A review of the new super-hero movie “Venom”
This movie is far from being the best in the Marvel Cinematic Universe but it is not as bad as many critics have suggested. What makes it a little different is that, in other super-hero films, the same character so often has two persona (think Clark Kent and Superman or Tony Stark and Iron Man)), but this time we have an anti-hero with two characters in the same person as one-time investigative reporter Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is possessed by a ‘symbiote” from outer space providing some comedic character clashes.
Sadly the work takes too long to get going and the female characters are poorly rendered (with a terrible under-utilisation of the talented Michelle Williams as the love interest). At least, the evil genius – Riz Ahmed as Dr Carlton Drake – is quite effective and Venom himself – looking like a cousin of “Alien” – is suitably fierce-looking, but the “symbiote” itself looks like a cross between an oil slick and a kitchen mess.
However well or otherwise the film performs at the box office, we know that we’ve not seen the last of Venom because a clip early in credits introduces us to a forthcomong opponent played by Woody Harrelson. Oddly, at the very end of the interminable credits, there is a long clip from an altogeher different film – an animated version of a Spiderman – that is part of Sony’s bit of the MCU.