We let the devil in, and it was pretty mild
By: Vian Abdullah - 11C
WARNING: This review and analysis of Venom (2018) contains heavy spoilers regarding the events which takes place in the film
Ever since the release of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3 in 2007, the Sony-released Spider-Man films have always been a mixed success, with both the critics and general audiences. The aforementioned Spider-Man 3 and Mark Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man series failed to fully capture the support of audiences. Now with Marvel Studios being given the license to produce their own Spider-Man movies, it appears that Sony is looking to take advantage of their catalogue of Spider-Man related characters by making standalone films based on them. Ruben Fleischer’s Venom is their first attempt in this project. The film stars Tom Hardy, Riz Ahmed, and MIchelle Williams, and is based on the Marvel Comics character, Venom, an on-again, off-again adversary of the famous webslinger. With that, said, let’s look into Sony’s first attempt in creating an anti-hero film. Venom.
The story starts with a spacecraft crashing in East Malaysia, it is a ship owned by the Life Foundation, led by Carlton Drake (Ahmed). Employees of the Life Foundation retrieve the specimen they’ve collected, but one of them escapes. It cuts to San Francisco where investigative journalist Eddie Brock goes to interview Carlton Drake. Eddie asks some incriminating questions which leads to him getting fired and his fiancée, Anne Weying’s (Williams) abruptly dumping him. Cut to several months later when a Life Foundation scientist, Dora Skirth, tells Eddie that Carlton Drake has been doing some human testing with the specimens, now called “symbiotes”—a process which has consistently ended in human death. Eddie breaks into their facility and accidentally comes into contact with one of the symbiotes. Eddie escapes but Drake’s men ambush him in his own apartment. Luckily, the English-speaking symbiote is able to defend Eddie by giving him superpowers, mostly black tendrils. This leads to a car chase which culminates into Eddie and the symbiote finally transforming into Venom. Eddie’s ex takes him to the hospital, where they are able to separate him from the symbiote. This leads to him getting captured by the Life Foundation. It’s revealed that the escaped symbiote from before has bonded with Drake to form Riot. They plan to bring all of the symbiotes to Earth. Weying and Venom free Eddie, and he is once again the host for Venom. They go after Riot who is boarding a rocket to obtain the symbiotes. A fight happens which ends with Riot dead and the rocket exploding. After that, Eddie and Venom still share both their symbiotic and loving bond--vowing to kill the bad people in the world.
Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock isn’t really anything special. He’s not a bad character, clearly has a well-defined personality, but his whole character arc never really felt complete. He starts off the film with what one would call an “ideal” life; he’s good at his job, has a loving fiancée, and generally wants to do good in the world. His only fatal flaw is that he’s a bit too persistent in his reporting. This backfires when he interviews Drake, losing his livelihood in the process. He essentially becomes a wreck after this - becoming a heavy drinker after failing to get a job. Consequently, he has lost all motivation to do good in the world. After his adventure as Venom, he uses his newfound abilities to do good in the world, killing those who hurt the innocent. The issue here comes from the fact that they don’t really address the thing which made him lose everything in the first place, his overwhelming recklessness and enthusiasm. By the end of the film, he has gained his job back, and nothing really indicates that he has learned to keep the reckless part of him that got him fired in control. In fact, because Drake was confirmed to be a bad man like he suspected, he’s most likely going to push stories like the Life Foundation even harder.
To be frank, the supporting characters, aren’t very memorable. First we have Anne Weying, Eddie’s ex-fiancée. That basically how you can summarise her character - as Eddie’s ex who’s still willing to help him with his symbiote situation. She does move the plot forward, saving Eddie in numerous situations, but nothing else really stands out about her. There’s no especially memorable trait to her character or her own character arc, as she’s just there to move the story along. Not to mention that she’s the films most notable supporting character in the film--the others are not very interesting in the least. There’s Dr. Dan Lewis (Reid Scott), Anne’s new boyfriend. He’s in the film because he discovers the symbiotes’ weakness to sound. There’s Dr. Dora Skirth, who leads Eddie in the Life Foundation offices only to immediately get killed afterwards. They’re both characters with no real weight to them, and nothing about them which particularly stands out. In fact, every supporting character in the film can be summarised with one word - sufficient.
The main villain of the film, Carlton Drake, who later becomes Riot is slightly better than the rest. He’s your typical intellectual rich guy who everybody loves and has made the world a better place, but hides a really dark secret. Think Lex Luthor form DC or Ozymandias from Watchmen. He’s got your typical speech of how society and humans are a plague, and how the Earth’s resources are being depleted. Just like any other character of this type, he has an equally dumb plan. He wants every human on Earth to be bonded with a symbiotes so they can survive in space. One flaw in the narrative occurs around the beginning of the third act when he becomes Riot--his goals completely changes its trajectory. He now wants to bring all the symbiotes to Earth to kill everyone. So he goes from trying to save humanity to killing it just because he has a parasite in him now. So the character which we’ve seen in the first two acts is now replaced by a completely different one, all with very little buildup. The sudden switch in motivation like would would usually be attributed to inconsistencies in the script or editing.
Regarding the Venom symbiote itself, it’s actually the most memorable character in the film. It has the most charisma out of all of them and its relationship with Eddie is actually one of the most entertaining aspects of the film. This comes from its contrast with Eddie’s serious demeanor. In situations where Eddie is in some form of stress, Venom would be there to calm him down. In situations where Eddie is talking to someone, Venom would be there to respond to his sentences. Venom even sometimes acts as a helpful guide. Aside from using its abilities as a lethal protector to Eddie, it also helps him reconcile his issues with Anne. Surprisingly, Venom and Eddie are the two characters who have the most meaningful relationship in the whole film. Even by the final act Venom says he’s choosing to save the world because Eddie somehow convinced him. Admittedly, that plot point came our of the blue, and still scratching my head to find to moment when Venom changes its mind. There was also a line before the final battle which Venom states that it’s somewhat of a loser on its own home planet (much like Eddie). The film wants to make the connection between the two stronger with that line but it’s so abrupt and we don’t really get to see the implications of it being a loser. It just comes off as a faint attempt in building their relationship further. The lore surrounding the symbiotes themselves are only given brief mentions of, which is fine except for the fact that they are the key motivation for the actions the characters take in the climax. Things like Venom revealing that the symbiotes feed on planets and that Riot is sort of a leader of a pack of symbiotes don’t really have the impact or weight that they should - mostly due to the film not really elaborating on them much and generally focussing on the human characters.
On a technical level, the film doesn’t really falter. There’s no overly distinct style to the cinematography in the film, the colour grading fits well with its tone. Venom and Riot, as CGI monsters are actually impressive. Venom more so than Riot just because of the latter’s very jagged design. The action scenes - from the car chase, to the fight in a building, to the final fight are all entertaining in their own right. The car chase having this urgent and high octane feel to it. The building fight being very moody and atmospheric, with Venom covered is smoke while he’s slowly taking out an armed squad. The final fight is clearly where they spent the majority of of their budget on, with two symbiotes slugging it out with each other for the fate of the world. The score by Ludwig Göransson is definitely something which is recognisable and fits with the sometimes dark, sometimes cheesy tone of the film, though it is nowhere near as unique or memorable as his score for Black Panther earlier this year.
Overall, Venom is not something to be described as either lackluster or spectacular. The protagonist Eddie Brock serves his role by being likeable enough for the audience to sympathise with. The supporting roles do their job in moving the plot forward, even though none of them are particularly memorable. The villain with his initial ambitions of the betterment of humanity could have been something to be explored, though it was mostly thrown away in the end. This makes a chunk of the story feel a little bit flimsy, with the film not being consistent in the plot’s direction. The film’s namesake, Venom, was unsurprisingly the most captivating part of the film, with its exhilarating action set pieces, charismatic banter, and interesting bits of lore form what we are given. Something the film would have definitely benefited from is to take some time to flesh out the villain’s motivation and more elaboration on the symbiotes’ backstory. A fuller character arc for both Eddie and Drake would have definitely added a poetic quality to it, and would have made not only the climax but the film as a whole more impactful. As it stands, not many people are going to see Eddie Brock as a very intriguing anti-heroic figure or Carlton Drake as a multi-layered villain. There’s not really anything revolutionary in this film which brings new fresh blood into the superhero landscape. Whether or not Sony will continue on their promise of a cinematic universe seems to be likely. Although the critical reception to this film has not been the best, it seems that enough audiences like it enough to be deemed passable, and that movie studios usually focus on the money, something which this film is currently making lots of. As a whole the film is definitely fertile territory to expand a mythology on, as there are many aspects of the symbiotes which have yet to be explored - not to mention the vast source material that it has with the comics. So although Venom might be the start of something greater in the future, the film itself is akin to an enjoyable popcorn flick for a one time viewing, with the only thing people remember about it is how cool the symbiotes looked.
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