I enjoyed Venom. I really, really did. Tom Hardy is always a fun actor to watch, and while it's not his best performance, he does a good job here. Michelle Williams is great as always as Annie, and Riz Ahmed (who I loved in Nightcrawler and Rogue One) plays a decent villain in the form of millionaire, borderline mad scientist Carlton Drake. Director Ruben Fleischer had previously worked on Zombieland and Gangster Squad, and while those two were better movies, Venom is still very watchable.
I'll be honest. The plot itself doesn't make much sense in a lot of ways. There are huge inconsistencies with the way the symbiotes work with hosts, and how compatible the host can be. The movie is almost 2 hours long and still felt way too short and underdeveloped, with some holes where scenes were clearly cut out, either for runtime or to try to help keep it PG-13. There's also an entire scene from the end of the movie that appears in the trailer, which was really disappointing.
With that said, I loved the visuals in most of the fight scenes, especially the one at the end. The back-and-forth banter between Eddie and Venom was a sheer joy, and probably my favorite thing about the movie. There was a nice blink-and-miss-it cameo with John Jameson at the very beginning, and Spider fans will want to stick around for the mid-credits scene.
There's a lot wrong with this movie, and I feel it's a huge missed opportunity for them not to go for the R rating, as we've seen Logan and Deadpool 1 and 2 prove that they can succeed with flying colors. I sincerely hope they release an unrated extended cut when it hits DVD and Blu Ray. As it stands though, it may be a guilty pleasure, but Venom was generally very enjoyable.
Review of Venom
