DVD: Venom
Was there ever going to be a way to make a film as cheesy as Venom anything more than an action comedy rather than something that would seamlessly fit into the Marvel Cinematic Universe? In my mind, no. And this is how you must approach Venom. It’s not your serious modern superhero film, and it’s not a brazen R-rated Deadpool clone. It blazes it’s own, admittedly trite and formulaic, path, and does so with one burning positive note: Tom Hardy.
So the story goes, mad scientist recovers alien life from space and tries to mate it to a human form, our hero Tom Hardy tries to expose mad scientist but ends up being a host for one of the aliens resulting in a very clever, very funny, anti-super-hero.
It’s got action, spectacular set pieces, and an amazing chase scene, it has kind of romance and plenty of humour, so it ticks all the right boxes but doesn’t quite deliver the perfect film experience.
For one, the motivations of the evil scientist are never really looked into, what he’s doing makes little sense, even though it’s wrapped up in some green politics it really doesn’t hold water.
Then there are a bunch of seemingly intelligent people doing really dumb things, but what really gets me, is the way the director, even though through visual storytelling it’s already obvious, has to add that extra layer of obviousness every time one of the aliens changes hosts so that even a Donald Trump supporter will understand what’s happening. This level of visual over obviousness absolutely kills the narrative treating the audience as brain dead.
Sorry, pet peeve right there.
But in short, despite its failings, Tom Hard as Venom delivers and entertaining night on the couch.
Rating: M Suitable for mature audiences 16 years and over. NOTE: Violence & Offensove language.
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