{"id":21903,"date":"2018-10-15T12:04:58","date_gmt":"2018-10-15T17:04:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/?p=21903"},"modified":"2018-10-15T15:55:14","modified_gmt":"2018-10-15T20:55:14","slug":"venom-hit-or-miss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/tartan-news\/2018\/10\/15\/venom-hit-or-miss\/","title":{"rendered":"Venom: Hit or Miss?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0After years in production hell, Spider-Man\u2019s evil doppelganger finally stars in his own highly anticipated movie \u201cVenom.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0This film was directed by Ruben Fleischer, director of cult favorite \u201cZombieland.\u201d Judging from his past films, it\u2019s obvious that this man is best suited for comedy rather than comic book movies. His writing and directing can be really funny, but whenever he attempts to direct something more dramatic like \u201cGangster Squad,\u201d he always comes up short. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0And nowhere else is this weakness more amplified than in this \u201cVenom.\u201d Despite an impressive cast of talented actors and actresses, including Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams and Riz Ahmed, the movie itself was rather disappointing. The critics were not too kind to Sony\u2019s Spidey spinoff and the lack of an R rating was a major turn-off to fans of the character. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Is there anything of substance in this flick, or is it bound to be remembered as another failed attempt by Sony to launch a Spidey cinematic universe? Well, let\u2019s take a spoiler-free look at the story to find out. <\/span>
\n<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0The film centers around the infamous reporter Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) who is dead set on taking down the brilliantly named Life Foundation which is being run by a borderline mad scientist named Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed). Drake believes the planet is on the brink of collapse and that the key to human survival is to bond with the newly discovered symbiote aliens. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0However, all of his attempts to bond human and symbiote have resulted in the death of the subjects. He is soon interviewed by Eddie Brock, who is determined to expose Drake for the fraud that he is. After his attempted interview goes awry, he is fired from his job, and his girlfriend Anne (Michelle Williams) breaks up with him.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0As Eddie continues to spiral down into a state of depression and hopelessness, he is contacted by a scientist who informs him of the corruption within the Life Foundation. When he goes to investigate, he is ensnared by one of the symbiotes and is slowly driven to the brink of insanity as he becomes Venom. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0With the symbiote constantly whispering in his ear, Eddie must try to cooperate with his inner demon to take down the corrupt Drake, win back his girlfriend and save himself. <\/span>
\n<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0Now it\u2019s difficult to break down everything that went wrong with this movie without stepping into spoiler territory, but there are still plenty of issues to address without giving away too much. For starters, the marketing was very misleading. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0The trailers and poster for the \u201cVenom\u201d indicated that it would be a border-line horror film with an R rating. With \u201cLogan\u201d and \u201cDeadpool\u201d proving that R rated comic book movies could be successful, it made sense to give a character as famously violent as Venom the R rated treatment. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0However, upon viewing the film, it is very different than what the trailer built it up to be. Rather than seeing Venom violently tear its foes to shreds, instead we witnessed a rather tamed movie full of standard punching and throwing that didn\u2019t really leave as much of an impact as it could\u2019ve. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0It feels like Sony dulled down what should\u2019ve been amped up to appeal to the wider audience.<\/span>
\n<\/span> Aside from poor marketing, the pacing and script of this movie is quite sloppy. The first third, to its credit, does a decent enough job establishing Eddie\u2019s character and how he is bound with the symbiote, and that\u2019s about it. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Much like \u201cAmazing Spider-man 1 & 2,\u201d \u201cVenom,\u201d is riddled with dull exposition simply to move the plot along. We don\u2019t really get any bit of action until about thirty minutes in or so. And even then, the action is shot sloppily. Its overuse of shaky cam and the dark color scheme often makes it difficult to view what\u2019s going on. <\/span>
\n<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0In addition, the characters are less than compelling. Riz Ahmed despite being an entertaining actor, isn\u2019t really given anything interesting to say or do as Carlton Drake, which is asinine when he is the primary antagonist of the film. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0As for Michelle Williams\u2019 character, she\u2019s about as generic as they get. While she\u2019s given more to do than the average damsel in superhero flicks, her total lack of chemistry with Eddie Brock undermines her place in the story to the point where you could practically run the movie without her. <\/span>
\n<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0Now regardless of everything wrong with this movie, the one consistently entertaining factor in \u201cVenom\u201d is Tom Hardy\u2019s performance. Whether he\u2019s sarcastic in interviews, trying to quench his inner demons or punishing numerous security guards as Venom, Hardy captures the likable jerk\/psychopath from the comics rather well. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0The dialog between Eddie and the symbiote is also great (probably the best thing in the movie). The dynamic of Eddie trying to cope with this voice in his head while holding on the little sanity he has left is very entertaining and lends itself to a lot of dark humor. However, it just needed to be in a better script.<\/span>
\n<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0Overall, \u201cVenom\u201d has its moments of promise and Eddie\u2019s relationship with the alien symbiote is fascinating. But it’s bogged down by bland characters, poor writing and clashing tones that ultimately make for a forgettable experience. It isn\u2019t the \u201cturd in the wind\u201d like many critics and fans claim, but it\u2019s still a pretty bad movie. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Whether you\u2019re a casual movie-goer or a hardcore fan, you\u2019re probably better off waiting for \u201cSpider-Man: Far from Home.\u201d <\/span>
\n<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Rating: 4\/10<\/b><\/h2>\n

\"\"Samuel Claude<\/strong>
\n<\/span>Reporter<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0After years in production hell, Spider-Man\u2019s evil doppelganger finally stars in his own highly anticipated movie \u201cVenom.\u201d \u00a0 \u00a0This film was directed by Ruben Fleischer, director of cult favorite \u201cZombieland.\u201d Judging from his past films, it\u2019s obvious that this man is best suited for comedy rather than comic book movies. His writing and directing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10416,"featured_media":21966,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2104,2112,3],"tags":[1486,1386,366,2472,2577,2760],"class_list":["post-21903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","category-films","category-tartan-news","tag-arts-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-films","tag-samuel-claude","tag-spider-man","tag-venom"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Venom-International-Marketing.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-5Hh","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21903"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21979,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21903\/revisions\/21979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}