capeshit deluge
Venom (Ruben Fleischer, 2018)
Much like recent DCEU outings Suicide Squad and Justice League, this is a movie torn between identities, and remnants of every would-be approach can be seen in the final product. One faction at Sony wanted this to be a more generic capeshit movie, another wanted it be dark and edgy (possibly even rated R), and still another was looking to make this an offbeat buddy comedy. The first act suffers the worst from this indecision, as its straight-laced tone clashes wildly with both the rest of the movie and Tom Hardy's wacky performance. My first thought when I saw Eddie Brock as this slovenly, unshaven, unprofessional guy yelling into a camera about cover-ups was that maybe he was more of an alt-media, Alex Jones-esque type. But I guess that would have been too interesting for Sony, so they had to have him be this totally respected, mainstream journalist who works for a legitimate network and has a classy girlfriend who's clearly way out of his league and blah blah blah. Never mind that this guy looks, sounds, and acts like a bum.
Once the painfully-long first act is over and Venom itself is introduced, the movie picks up and Hardy's antics begin to pay off. This is not the movie that was advertised, and for once I actually preferred the real movie to the one the marketing was hyping up. Almost everything the trailers portrayed as dark and edgy, like Eddie's pleas for Venom to only hurt "bad" people, and the infamous "turd in the wind" line, is played for laughs. Venom is supposed to be ridiculous, and its weird manner of speaking, constant bitchiness, and cartoonishly deep voice make it and Eddie a delightful pair. There are exchanges between them that had me laughing hard.
Does that dynamic save the movie? Well, no. Venom simply can't escape its generic, formless me-too capeshit structure, what with its dull story, boring and unimpressive villain (Riz Ahmed is a fine actor, but he can't be intimidating to save his life), and ugly, incoherent climax with the obligatory "evil counterpart" boss fight. If the movie had been devoted to Eddie and Venom's relationship and given it plenty of focus, maybe the movie could have worked in spite of itself, rather than simply being an uninspired mess with one bright spot. That being said, I understand how mass audiences evidently appreciated this movie as being unique enough to turn it into a huge commercial success, and assuming that it continues to back away from the edgelord shit and focus more on the odd-couple dynamic, I might even be interested in checking out its eventual sequel.