This is not quite the train wreck that many were expecting it to be, and there are brief moments that work, but overall this film not only fails to do justice to the comic-book character of Venom, it also fails to deliver an entertaining film it its own right.

Premise: While investigating shady billionaire Carlton Drake’s (Riz Amed) illegal human drug trials, journalist Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) becomes bonded with an alien symbiote, granting him superhuman abilities. But the symbiote has a mind of its own, and Eddie struggles to maintain control of his new extra-terrestrial passenger.

Review:

I’m a big fan of Tom Hardy, Riz Ahmed and Michelle Williams, and I also love Zombieland which was directed by Ruben Fleischer, so when I heard all four of them were involved in this latest attempt to bring the comic-book character Venom to the big screen, I hoped for the best. Unfortunately, with the exception of Tom Hardy, the rest of their talents are universally wasted in this tonally inconsistent, unsatisfying and two-dimensional superhero origin story.

Four-time Oscar nominee Michelle Williams has virtually nothing to do in this film as Eddie’s girlfriend Anne Weying, and even when she is on screen, she’s really nothing more than a walking cliché. Like so many characters in this film, the motives for some of her actions make little to no sense, and you’re left with the feeling that a lot of backstory may have been left on the cutting room floor. Riz Ahmed is arguably even more poorly served by the script, as although his character starts off promisingly as the entrepreneurial scientist billionaire with a shady past, his character very quickly descends into moustache-twirling pantomime villainy lacking any nuance or sense of realism.

“…Tom Hardy’s performance can’t save the film from its other flaws…”

Director Ruben Fleischer, who so expertly balanced the humour, horror and emotion in Zombieland, also fails to choose a tone for this film and stick with it. At times it seems like it wants to be a horror film, complete with horror movie tropes aplenty, but then at other times, it wants to be a traditional superhero film (albeit one with very little plot, and character development lacking any credibility). Every now and then there are flashes of really effective, laugh-out-loud comedy, but they’re lost amongst the confused tonal shifts. The film also seems to want to have its cake and eat it in terms of its content; rated “15” in the UK, it’s full of (mild) swearing and (implied) gore, and yet it doesn’t have the guts to really commit in the way that Deadpool or Logan did. Instead, it just feels like an edited-for-TV, watered down version of a more explicit film.

If there is one thing that does work in this film, it’s Tom Hardy’s performance. Leaving aside the question of how true this film is to the comics (see below), in the context of this film, Hardy’s performance as Eddie Brock really works. He captures the many facets of Eddie’s personality – his sense of righteous indignation that means he can’t drop a story about disappearing homeless people, his sense of shame and impotence at not being able to prevent a stick-up at his local corner store, and his self-denial that blames others for the mistakes that he makes (one thread that is particularly faithful to the comics, albeit the surrounding events are entirely different). As mentioned above, he has some wonderful comedic moments both as Eddie and, after bonding with the symbiote, as Venom, but his performance can’t save the film from its other flaws.

“…descends into one final CGI-fuelled, eye-straining mess…”

Which is a shame, as it starts out quite promisingly. The opening third of the film deals with events prior to Eddie’s bonding with the symbiote, and this is ironically by far the strongest part of the film. Things deteriorate in the middle act, as Eddie comes to terms with what has happened to him in what feels like one long, repetitive chase scene, but then the wheels come off the film entirely in the final act, as characters act in ways that make absolutely no sense and display personality changes that come out of nowhere, and then it all descends into one final CGI-fuelled, eye-straining mess.

I wanted to give this film a chance, even though the mere notion of a Spider-Man free Venom film always seemed like a terrible idea. Venom in the comics is arguably my favourite Spider-Man villain (certainly in his early appearances, before the character was over-used and diluted), and the great thing about his character was the personal relationships that both Eddie Brock and the symbiote had with Peter Parker/Spider-Man. Say what you will about what Topher Grace did with the character in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3, but at least they retained the core essence of Venom’s character – a human and alien bonded by the mutual rejection by, and hatred of, Peter Parker/Spider-Man. Taking that away, and all you have is a man who’s granted superpowers by an alien, and in that respect, Tom Hardy does a good job portraying this film’s protagonist, but that character most certainly is not the Venom I knew from the comics. Hell, even the 2008 cartoon series The Spectacular Spider-Man did a better job of portraying Venom’s origin than this movie.

“…a generic, & ultimately quite forgettable, overly familiar superhero origin plot…”

And I could forgive that, if this film had stood up as an entertaining movie in its own right. I appreciate that not all comic-book movie adaptations have to be literal, direct translations of the comic-book stories, and I’ve loved plenty of films that have played fast and loose with their source material. But this Venom film drops everything from the comic-book that made the character so memorable, and it its place we just have a generic, and ultimately quite forgettable, overly familiar superhero origin plot. The decision to make a Venom film without Spider-Man ultimately just feels like a shameless attempt by Sony to cash in on the character.

Venom is not a terrible film – parts are entertaining and funny, and Tom Hardy is always watchable – but there’s not enough that works to really recommend seeing this film. In truth, it was probably never going to be possible to make a great Venom film without Spider-Man, but this is not even satisfying as a film taken in isolation. Come back, Topher Grace, all is forgiven.