passenger, allowing his bug-eyed expression to convey his confusion, terror and delight amid the CGI. His American accent—usually unplaceable—isn’t even that bad for once. So that’s nice.

Okay, there are exceptionally stupid elements to Venom too. For instance, every character is bad at their job, without exception. (Real-life journalists, lawyers and scientists will all look on slack-jawed at the depiction of their professions. Anne’s new doctor boyfriend, played by Reid Scott, even betrays doctor-patient confidentiality and shares Eddie’s diagnosis with Anne first, and lets her relay it over speakerphone.) Plus, like every other superhero film, it ends with CGI characters punching one another, indistinguishably. And I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t add that there is already a great 2018 picture starring a Tom Hardy lookalike about a dude whose body gets used like a marionette by a superpowered voice in his head: it was called Upgrade, and it was the best.

However, Venom stands out from an increasingly samey superhero pack. There’s also a scene where Tom Hardy French kisses a lady-Venom, sucking the symbiote out of her head mid-tongue lashing. That was definitely new for me.

3/5

In Australian cinemas now. Rated M for science fiction themes, violence and coarse language.

Header Image: Sony Pictures