Genre: Superhero
Premise: (IMDB’s awful logline) When Eddie Brock acquires the powers of a symbiote, he will have to release his alter-ego “Venom” to save his life.
About: If you’d have told me that Venom made 28 million at the box office this weekend, I would’ve nodded and said, “Sounds about right.” I didn’t know anyone who wanted to see the movie. It didn’t seem particularly buzz-worthy on the internet. And the bad reviews coming down after the premiere seemed to solidify its DOA status. Then I look up and see “80 MILLION.” What in the…! The most important people in the moviegoing process – the audience – have spoken. So get ready for Venom and the Spidey-Universe to expand like a Sahara Desert tan.
Writers: Jeff Pinkner & Scott Rosenberg and Kelly Marcel (based on the character created by Todd McFarlane and David MIchelinie)
Details: 112 minutes
Critics vs. Audiences!
Pick a side.
For those of you who lead normal lives and don’t check movie trade sites every 4 minutes, I’m referring to the disparity between what critics thought of Venom (32%) and what audiences thought of Venom (89%). Since we’re seeing more and more instances of audiences and critics disagreeing, there’s been a rising tide of conspiracy theories as to why this is happening. Some folks are even going back to the old “critics are getting paid under the table” theory.
I’m going to put an end to this nonsense and explain what’s going on. And, wouldn’t you know it, it all comes back to the screenplay.
Here’s how it works. Critics have seen way too many movies. Therefore, they get bored easier. And what they get bored most by is formula. The easiest way to get critics on your side is to subvert expectations. This is why The Last Jedi, which many audience members disliked, did so well with critics. It was the ultimate expectation-subverting film. At every point where we would normally get a formulaic choice (Snoke’s Throne Room, Rey learning who her parents are), we got something unexpected. And critics LOOOOOOOVE that shit. Hence their overwhelmingly positive reviews.
Venom, on the other hand, is your straight-forward formulaic super-hero origin movie. It’s got the reporter hero. It’s got the evil scientist who’s only evil because the story requires him to be. It’s got the “getting used to being a superhero” sequence. It’s got the scientist later turning into a super-villain. They have to stop some big thing from happening at the end of the movie or the earth will be invaded. Critics have seen this movie a million times. They’re not going to give it a positive review.
What these same critics don’t understand is that there’s power in having fun with the material. If there’s a genuine love from the people making a film, and they’re able to infuse that fun into the script and onto the screen, audiences are going to feel that. They don’t need to be surprised like critics do. A solid loving film that fulfills their expectations is enough. And this is why there’s such a large gap between critics and regular people with this film.
If you haven’t seen Venom, it’s about new-school reporter, Eddie Brock, who secretly peeps info from his lawyer girlfriend about the Life Corporation, a giant tech company that’s covering up several suspicious deaths. Eddie confronts the head of the company, Carlton Drake, about the deaths, and promptly gets fired because of it.
When Drake’s assistant later sneaks Eddie into the company, Eddie is infected with Drake’s newest experiment, an alien parasite he found while sniffing around on other planets. The parasite, “Venom,” becomes an alter-ego to Eddie, using him to wreak havoc and eat people (one of his favorite things to do). But Venom ultimately starts to like Eddie, and, in the end, decides to help him stop Infected Drake, whose own parasite is attempting to destroy earth.
Okay, so this was a really bad movie.
I’m sorry, guys, but it was.
In theory, it should’ve worked. The best superheroes are the ones where the hero’s powers come at a cost. That way, they’re always at war with themselves, and people fighting an inner battle are always more interesting than people at peace with themselves. There’s no steeper cost than the one Eddie Brock is paying with Venom. The symbiotic monster does whatever he wants whenever he wants, and all Eddie can do is hang on for the ride.
But something wasn’t working in this relationship and it’s hard to pinpoint what that was. I don’t think Hardy’s performance helped. I wouldn’t call his interpretation of Eddie Brock bad. But he seemed to be in a different movie than Venom. I know this because we just had a movie with this exact same premise – Upgrade – and the relationship between the hero and the infection was spot on. Logan Marshall-Green (the actor who played the hero) seemed to be way more in-tune with the humor the director (and the inner voice) was going for. I don’t know how to characterize Hardy’s performance other than to say he always appeared to be babbling to himself, a slave to the darker film he’d created in his mind.
Then there was Venom. I couldn’t tell if he was supposed to be scary or funny. The inability to pick a lane left too many scenes open to interpretation. If you thought the scene would be played seriously, but was instead played comedically, you’d be frustrated. And if you went in with a comedic mindset and the scene was played seriously, you’d be confused. No scene better represented this tonal bamboozling than the restaurant scene.
In it, Eddie Brock storms into a restaurant to ask his ex-fiance, who’s on a date, for help. Eddie is sweating and babbling incoherently before grabbing a passing waiter’s lobster and violently biting its head off. It’s a scene that could’ve fit into some dark Sundance indie drama about a man who’s losing his mind. Yet seconds later, Eddie hops into the lobster tank to “cool down,” in a comedic twist you would imagine happening in a deleted scene from Pretty Woman.
Or, in short, WTF???
Then there was the plotting. Let me put it like this. You know when your laptop’s CPU and fan are SCREAMING LOUD because of how overworked the computer is? That’s what this plot felt like. The writers were trying SO HARD to meld the plotlines that the script was constantly screaming like the mad-hatter. Take Eddie turning into Venom. We all know it’s going to happen. That’s what the movie is about! But first we had to establish the symbiotes getting to earth, then we had to establish Drake, then we had to establish Eddie’s job, then we had to create a reason for Eddie and Drake to meet, and then we had to have him get fired and then we had to have him get dumped and then we had to have him walking around town miserable — AND WE’RE STILL NOWHERE NEAR VENOM! – and then we had to show Drake do failed experiments with symbiotes to establish that they didn’t mesh with just anybody, and then we had to show one of the test subjects die so Drake’s assistant could be upset so we could have her approach Eddie about exposing Life Corporation, so that we could have her sneak Eddie into the building so that finally – FINNNNNNALLLLLLLY!!!!!!!! – Eddie could encounter the symbiote and get infected. I mean, there had to be an easier way!
Then there was the sloppiness. The assistant’s plan for helping Eddie expose Drake was to sneak him into the heavily guarded Life Corporation building and then LEAVE HIM THERE. What was she thinking Eddie would do after he took the pictures? Head to the front desk and ask the security guard to call him an Uber?
Finally, the special effects. **shudders** They were bad. I’m talking 2003 bad. I get that you’re not working with an Avengers budget. But I can only imagine what the director of Upgrade, who shot that film for 5 million bucks, could’ve done with this kind of money.
Halfway through Venom, I realized that the entire front of my face was pinched. It was the physical manifestation of my feelings about the film – an awkward uncomfortable tonally discombobulated story that was a result of producer Amy Pascal wanting to make Deadpool, director Ruben Fleischer wanting to make Zombieland, and actor Tom Hardy wanting to make, I don’t know, Midnight Cowboy? Despite nobody being on the same page, the film somehow managed to strike a chord with the public. And like I said at the outset, that’s all that matters.
[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the price of admission
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: A lot of people wondered why Tom Hardy signed onto this movie. It’s because he gets to play two people! A reporter and the alien infecting him. Never underestimate how alluring a “dual-role” is to actors. It’s catnip, baby. Catnip!
