Author Note: This is a spoiler free review so those reading don’t have to worry about it.
When I first heard about the movie, I was a tiny bit skeptical about it considering that the character was an anti-hero but I was wondering what the design and the story would be like. I remember hearing about the character through the Spider-Man animated cartoon from the 90s and I would learn a little later from playing the short-lived MMORPG Marvel Heroes as the character Dr Strange put it when Venom shows up in the game that “the price of bonding with the Klyntar (the symbiote) is death”.
As far as I understand about the abilities of a couple of them, the weaknesses are for the most part the same as was stated in the movie: high frequency sound waves and fire. Despite not having read much on the comics, I just know that they were originally from space. What I found out as I was watching from the movie is that they need a host that breathes oxygen to survive and bond to them. But there’s a video on YouTube by the channel of Variant and the host of the channel goes over the “creator” of the symbiotes and it goes a bit further about both of them. Some of the symbiotes have different colors and at one point in the comics, Venom does team up with Spider-Man to stop them (which is what this movie was based from). The only thing that carries the movie was Tom Hardy’s performance. While it doesn’t go into much detail about where they came from, the story keeps bouncing around a lot (just like the antagonist (Riot) of the film does when looking for a host).
Which brings me to the shortest like and dislike for this movie.
Likes:
Interaction Dialogue between Eddie and Venom
Dislikes:
Interaction Dialogue between Venom and Mercs
Chase scene between Eddie and the Mercs
Overall Thoughts:
Visually, I felt that the character design on Venom was alright and I liked the performance of Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock and Venom, although a few things that did irk me a tiny bit was that the script and the direction…was scattered for the most part. All over the place. The main bit of the story was pretty straightforward, the minor ones were discarded/used for a few scenes so it almost seemed unnecessary. I stated that the dialogue was a bit of an issue and for once I agree with the critics on some of the problems which almost parallels mine. One particular exchange prior to the climactic fight that I found amusing was Venom explaining about Riot and how Venom identifies himself similar to Eddie Brock as both of them are “losers”. This got me chuckling. While the fight itself was so-so, visually, I thought was good. Another quick comparison had to do with the symbiote separation and how it reacts. Looking at Spider-Man 3, the way the symbiote reacts to high frequency sounds was…alright. But this movie illustrates the reaction a lot better. Particularly when Eddie has the MRI and the symbiote reacts to the noise.
Favorite quotes:
“We are Venom”
(After Venom eats the thug and Eddie leaves the convenience store explaining to Mrs. Chen that he has a parasite inside of him):
Venom: “Parasite?!”
Eddie: “Yeah. It’s a term of endearment”
Venom: “Apologize!”
(During fight scene with Riot)
[Venom’s eyes widen as a symbiote axe lands inches from his face]
Eddie: Holy s***
Venom: Told you.
Variant Explanation on Symbiote Origins (YouTube)
Variant Comics (Origin on the “god” of the Symbiotes) (YouTube video)
My grade: 6.5/10
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