Venom (Review)

Venom is a movie I enjoyed in spite of myself. I tend to be one of those strange individuals who has never found a way to "switch off" my brain, at least not in the same way most of my friends seem to. When I sit down with a book or to watch a movie, the synapses fire up and I tend to walk away having felt deeply about what I've just experienced, good or bad. I know what tends to make a "good" movie by critical standards. But there is also that peculiar storytelling beast that functions in the same way the old pulp stories used to, the kind of story that thumbs its nose to the highfalutin critical standards of the day all in the good name of fun. These types of stories a dime a dozen, to be sure, and most of them are just flat out bad and not worth your time. Yet, I walked away from Venom with the distinct feeling that this is a movie that channels the best of pulp fiction, a modern movie that tries not so much to break the mold as it does to conform to older, simpler styles of storytelling. To make very sure, I went back and saw it again. And to my surprise, I enjoyed the movie even more upon second viewing, when my expectations were a bit more mitigated.

Venom (2018)

I am not as in tune with Marvel Comics as I am with DC Comics. It's not that I'm a DC snob, I just grew up with DC's characters and know them a bit better. But I knew enough about Venom going into the film to have some background to the character. When the film begins, investigative journalist Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) has carved out a pretty good life in San Francisco. He's a big hit at the workplace, and he's even engaged to attorney Anne Weying (Michelle Williams). But after he takes advantage of his fiancé by snooping through her legal documents to get an inside scoop for an upcoming interview with one Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), he ends up getting both himself and Anne fired from their respective jobs. Anne calls off the engagement, and Eddie begins a downward spiral, blaming Drake for ruining his life and career.

The thing is, Drake isn't squeaky clean, and it turns out Eddie's gut feelings about him were spot-on. When a scientist in Drake's employ, Dora Skirth (Jenny Slate), realizes that her boss is actually insane, she turns to Eddie to help her expose him. Reluctant at first, Eddie finally gives in and agrees to lend a hand. Skirth helps him infiltrate Drake's company, the ironically named Life Foundation, and explains that Drake, a Darwinist with a god complex, has been experimenting with human beings and gooey alien life forms known as symbiotes. Drake's plan is to find a way for humans and symbiotes to coexist inside one body, making it possible for humans to finally colonize space. This is all par for the course when it comes to pulpy comic book plots. There's a big corporation with a great public face, secretly doing dastardly things that only the protagonist can expose.

But it's during Eddie's infiltration of Drake's company that things take a turn for the bizarre, as Eddie is actually exposed to one of the alien symbiotes. The creature begins to bond with him, acting as a kind of second personality. At this point the movie takes a sharp turn from the thriller genre into something more akin to horror. Eddie must learn to cope with the creature that now shares his body, and this creature is anything but warm and friendly. The symbiote, which calls itself "Venom," begins manifesting as a voice in Eddie's head. It is a vicious predator with a strong bloodlust. And to make things worse, Drake learns of Eddie's infiltration and sends a team of operators to recover the symbiote.

The moment Drake's goons locate Eddie, things go absolutely bonkers as Venom really cuts loose. It turns out the symbiote is much more than a voice in Eddie's head, and in order to keep its host alive, Venom manifests itself around Eddie's body as this monstrous creature with a penchant for biting off heads and licking things with an absurdly long tongue. Gruesome as it sounds, the movie tends to handle these scenes tastefully, choosing to leave much of the violence to the imagination, a more effective visual storytelling tactic. From here, Eddie and Venom learn to live with one another while working to stop Drake.

The plot is pretty threadbare. Again, the old pulp magazines come to mind here, as do classic body horror films like John Carpenter's The Thing. Venom wears its inspirations on its sleeve, and doesn't make any excuses for it. There are very few twists and turns, with the movie preferring to tell its story in a straightforward manner. This is an intelligent decision, because it allows the star to be front and center. And the truth is, the movie's strongest asset is Tom Hardy, and the filmmakers know this because there's nary a moment when Hardy isn't onscreen. I've enjoyed watching Hardy's work for years now, and there's no denying that he is an extremely talented actor. He's not a dullard off-screen, either. Just watch a couple of interviews with him and you'll see that he's pretty well read and is actually a thoughtful individual. His role as both Eddie Brock and the voice of Venom is one where he really gets to break out and have some fun. Watching his quirkiness become mania as he slowly realizes he's not alone in his own skin is worth the price of admission or an evening rental alone.

Though the story is by the numbers, this isn't to say that Venom is not a thoughtful film. It might come across as a bit surprising, but the film does have more on its mind than aliens and mad scientists. Eddie is presented as a kind of antihero (again a staple of the old pulp stories), willing to do whatever is necessary to accomplish his goals. And he learns some hard lessons along the way, such as when Anne breaks up with him. At a later point in the film, she tells him that what happened didn't happen because of Carlton Drake, but because Eddie did something very wrong. It's an intelligent move by the writers, turning what could easily have been a kind of B-movie revenge tale into a more introspective character piece. This, of course, comes back up again, as Venom reveals he has access to Eddie's thoughts and feelings. Through a series of hilarious exchanges with his darker half, Eddie actually comes out of things a better person. He learns to take responsibility for himself, to stop blaming others for situations he put himself in, to say "I'm sorry," and to actually mean it. If this is what symbiotes do for us, then I can think of a handful of people I'd like to infect with one. But if I did that, I'd probably want to consider taking one for myself, too.

Venom is never going to go down in history as being one of the greatest films of all time. It's not fair to judge it on those terms either, when it very clearly is not concerned with trying to be the next Citizen Kane or Titanic. Instead, Venom is a smaller comic book movie that is content having its fun, and letting its leading man turn out a wacky dual performance. It's the movie equivalent of one of those little mints you pick up as you're leaving your favorite restaurant. Dissolving quick on the tongue, it's gone by the time you make it back to the car. You won't even remember it by the time you get home. But for the few moments it was there, it appealed to a variety of tastes and sensations, and you'll think of it again and likely crave it the next time you see an advertisement for the restaurant. I probably won't think much more about Venom in the coming months, but if there's a sequel, I'll likely be front and center just to see what kind of eccentric, oddball thing Tom Hardy is going to do next.