Venom

Official Australian release date: 4/10/18. Viewed: 4/10/18.

Director: Ruben Fleischer

Actors: Tom Hardy, Riz Ahmed, Michelle Williams, Jenny Slate

Genre: Sci-Fi / Action

Rating: M

   

From the director of ‘Zombieland’ comes ‘Venom’, a non-Marvel Cinematic Universe film, featuring Spider-Man’s arch-nemesis – but no Spider-Man (who’s over in the MCU). Since it’s a movie about an alien (“symbiote”) turning Eddie Brock (Hardy) into a superhero/antihero, you should suspend disbelief and expectations at the start. The symbiote is brought to Earth by Drake (Ahmed), a Branson/Musk-type who wants to colonize space. He’s obviously evil.

Anne (Williams) is Eddie’s ex and has some scenes, as does Skirth (Slate), who’s experimenting on the symbiotes. We finally get to see Venom about 50min in, after quite a bit of unnecessary build-up, and all hell essentially breaks loose. There’s a pretty good car chase – we’re obviously in San Francisco so the cars can get plenty of air – and some solid action/fight scenes.

While it’s all quite daft, and some of the scenes have the camera moving way too fast, overall it’s Hardy, his charisma, and how he interacts with Venom that make it enjoyable and not totally stupid. The CGI’s quite good and it’s fun to see some of his powers. There’s a few jokes – but definitely don’t expect another ‘Deadpool’.

Overall: Fun enough, but not spectacular.

Gav's Rating: 3 stars.