Our take on... Venom
Originally created as a Spider-Man villain, the character of Venom was previously seen in “Spider-Man 3”, but you need to cast that from your memory banks as what we have here is a new interpretation of the character in its own standalone film.
The character of Eddie Brock also returns, this time in the form of Tom Hardy who himself is no stranger to the comic book movie genre, having played Bane in “The Dark Knight Rises”. In this film, Eddie is a TV journalist who specialises in going after corporations in an attempt to find justice where he can. His pursuit of this puts him in direct conflict with Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), the head of the Life Corporation. This causes Eddie to lose everything, and some time later, while he’s at his lowest ebb he becomes infected with the parasite who identifies itself as “Venom”.
This film is a basic origin story to introduce us to the characters, and how “Venom” came to be, and while this film does follow the same patterns as other origin films, it has a number of factors that sets it apart, and makes it unique. Firstly, it’s the relationship between Eddie and Venom. When Venom infects Eddie, he can talk to him but only Eddie can hear it. This makes for some great comedic moments between the two characters that inhabit the same body. Secondly, Tom Hardy’s performance carries the film. Following his infection, Eddie becomes manic and paranoid, and Hardy gives it his all to portray this aspect of the character. Finally, Venom’s abilities make for some fun fight scenes, the likes of which we haven’t seen in the Marvel films until now.
While it has a familiarity about it, “Venom” is not a typical superhero film. It’s dark in tone and humour, and leans closer to “Deadpool” than it does to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. There are no direct references to those films here, but I could see how they would be able to integrate the character over with Spider-Man, and at a later date the rest of the Avengers. As it stands right now, it’s a really enjoyable comic book action flick, which flies by at a zip due to its ninety minute run time.
These are the wise considered words of our Kevin Dillon. @kevinwritestuff.
Venom is available to buy here on DVD, Blu-ray and 4K UHD or at any Golden Discs store nationwide.
