Reaction & Review | Venom

Welcome, one and all, to "Tales of the Longbox", here on Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I'm gonna be covering a movie from 2018. That movie is "Venom".

Now, this movie is a bit of a special case for me. Because, I do remember seeing the teaser trailer for this movie back in 2018. And, at the time, I didn't have that much interest in checking it out. But, since that time, my curiosity began to grow. In part, it has to with the people who have criticized this movie. I'll get to that in just a moment.

Now I do know that this movie is mainly focused on the title character for this movie. And I'm perfectly fine with that. Because, I do like the character of Venom, through watching both the Spider-Man animated series from the 90's, and watching "The Spectacular Spider-Man". Speaking of Spidey, since this is a movie mainly focused on Venom, Spider-Man is not mentioned here. Mostly because, there is some sort of copyright issues involving the character of Spider-Man between Sony and Disney, which I'm not going to get into here. And that's probably a good thing, because I have, mostly, lost interest in Spider-Man. The last good Spider-Man movie that I watched, at least to me, was "Spider-Man 2". Released all the way back in 2002. I have not seen "Spider-Man 3", strangely enough, but I may get around to watching it one day. I haven't seen "Spider-Man: Homecoming" or "Spider-Man: Far From Home", mainly because I don't have any interest in watching those movies. The only other thing I do know about this movie is that Venom, AKA Eddie Brock, is played by Tom Hardy. And the last time that I watched Tom Hardy be involved in a super-hero movie was when he played Bane from "The Dark Knight Rises". Which, I'm willing to admit that his performance in that movie was...kinda questionable, at best. So I'm hoping that he'll pull off a better performance in this movie than what he did in "The Dark Knight Rises".

Now, I have heard mixed things about this movie. I've heard some people say that it's a really good movie, and is definitely worth watching. I've heard other people say that the movie is a rushed out piece of shit with dated special effects, and that no human being should waste their time on it. As for myself, I'm going into this movie completely blind because, outside of that teaser trailer, I have not seen a clip of this movie. And I'm genuinely hoping that this movie will be amazing. But there is that possibility that this could really suck. So, the only thing for me to do at this point, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Venom".

20 minutes later

So, 6 months later, after Eddie Brock has lost his fiancee and job, he's out drinking. I have a question. Where he's getting the money from? If he's fired from his job as an investigator, then what's his alternative source for income? He clearly has enough money  to buy a drink, so he must've found another job at some point during the six months after being fired. I'm really not trying to blow holes into this story, because, so far, the movie has been pretty good. I'm just kinda hoping the movie will explain that bit at some point.

11 minutes later

OK, guys, I really like how Eddie Brock's ex-fiance's new boyfriend just claimed that he is a fan of Brock's work and the people he took down. And that one of them that was mentioned was Eddie's ex-fiance. The way it was mentioned was actually pretty funny, I gotta admit that.

13 minutes later

Well, guys...I can now say this much. Eddie Brock has certainly become a lot weirder now that the symbiosis is now a part of his body. I totally understand that it's to be expected, considering the symbiosis. But still, it kinda caught me off guard slightly.

15 minutes later

So, guys, I'm getting my very first look at Venom here and...he looks really cool. And the CG on him looks pretty good, too. OK granted, it's nothing amazing, but it's certainly rather good for what it is. Plus, he looks really intimidating and badass, as well. And I'm really digging it.

6 minutes later

You know, guys, I would never expect to watch a Marvel movie where Venom calls Brock a pussy for taking the elevator, instead of jumping out of a window from a really tall building. That is definitely interesting and rather funny, too.

11 minutes later

OK, why does Carlton's symbiote look almost exactly like Venom's? It's kinda weird and off putting. I'm sorry, guys, but, for some reason, I can't quite get over on how this symbiote that's infecting Carlton looks almost exactly like Venom. It's a little bit distracting, to me.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Venom". And the movie ends with some...really god awful hip-hop music. You know what? I'm just gonna shut the movie off...OK. You know, guys, I'm pleasantly surprised. I said at the start of this that I barely had any interest in watching this movie. But, over time, I eventually started to develop interest because of things I had heard from both fans and critics. Mostly mixed things, but still. Well...I'd like to say that I definitely missed out on checking this thing out in theaters, because the movie wound up being really good. So now let's talk about this movie, shall we?

I may as well start with the writing, because the writing here is really well done. Now, mind you, since this is a story about Venom, I wasn't really expecting the story to be completely original, since you're basically working with an origin story about Eddie Brock becoming Venom. And that does apply here. However, that's not going to kill this movie for you. Because I'm gonna tell you this now, guys, our characters are all likable. Well, except for maybe Riot, but I'll get to him later. We get a ton of character development on Eddie Brock, and Venom ends up being really cool, too. Speaking of which, I do want to mention humor. Because this movie has a pretty sizable amount of it. Now, I've often complained about how badly Marvel handles humor in their movies. Specifically, more so the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies where humor is forced and shoved down the viewers throats, and almost none of it is funny. At least, to me it isn't. Case in point, in my review of "Iron Man 2" a couple of weeks ago, I commented on how the banter between certain characters such as Tony and Pepper ends up being completely unnatural, to where it feels like they have no chemistry with each other. Well, this movie shows you how to do comedic banter right. The interactions between Brock and Venom are mountains better than the bullshit that was shown in "Iron Man 2". These characters have chemistry and they get along rather well. And it's not just when they have to do comedic banter. They feel like they are one in the same. They both feel like they are losers and that they can get what they want, if they cooperate. It's some really solid character depth between the two. Now granted, there are a couple of moments where the interactions between Venom and Brock are a little...childish, let's just say. Especially towards the very end of the movie. But that's really just a minor thing that almost no one is going to notice or care about.

Speaking of which, there are a couple of minor issues that I have with writing. The first one is something that I brought up way early on in the movie. So, we see Eddie Brock getting fired from his job after he does some digging on some information that his fiancee has on Carlton Drake. This also leads to Anne, his fiancee, getting fired from her job as a defense attorney. So it leads to her breaking off her engagement with Brock. So the movie jumps to six months later, and the first thing we see is Eddie Brock drinking at a bar. I was asking where exactly was he getting the money from? Because we see him living in a shitty apartment, so that must've mean he had gotten a new job at some point. But that's not the case, because we see him searching for jobs in the paper and online. Now perhaps maybe he still had a lot of money saved up after being fired from his job, but it's been six months since he was fired from being an investigator. How does he still have money after six months? Now, I will admit, I am not a financial expert, and I'm pretty sure that being paid as an investigator would earn someone a lot of money, but you would think that you would have something else lined up for a second job and not rely on what amount of money you had earned from your previous job. I totally understand that I'm putting way too much thought into this, but it was just something that kinda bugged me a little bit, so I thought it would be enough to make mention of.

The other issue that I had with writing involves our villain for this movie, Riot. And it really has to do with his appearance. Now, Riot is a symbiote, much like Venom. So when he envelopes Carlton Drake, we get to finally see what he looks like. And...he looks just like Venom, only much grayer. So, does that mean that the other symbiotes look exactly like Venom, only with a slightly different color? It's strange for me to see Riot look like this, because we get to see him transferring his symbiosis from host to host throughout the entire movie. And you would think that he would look intimidating and threatening once we build up to his reveal. And, to an extent, he is a threatening villain. But when you finally see him, he just looks like a shorter version of Venom, with a grayish color. And, to me, that just screams laziness, because he just looks like a shitty recolor of Venom. Now, that's probably just more of a character design flaw, and, to me, his character would've looked a whole lot better, had he had a different look to him. But I will say that, barring the shitty recolor, Riot is still a decent villain, so I'm not going to harp the movie on that. The other thing that I had an issue with is the pacing. Because we don't get to see Venom up until the one hour mark, in a movie that's about an hour and 40 something minutes. And I'm not counting the long amount of credits that come after the end of the movie. And normally, I would make a bigger issue out of it, however, because the movie was very entertaining to watch, I'm willing to give that a pass. However, I could totally see someone noticing that, and it could potentially take someone out of the movie, because it takes quite a while until we officially get to see Venom in action. But still guys, barring that, the writing is still really good, and I can say that despite the slight pacing issues, the movie works it to it's advantage.

So, now let's get to the acting. I mentioned at the start of this Reaction & Review that the last time I saw Tom Hardy play any kind of character in a superhero movie, was when he played Bane in "The Dark Knight Rises". And I was a little skeptical about going into this movie, because I do remember his performance as Bane was a little bit questionable. Well, after watching this movie, I can say that Tom Hardy has proven, to me, that he can act very well as both Venom and Eddie Brock. And it is just amazing stuff here. When he has to do weird shit because Venom is inside his body, he does it really well. When he has to give out some sort of emotion, he does it really well. Guys, Tom Hardy hits it out of the park in this movie, and he showed why that he is the reason to watch this movie. And, mind you, everyone else turns in really good showings, too. I'm trying to come up with even one actor that might've phoned in their performance, but I can't. Guys, everybody turns in a really awesome showing, and I have to give praise to all of the actors for giving it their all in this movie.

Now, let's talk about the special effects. One thing I mentioned earlier in this movie was that the people who criticized this movie said that it had dated special effects. And to a certain degree, that is the case here. More so for Riot, than Venom. Because the CG on Riot looks kinda shitty, when you compare it to Venom being in CG. And again, it probably has to do more-so with the color of his character design, because the color scheme doesn't seem to mesh well with Riot. And, like I said earlier, it probably would've helped if Riot had somewhat more of an original design, instead of just looking like a shitty recolor of Venom. But that's just me, personally. The CG on Venom, however, looks really good. Again, it's not amazing, but it still looks really cool and intimidating in it's own right. And Venom really stands out as, like, the best thing to look at in this entire movie, when it comes to special effects.

Camerawork here is awesome. The lighting is well lit. The sound-mix is mixed perfectly. Music...is a bit of a mixed bag. The score is fine. It's nothing amazing, but it works for the movie. The songs, however, are shit. Now, mind you, there isn't a whole lot of songs in this movie, but I'm mainly talking about the song that plays at the beginning, and the song that plays at the end of the movie. The song that plays at the start of the movie, after the title screen goes by, sounds terrible. Because it sounds like the singer was auto-tuning his voice, and I really hate that kind of thing, because auto-tuning sounds horrible on any singer that attempts that shit. The other song that plays at the end of the movie sounds like a really shitty hip-hop cover for our title character. And I have listened to a lot of hip-hop in my life, but this is honestly one of the worst hip-hop songs I have heard in many years. And that's saying a lot, because there a lot of really terrible hip-hops songs, and this one ranks high up there. It's not the worst, but it still sounds really bad.

So, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Venom"? Oh, hell yes. This thing is amazing. It's fun, it's entertaining, and if you're a Spider-Man fan, then this is going to an amazing movie. And I'm so happy that I finally got to watch this. So much so, I have to wonder why I didn't watch this thing in theaters when I had the chance? But since I got to cover it for this series, I'm still all-the-more happy that I finally got around to seeing this thing. Now, before I end it here, I do know that there is a sequel in the works. And all I got to say is bring on the sequel. I will totally watch it whenever I get that chance. And this movie is going to have a very happy spot on my DVD shelf.

And so, with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until, next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all in the near future. Peace.