{"id":22463,"date":"2019-01-18T10:00:05","date_gmt":"2019-01-18T15:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/?p=22463"},"modified":"2019-01-16T12:40:51","modified_gmt":"2019-01-16T17:40:51","slug":"why-did-people-hate-venom-so-much-a-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/tartan-news\/2019\/01\/18\/why-did-people-hate-venom-so-much-a-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Did People Hate Venom So Much? (A Review)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0As I reflect on 2018, I realized that it was a good year for Spider-Man. He had some of the funniest and most memorable moments from \u201cAvengers: Infinity War,\u201d a fantastic video game adaptation and an animated film that might be the best Spidey film I\u2019ve seen (a review of that is coming soon). <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0However there was one blight on the webslinger\u2019s year, or so I had heard. I wanted to see \u201cVenom\u201d when it hit theaters, but most people I knew didn\u2019t like it, and the reviews were pretty bad for it, so I figured I\u2019d wait for it to come out on DVD.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Then, during winter break I decided to give the movie a watch with my brother and was shocked at what I saw. I liked \u201cVenom\u201d quite a bit, and it certainly didn\u2019t deserve all the hate it got, including being on people\u2019s worst of lists for 2018.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0The film centers around Eddie Brock, a slacker journalist who has a serious case of foot in mouth disease. He has good intentions and motivations in trying to stop corruption, but he goes too far when he interviews Carlton Drake, CEO of the Life Foundation and brings up legal issues that only his fiance, attorney Anne Weying, knew.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Due to his conduct and the fact that he couldn\u2019t back up his claims with evidence, he loses his job, Anne breaks up with him, and no one will hire him. This all happens within the first 15 minutes of the film.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
No, this guy doesn’t look like a bad guy at all.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Meanwhile, Drake\u2019s foundation has found four samples of symbiotes from space, and one escapes. One of the other ones die due to carelessness and Drake is frantic to get them to work with humans. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0A disgraced journalist living poor and jaded, Eddie meets with a scientist from the foundation and she takes him to the facility to take pictures of the destruction and death testing has caused.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Of course, Eddie lets one of the symbiotes out and it bonds to him. In the chaos, the scientist is captured and later killed, and Eddie escapes with the symbiote and becomes public enemy number one. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0From there, this movie becomes a lot of fun. Eddie is playing a constant cat and mouse game, running away from Drake\u2019s forces. He turns to the only person he trusts, Anne and her new boyfriend, Dan, for help. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Through it all, he hears a voice that tells him what to do or remarks on his current situation. It calls itself Venom and every interaction between them is funny. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Eddie needs to work together with the suit to survive the pursuit of Drake\u2019s men, as well as stop Drake\u2019s nefarious plan to destroy the world. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0The action in this movie is fantastic, as a very long chase scene in the middle of the film is quite entertaining. Seeing the symbiote save Eddie from precarious situations was awesome.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0 \u00a0Also, the actual design and look of Venom is fantastic. This is what the \u201cSpider-Man 3\u201d Venom should have looked like. He is terrifying, carrying a large frame and imposing sharp teeth and the long, disgusting tongue found in most comics based on the character.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0In terms of the acting, Michelle Williams and Riz Ahmed do a serviceable job as Anne and Drake, respectively. Drake\u2019s character isn\u2019t really that interesting to me, but that\u2019s the fault of the script. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0However, the real star here is Tom Hardy as both Eddie Brock and Venom. He has such a nervous energy, and makes some interesting noises throughout the movie. He takes a character that could\u2019ve been pretty boring or unlikeable and made me care for him. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0I was invested in all the crazy antics he was doing, be it jumping off a tall building or taking a dip in a lobster tank at a fancy restaurant to cool off.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Overall, I quite enjoyed \u201cVenom.\u201d It isn\u2019t in the upper-echelon of superhero films and it doesn\u2019t need to be. It was a fun movie with a great central character, an amazing performance by Tom Hardy and exciting action scenes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0It\u2019s the most faithful film adaptation of the character we\u2019ve seen (though that\u2019s not a really high bar). <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0However, the movie currently sits at a 28% score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 35 out of 100 on Metacritic. Whenever I mention the movie to others you can sense their disgust. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0While I can agree that the movie was pretty average, why is there such vitriol spewed against it? It\u2019s nowhere near as bad as say \u201cBatman vs Superman\u201d or \u201cX-Men Origins: Wolverine.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0It\u2019s running time flew by quickly, and the tone bounced between serious and light. By all means, this was a solid 6\/10 \u201cpopcorn\u201d movie. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0 \u00a0My main theory on why people hate this movie is just because 6\/10 isn\u2019t good enough. People want to see a Venom movie that sits at the same level of stuff like \u201cSpider-Man: Homecoming.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Superhero movies are so loved nowadays, and 2018 was such a good year for the genre that anything less than changing the game was going to be scrutinized. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Also, consider the fact that people have been obsessing over seeing a good live action Venom ever since \u201cSpider-Man 3\u201d (and before, as Hollywood has tried to make a movie based on the character since 1997) and it makes sense that expectations would be high.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Then, add in the fact that this would be a Venom movie without the character central to the symbiote, Spider-Man. Many fans, me included, thought this would cripple the movie greatly. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0This made people mad. Another issue was that the marketing for the film wasn\u2019t the best. All the trailers I saw made this film look boring and dark. It didn\u2019t help that the first trailer didn\u2019t even feature Venom. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0They definitely should\u2019ve played up the buddy comedy aspect of Eddie and the suit learning to work together before the film\u2019s release. They actually did this when promoting the film\u2019s release to DVD. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Given all these things, it\u2019s easy to see why people wrote this movie off as a cash grab and another failed attempt by Sony to create a universe based on all the Spider-Man characters they have beside the wall-crawler. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0 \u00a0However, it\u2019s difficult to call \u201cVenom\u201d anything but a success. It exceeded expectations at the box office, having the highest October opening weekend ever ($80 million) and making $855 million dollars worldwide.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Also, the film teases the key character Cletus Kasady in the mid-credits scene, and given the financial success of the movie, it\u2019s clear we will get a sequel to this film soon, and honestly, I\u2019m all for it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0In conclusion, \u201cVenom\u201d has flaws. The beginning of the film is slow, the villain isn\u2019t very compelling, the ending feels rushed and there are points where the script doesn\u2019t land. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Yet this film does have some things going for it. Tom Hardy is a joy to watch as Eddie Brock, Venom looks awesome, the action is a lot of fun and the story kept me hooked. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0So if you\u2019re interested in this movie, I recommend you give it a watch. Just temper your expectations and realize this movie isn\u2019t on the level of an MCU film and I think you\u2019ll find something to enjoy here.<\/span><\/p>\n

Henry Wolski<\/strong>
\nExecutive Editor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0As I reflect on 2018, I realized that it was a good year for Spider-Man. He had some of the funniest and most memorable moments from \u201cAvengers: Infinity War,\u201d a fantastic video game adaptation and an animated film that might be the best Spidey film I\u2019ve seen (a review of that is coming soon). […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10416,"featured_media":22466,"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":[2104,2112,2109,3],"tags":[239,2000,1672,2141,1384,109,2577,2668,2760,2882],"class_list":["post-22463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","category-films","category-opinion","category-tartan-news","tag-film","tag-henry-wolski","tag-marvel","tag-online-exclusive","tag-opinion","tag-review","tag-spider-man","tag-superheroes","tag-venom","tag-why-did-people-hate-venom-so-much"],"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\/2019\/01\/Screen-Shot-2019-01-14-at-3.57.23-PM.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-5Qj","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22463","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=22463"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22486,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22463\/revisions\/22486"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}