Venom
When investigative reporter/bad boy Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) falls on hard times, losing his job, losing his girl (Michelle Williams), and about to lose his place, the last thing he would need is a parasite to drag him down further; but, when an alien parasite/symbiote attaches itself to him, it may be the best thing to happen to him yet. But, where there’s one parasite, there’s more in tow, now the man responsible for bringing the parasites to earth, Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), is set on bringing even more of the creatures to earth, a future that looks bleak for the planet. It’ll be up to Eddie and his parasite Venom to save the world, that seems like a great idea.
Written by Scott Rosenberg and Jeff Pinkner and Directed by Ruben Fleischer this tonally challenged comic/action flick appears to have the graphic novel fans split with a heavy leaning towards the negative side, and that’s not totally unfounded. Overall the plodding script moves slowly to get to the “action.” Even then, the unbalanced and haphazard emotional shifts we’re asked to follow of Hardy don’t ring consistent or genuine, and, the two female leads, Williams and Jenny Slate, are given little to work with just the same. Likewise the CGI work throughout the film lacks consistency and ultimately melts down in the final act to create a scene we’ve seen many times over, harumpf, there’s not a whole lot of new material being curated here. On the positive, there are some effective dashes of comedy speckled throughout, but again, lacking consistency. The real hero here, Composer Ludwig Göransson and his valiant, notable score that keeps momentum in the face of adversity, well played sir, well played indeed. Overall, perhaps worthy as rental later, you can afford to wait for this a little longer, it’s a shame Sony didn’t heed this same advice to iron things out further along the way. Venom is rated PG-13.