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The Venom trailer felt oddly familiar. The symbiote slithering and bonding with surfaces in this highly embellished motion picture made me think of the one from Spiderman 3 that came out almost 11 years ago. Despite the fact that the Venoms from both movies were pretty similar, it didn’t feel as if it was a repeat. This is because new movies have new conflicts, dialogue, and design changes.
Eddie Brock is a renowned journalist and eventually a host for the alien symbiotic creature Venom and is portrayed by Tom Hardy who is famous for his villainous character Bane from The Dark Knight Rises. Riz Ahmed who gained acclaim from his role in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, plays Carlton Drake, a renowned scientist and the host for Rage, a symbiote. Other main cast includes Eddie’s- Anne ex wife (Michelle Williams), Drake’s aide Dr. Dora Skirth (Jenny Slate), and Anne’s husband Dr. Dan Lewis (Reid Scott).
A sample of a symbiote manages to escape when one of Drake’s jets containing several different samples of symbiote crashes in Eastern Malaysian Greenlands. At the same time, things are not going well for Eddie. After having an unfortunate interview with Carlton Drake, Eddie loses his job as well as his girlfriend, Anne. After watching the movie, we start to piece together the avericious motivations of Drake. He is ready to go through gruesome acts of evil in order to retrieve symbiotic forms and fuse them with living beings. This leads Dr. Skirth to make a despicable proposal under the guise of ethics. She wants to provide Eddie proof of Drake’s inhumane methods that consist of experimenting on poor people. While Eddie wanders around the labs capturing the photos of the glass chambers, one of the symbiotes is using Eddie’s body as a host. Most of the movie is centered around Eddie and Venom (who reveals himself during the paraody scenes) and the action filled scenes that follow. After Eddie uses the facing of the symbiote, Drake makes the mistake of revealing his place. The symbiote has survived the plane crash and is using several temporary hosts before it reaches Carlsten.
This symbiote goes by the name of Riot and his goal is to obliterate the Earth and utilize it as a dwelling for symbiotes to flourish. Drake, on the other hand, is blissfully ignorant of Riot’s intentions and takes him to be his partner. At the peak of the movie, the moment Venom and Riot fight each other, with both hosts being inside their respective creatures, leads to the demise of Riot.
In spite of Venom (Eddie) and Riot (Drake) being the focal point of the film, there are other conflicts that are only subtly shown, and which, at the same time, are very comically displayed. One such example is the dispute of Eddie with Venom while he is, at first, used as a host. Even the Riot and Drake quarrel, which seems to moot, is of utmost importance, for it shapes the personalities of Drake and Riot. We see Drake wants these symbiotes to be used for longer rejuvenation of human beings, but it does so by undertaking a series of failed experiments. Subsequently, both Drake and Riot are keen to introduce symbiotes into Earth, but Drakes objective is to live harmoniously with the aliens, whereas Riot seeks to conquer the planet and eliminate humans to make Earth a habitat solely for symbiotes.
I think that the CGI and visual effects which were used for this film were world class. The CGI Venom symbiote in Spiderman 3 seemed like a blob of that was more liquid than solid and it definitely did look artificial. When you look at the new Venom, especially when compared to the older version, the visual and the CGI difference of the symbiote itself is very much obvious. It is not like the older symbiote was done in bad CGI but the new one was done very well and it looked very real. Also, the incorporation of the summoning limb makes these minute details in Venom seem so much more sophisticated. The symbiote’s anatomy enable it to enter the host’s body and it can push an appendage out like an extra limb. (This is how Eddie speaks to Venom. He just thinks it and Venom can hear him.) In doing this, they basically set out to destroy all the ideas and conceptions that people have about Venom being like Spiderman. The armor of the spider can be removed but Venon is what turns the character inside out. the symbiote does not detach from the character it resides in. It controls every internal organ, then pours itself into the host, taking charge of the entire body. Along with profound amnesia, the ability to heal any injuries is also possessed. Much like, how Eddie breaks his leg and the symbiote reshapes it back together within seconds.
Let’s discuss what I liked about the movie Venom. First of all, what caught my attention was every single scene in which he transforms into Venom. Everything from the symbiote covering him to him fully turning into and taking over Eddie’s body was attention grabbing, satisfying, and seemed very real (especially in 3D!).
The comic relief in Venom is arguably the best I have seen from superhero and antihero styled movies. Venom seems to find the perfect balance between cheesy, funny, and serious, which is unlike the first Thor movie, which had pretty much absolutely no humor at all, and Infinity War, which was held back by a few too many comedic scenes.
What I noticed was that the fights and other physical confrontations in this movie were filmed to exaggerate every blow delivered and this made the whole cinema experience feel hyped up. This is well depicted during the fight between Venom and the SWAT officers, at Eddie’s old workplace. The dialogue that was in this scene was also very picturesque. The equilibrium between humor and the serious tone was set at what I have to admit is the best other than the rest that I have seen. More particularly how Eddie looks worried and tries to tell the officers who are calling “mask” and are putting on the gas masks which they use to try and knock Venom unconscious. Of which he is a symbiote made of no pores, so the gas has no effect on him. Shortly after, Eddie himself calls out “mask” with the intent of making fun of the other officers. He screams out “mask” while the rest of the officers do not seem unaffected and bonds with the symbiote to turn back into the endosymbiotic being.
The last thing I would add that made Venom unique is how the characters of the story opposed the leading character. The reason why I do not use the word ‘antagonist’ is simply because of the host-symbiont relationship that exists between Drake and Riot. In this case, one can argue that Drake is ‘good’. While Drake’s methods were cruel and horrific, he strove and intended for humanity to thrive. For him, coexistence with other symbiotic life forms is a necessity, thus he is cast in the role of an antagonist. Putting it simply, he is someone that does not have evil intentions but is just against the leading character of the story. This is not the case for Riot. Riot wants everything – the world in his control, and to lead the other symbiotes to the new home they plan on coming to, which ideally would be devoid of humans. The blend of the two has created a villain that is rather bi-polar, like the other villains apart from Venom(Eddie). One can witness the combination of the symbiote and host working in unity like during Eddie’s first fight with Drake’s agents, or when he escaped from Drake’s lab. The combination of Riot and Drake never reaches a compromise. There are moments in which the endosymbiotic host seems to have the upper hand over the dominant symbiotic being, but more often the opposite is true.
This escalated me into concluding that Venom is among the best movies I have watched. First I thought how is it possible for a critic to give this a positive review?
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