Director: Ruben Fleischer

Starring: Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams, Riz Ahmed, & Jenny Slate.

Hashim Latif | Oct 13, 2018

Rating: Two and a half stars out of five.

Exiting the theater from watching the much-awaited superhero/ villain movie, I felt shocked for multiple reasons. First, there was a surprising amount of people who went to see the movie. This is understandable considering Venom is the biggest movie in October so far, delivering over $80 million on its opening weekend. Secondly, I was most shocked by the amount of humor in the movie. The film provides lots of comic relief from Tom Hardy himself and his character’s chemistry with Venom, who also happens to be voiced by Hardy. Finally, I was shocked by how weak the movie structure and plot is. The plot is nearly nonexistent with mindless tangents all over the place and clichés hiding around every corner. There are some interesting bits and pieces regarding the movie but overall, there isn’t much.

However, there are areas that are salvageable: Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams, and Riz Ahmed do their best to bring this inadequate script to life with their skills, and the car chase scene that flew around San Francisco was actually pretty fun. Ruben Fleischer’s directing has its moments but is generally dull and non-inclusive. His work on Venom is not up to par as his past works such as Zombieland and 30 Minutes or Less.

Marvel Studios did not head this production but they were in association with the main studio, Sony. Sony Pictures owns the rights to Spider-Man and Venom although they did lease the rights of Spider-Man to Marvel Studios for Spider-Man: Homecoming in 2017 and Avengers: Infinity War in 2018. According to Venom producer Amy Pascal, she plans to branch the film out possibly into a Spider-Man/Venom crossover where both Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios would be involved. In fact, there is even a mid-credit scene in Venom that teases a sequel starring Woody Harrelson as Carnage, another Spider-Man villain.

Although Venom isn’t executed very well in some aspects, the movie hits its stride in other areas. In fact, I think that some of the reviews have been a little too critical of the movie. Rotten tomatoes gave it a 30% and Metacritic gave a 35 out of 100. Venom isn’t a very good movie but it sure is a fun movie. It offers pretty good laughs and decent action. In general, it’s a mediocre movie that had potential. But I wouldn’t say goodbye to him for too long because, the hero/villain might make an appearance on the silver screen once more.