Rating: PG-13
Genre: Action/Adventure
Runtime: 1 hour 52 minutes
Content Warnings: Animal Harm (Lab testing), Medical Abuse (also lab testing), Decapitation, Needles
Full lists:
– General Triggers: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/16407
– Parent’s Guide: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1270797/parentalguide
– SA Warnings: https://www.unconsentingmedia.org/items/2133
| Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is a famous journalist/reporter who “follows people who don’t want to be followed,” as he puts it. He comes across the Life Foundation and in an attempt to uncover allegations the foundation received, he loses his entire career. Six months later he is brought back to the foundation by one of their leading scientists. But during his visit, Eddie comes across an alien known as a Symbiote. Venom and the Symbiote, chose to attach and adapt to Eddie’s body. However this gets Brock in trouble by Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), the leader of the Life Foundation. Eddie/Venom must stop Drake from continuing with his plans of turning the humans en masse into full Symbiotes for his invasion forces. |
The Visuals: Marvel does a great job at getting those cinematic shots, but with so many dark and night scenes I had a really hard time making out the action on my screen at points. Alas for the lost art of set lighting! There’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to fully tell what is going on even in a night scene in the year of our lord 2018. Hell, Bram Stoker’s Dracula managed it.
Venom himself is very well animated though! I love the horrible slime-mold looking goopy effect, very visceral and real looking. Hopefully I will still think the same in 20 years when the SFX has aged a bit, but it genuinely does look very nice. It also felt really grounded, with enough scenes taking place in an actual set so as to not look completely weird… or if they DID use a bunch of CGI on the sets I didn’t really notice. Either way, they managed to make the symbiote look very “present” in the world.
The Music: I honestly didn’t notice it all that much. This can be either a good thing or a bad thing — take your pick. There was an appropriate amount of swelling bravado on the fight scenes though, to keep them from feeling flat.
The Plot: Hmmmm, I really want to like it more than I do. I think its just a problem of having so many decades of Marvel lore to work through though, you’re sort of forced to include a lot of extra plotlines and details that you would maybe cut out of a more streamlined work. Being evil for evil’s sake is also kind of boring. I wish they had maybe included more of the symbiote’s point of view since they made the point of it being a purposeful invasion at the end. That’s more of a story that I would be interested in.
Overall Opinion: As a certified monsterlover, I wish I liked it more than I did! But the fanworks coming out of it have been quite delicious. Perhaps I will have better luck with the sequel?