VENOM (2018) - More like sym-BYE-ote

Venom is a superhero movie directed by Ruben Fleischer, starring Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams, and Riz Ahmed. The movie follows journalist Eddie Brock as he becomes bound to an alien symbiote known as Venom and learns to work together with the symbiote to prevent an alien invasion.

I will come out right now and say that if Venom is definitely the worst superhero movie of 2018, although technically Aquaman does have a chance to snatch that title. I was always very skeptical of this movie since it was first announced, and I've gone on record to say there are only two ways that a Venom movie could have been anything other than a disaster:

1) if it's a dark and brooding tale about a broken man wrestling with this new manifestation of his dark desires (in the same vein as Logan), or

2) if it goes full on campy with a movie that constantly makes fun of its own lore to the point of self-parody that seeks to do nothing other than be a fun, dumb action movie (in the same vein as Thor Ragnarok).

Sadly, this movie tries to accomplish both while simultaneously failing miserably on all fronts.

Venom is extremely poorly written, with a badly designed and near incomprehensible story where some plot points are dropped halfway through and others are shoehorned in and resolved minutes later. There is a rather big tone shift when Eddie Brock and Venom do come together, with everything before feeling like a slow and poorly paced horror/sci-fi while everything after felt like a badly written and poorly paced generic action movie.

The characters are incredibly two-dimensional and lack no real motivation, which begs the question of why Sony was so adamant on hiring critically acclaimed actors for these roles. Tom Hardy plays a "journalist" who looks and acts more like a junkie with a personality that's more annoying than anything. Oscar winner Michelle Williams plays "the woman" and that's really about it. Riz Ahmed plays Indian Elon Musk whose entire character can be summarized by "we're going immediately to human trials". 

Even Venom himself, undoubtedly the best part of the movie, doesn't have any real reason for fighting his own species other than him just feeling like it. At least he's funny?

And you can't even go to the movie to have a good time with well made action scenes because the fight scenes in this movie are so terrible. Venom his almost completely black. The "villain" symbiote is a dark gray. Most action scenes are set at night. It should be really clear why those are a bad combination. Most of the time, I wasn't on the edge of my seat with excitement--I was wondering what the hell was going on. And it wouldn't have mattered anyway since none of them were any good.

And come on, Sony. It's 2018 and we STILL get superhero movies where the hero and the villain have the exact same powers? It's boring as hell and lacks any creativity, which is something that Marvel learned several years ago (except for Black Panther, sadly).

Final Verdict

Venom may not be the worst movie ever, but it's certainly not worth your time and money. Story and characters are bland and very poorly written, with no motivation or reason for us to care about them. The movie can't find a solid tone, with the first half feeling like a  horror movie and the second half feeling like a bad action movie. Action scenes are badly made and set in the dark where you really can't even see what's going on. The "big showdown" between the hero and the villain lasted all of two minutes. And it really seems that all of this is just to set up the sequel and Sony's so-called "VenomVerse" movies.

Venom is like a bad '90s superhero movie that happened to be made in 2018.

Score: D

Note: I'm also a bit disappointed that Sony decided not to pronounce them as "sym-BYE-otes" because that would've been the best worst thing about the movie.