Venom (2018)
Directed by Ruben Fleischer
Investigative journalist Eddie Brock attempts a comeback following a scandal, but accidentally becomes the host of Venom, a violent, super powerful alien symbiote. Soon, he must rely on his newfound powers to protect the world from a shadowy organization looking for a symbiote of their own.
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What critics say influenced Venom
There is a sense, both through elements of Hardy’s physical performance and some of Venom’s facial expressions, that Venom echoes The Mask .
Venom ends up reminding you of Jim Carrey’s The Mask.
To that end, as you may have heard already, “Venom” feels tremendously dated, seemingly plucked from a timewarp where superhero movies resemble ungainly things like “Ghost Rider,” “Spawn,” “Daredevil” and the likes (throw in a little bit of “The Mask,” “Dude Where’s My Car,” “Weekend At Bernies,” “The Wicker Man,” “Ghost Rider 2” and “Green Lantern” and this is the freaky Frankenstein that’s been created).
Far more entertainingly off-the-wall is Hardy, who appears to be channeling Nicolas Cage in Ghost Rider via Jim Carrey in The Mask .
“Venom” is basically “The Wolfman,” meets “Brain Damage” with a hint of “The Mask,” and the writers work over time destroying every link the character has to the Spider-Man mythos.
He delivers a genuinely unforgettable performance, playing Eddie and Venom like a grotesque version of Jim Carrey in The Mask (or on the set of Man on the Moon ).
A riff on classic body-sharing fantasies dating back to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde — you could also think of it as “All of Me” with aliens — the movie tells a stale, workmanlike origin story, cursorily updated with drive-by references to climate change and fake news, and outfitted with cheaply serviceable visual effects.
It’s a good gimmick, mismatched buddies in one frame, as Steve Martin demonstrated in All of Me (1984).
And the central idea -- a journalist forced to share his body with an alien symbiote, whose presence grants him extraordinary powers -- actually brings to mind less the fringes of the Marvel universe than the 1984 comedy "All of Me," in which Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin found themselves in a similar squabbling predicament.
Think of this as an intensely violent version of “All of Me,” the 1984 comedy in which Lily Tomlin’s soul ends up in Steve Martin’s body.
The overall vibe is akin to the Nic Cage movie Vampire’s Kiss ; the one where Cage insisted on eating a real, live cockroach.
In some of the film’s finest moments – like Eddie voraciously devouring a bag of frozen tater tots or leaping into a lobster tank to treat the creatures as his own personal buffet table – Hardy’s performance hearkens back to Nicolas Cage in Vampire’s Kiss , a turn so off-the-wall that it has gained legendary status.
Even if we get a sequel to this one, the Venom series feels destined to be forgotten in the same vein of Ben Affleck Daredevil film and Nic Cage Ghostrider movies.
To that end, as you may have heard already, “Venom” feels tremendously dated, seemingly plucked from a timewarp where superhero movies resemble ungainly things like “Ghost Rider,” “Spawn,” “Daredevil” and the likes (throw in a little bit of “The Mask,” “Dude Where’s My Car,” “Weekend At Bernies,” “The Wicker Man,” “Ghost Rider 2” and “Green Lantern” and this is the freaky Frankenstein that’s been created).
Think the likes of Fantastic Four and Daredevil, Batman and Robin and Catwoman and you’ll have an inkling for the flabbergasting, directionless mania of this shockingly bad Sony outing.
Meanwhile, the relationships Brock has with the homeless woman on his street (PTA regular Melora Walters!) and the owner of grocery store he frequents often (Peggy Lu) are charming, feeling like the intimate small-scale world building one would see on Netflix’s Daredevil .
No se trata del equivalente moderno a la “Gatúbela” de Halle Berry o al “Daredevil” de Ben Affleck.
This is more like on the level of The Fantastic Four (either the 2005 or 2015 versions; both are equally mediocre), 2003’s Daredevil (the one with Ben Affleck) or 1983’s Superman III (the one with Richard Pryor and where the Man of Steel fights his drunken doppelganger), meaning this latest comic book adventure isn’t without its moments but overall is still nothing short of a misbegotten waste of time.
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Thus, the non-MCU superhero films that shake up the formula—the meta crassness of Deadpool and the Western-inspired vibes of Logan —are a breath of fresh air.
The film is utterly dissonant, recalling the weird camp of Batman & Robin , which illustrates a fundamental conflict between the presentation of what the Venom symbiote is and does and the filmmakers’ efforts to turn his story into a Deadpool -esque laugh riot.
It begins as a serious drama with some mild, tepid attempts at light comedy, but once Venom himself shows up, it turns into a neutered black comedy, a PG-13 attempt to replicate the sarcastic, metatextual vibe of Deadpool that only occasionally works.
But next to the much more visually and narratively elaborate entertainments that make up the Marvel Cinematic Universe — or even compared with other snarky anti-superhero movies like “Deadpool” — “Venom” feels like pretty weak poison.
Amid a plethora of family-friendly superhero blockbusters, this was the road less traveled that “Deadpool” took in 2016, whose success inspired “Logan” to follow suit.
For, when Eddie finally comes to terms with living with the parasite, there is a hint of a lively back and forth between the two — especially when Eddie refuses to jump from a building — that might have rivalled Deadpool .
In fact, the dynamic is reminiscent of the one between Little Shop of Horrors ’ hapless shop clerk and his bloodthirsty plant, if Seymour Krelborn spent all his free time doing bicep curls.
The parasite, Venom, has a tendency to insult Eddie, who doesn’t much care for Venom either, especially when Venom erupts from Eddie’s body as a toothy, lacquer-black, Tim Burton–esque fusion of Alien and Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors and bites off people’s heads.
Venom renders the anti-hero’s mano a mano fights against obsidian snot monsters with the latest CG globule technology, but the movie’s highs come when Hardy treats the Spider-Man spinoff like a Little Shop of Horrors remake starring mid-’90s Jim Carrey.
Venom “speaks” to Eddie in a guttural bark not far removed from the carnivorous plant in “Little Shop of Horrors,” and the inner banter between host and host-ee, while not reaching Nick and Nora Charles levels of wit, are reasonably amusing.
There are moments that are just plain silly – you practically expect the deep-voiced Venom to burst out singing “Feed Me” from LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS – but since the movie never seeks to get too deep, this is amusing rather than a tonal violation.
He looks like a nod to the cobra-headed creature of the 1966 Hammer horror film “The Reptile.”
To that end, as you may have heard already, “Venom” feels tremendously dated, seemingly plucked from a timewarp where superhero movies resemble ungainly things like “Ghost Rider,” “Spawn,” “Daredevil” and the likes (throw in a little bit of “The Mask,” “Dude Where’s My Car,” “Weekend At Bernies,” “The Wicker Man,” “Ghost Rider 2” and “Green Lantern” and this is the freaky Frankenstein that’s been created).
Far more entertainingly off-the-wall is Hardy, who appears to be channeling Nicolas Cage in Ghost Rider via Jim Carrey in The Mask .
Deadpool was a roaring success, but those erring more on the villainous side, like Ghost Rider, Catwoman and Suicide Squad, have all failed miserably.
The Venom design itself is impressive as a faithful recreation of the character, but in motion it ends up looking as goofy as Ghost Rider did on the big screen; some thins just don’t translate from page to screen.
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Some have compared this movie to 2004’s Catwoman , and whilst there are parts of the comparison that are apt (both concern villains to a more famous hero removed from their source material, star lead actors way too good to be in them engaging in bizarre tick-led overacting, have an evil corporation based near water as the villain, feature CGI that look at least five years past their prime, AND have a subplot where the main character is annoyed by their neighbour playing music too loud and only having the nerve to do something about it after gaining powers), but I’d say that is going too far.
Unfortunately, it seems like Williams is trying to copy Jessica Alba’s boring and monotone performance from the mid-2000’s The Fantastic Four movies.
This is more like on the level of The Fantastic Four (either the 2005 or 2015 versions; both are equally mediocre), 2003’s Daredevil (the one with Ben Affleck) or 1983’s Superman III (the one with Richard Pryor and where the Man of Steel fights his drunken doppelganger), meaning this latest comic book adventure isn’t without its moments but overall is still nothing short of a misbegotten waste of time.