Movie Review: Venom, Not As Bad As Critics Say But Still Not Good

Jeff D Lowe10/05/2018 5:51 PM

‘Venom’ has opened to controversy with Lady Gaga fans spamming bad reviews in order to hype up ‘A Star Is Born’. It has also endured some awful reviews from critics, but is it as bad as they say?

JeffDLowe (63/100): ‘Venom’ is nowhere near as bad as early critical reviews suggested, but a weirdly paced and jagged story will leave you wondering “what could have been?” There is a lot of fun to be had between Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock and Venom, which is engaging enough for this movie to qualify as “fun,” but the way it is edited together makes it feel like large chunks of the story are missing. Is ‘Venom’ a great comic book movie? The simple answer is an easy “no,” but the idea that this is as bad as the ‘Fantastic Four’ reboot or ‘Catwoman’ is just ridiculous.

It should come as no surprise that Tom Hardy is the best part of this movie. There are very few roles in which Hardy doesn’t take on and land perfectly and his weird Eddie Brock and menacing Venom are a delight. The dialogue between the two characters is often pretty hilarious, but this is where the problems begin because we just don’t get enough of their development as one entity. You get a good sense of the combined character, but, without spoiling a movie, there is a huge leap taken to advance the plot that gets explained away in one or two throwaway lines of dialogue. I get that you need to hit your beginning, middle, and end, but why rush through the most intriguing part of the movie? Tom Hardy? Great. The story he was allowed to act within? Poor. There is absolutely no question that the failings of this movie start and end with the flow of the story and how terribly put together it is from start to finish.

Michelle Williams and Riz Ahmed also star in the movie and are “okay,” but they are hampered down by a cheesy boring script. I also couldn’t get over the fact that Riz Ahmed’s American accent in the movie made him sound exactly like Gary Vaynerchuk.

I almost expected his character to turn to the camera and discuss being an entrepreneur, selling used items on Facebook or his “content model.”

Also, why was this movie not rated R? It works to a small extent as PG-13, but for such a menacing and brutal character, why not go for something along the lines of ‘Logan’? I get they might want to shoehorn this into the Marvel Cinematic Universe for certain reasons (money) but risking a flopped franchise almost doesn’t seem worth it.

It’s disappointing to see such a cool character, who hasn’t been properly portrayed in a movie, waste away, especially with Tom Hardy attached to the role. If you like comic book movies and good popcorn-action, ‘Venom’ will be worth a visit to the theater, but don’t expect anything close the best ones released over the last few years.

BONUS ITEM: The Eminem theme song is awful.

KenJac (64/100): This could have been one of the better superhero movies in recent memory if the editing wasn’t so god damn terrible. I went into it expecting an unwatchable shitshow based on the reviews, from both critics I trust and Lady Gaga stans who said there 10 grandchildren loved ‘A Star is Born’ more. It blew away those low expectations with some great action scenes, some funny dialogue, and a solid visual design.

Tom Hardy’s performance as Eddie Brock/Venom is really a high-low type deal. When he was on, he was on. When he was off, he sounded like he was doing his best Jared Leto Joker twisted impression. I find this to be a product the editing issues I mentioned before, but it didn’t ruin the movie by any stretch. Hardy also voiced Venom, and I found all of “his” lines to be hilarious. I don’t really feel like anyone else had a standout performance or anything. Michelle Williams, Jenny Slate, and Riz Ahmed all just sort of served to advance the plot and didn’t have any development or anything. It felt like Ahmed tried a little too hard to be a badass-type physically imposing CEO where he should have been a little more like a Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor. That said, I did enjoy the parallels they drew for him to psycho technocrat CEO’s that currently exist.

The pacing was really brutal at points, especially the first ? of the movie which felt like forever. I don’t think Brock even touched the symbiote until halfway through the movie, and then the ensuing ¼ was him discovering what Venom was which left way too short a period for Venom and Brocks full-fledged interactions which were some of the best parts of the movie. The dialogue was mostly bad outside of Venom and Brocks conversations, which I think again is mostly a product of the editing job. They outright speak exposition points multiple times throughout the movie which is maddening. I enjoyed the CGI quite a bit, especially considering how many on-screen transformations there were. The symbiote looked really lifelike, and Venom itself looked way better than I anticipated based off the trailers. I loved the fight scenes as well and think they were a major strength of the movie, I just wish there was more of them.

Is this one of the best superhero movies of the last few years? Fuck no. Is it one of the worst? Absolutely not. I think I had more pure fun with this movie than any DC movie or X-men movie. If it wasn’t such a clumsy script with hack job editing, I’d probably have this in the 80’s. Tom Hardy, please take more British roles!

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Make sure to subscribe to Lights, Camera, Barstool where we will review ‘Venom’ next week and reveal Trillballins’ score. His has to be an 81/100 or higher for this movie to be Officially Buttered. Make sure to rate ‘Venom’ and other 2018 movies below.

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Jeff D Lowe10/05/2018 5:51 PM

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Movie Review: Venom, Not As Bad As Critics Say But Still Not Good

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