If you’re a fan of the Spider-man comic books then you know
who Venom is. An alien at one time attached to Spider-man and then later
transferred to tarnished news reporter Eddie Brock who blamed Spider-man for
his lot in life. Thus he became the villain known as Venom. But most of that is
abandoned for the movie version, VENOM, and it works well.
A space shuttle owned by the Life Foundation is returning to
Earth when something goes wrong. The shuttle crashes in Malaysia and all crew
members save one are found dead. While being transported to a nearby hospital
the sole survivor awakes, kills the ambulance crew and escapes on foot. Within
the shuttle one container remained intact and is sent back to the home base for
Life Foundation in San Francisco.
Moving forward we find Brock (Tom Hardy) doing well for
himself. He’s about to marry the woman of his dreams Ann Weying (Michelle
Williams) who works as an attorney for the Life Foundation and who has helped
him score an interview with the CEO of the company Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed).
When Brock begins asking questions about human tests being done by the company
the interview ends. The result is Drake ruining Brock’s life, taking away his
job and firing Ann who leaves him.
Tests were being done on humans. It seems the container held
an alien symbiote, a creature that attaches itself to a host in order to remain
alive. The problem is finding a suitable host to match the creature.
Non-matched subjects result in a terrible death with the symbiote seeking a new
host.
Months later, down on his luck, cowering at the least sign
of danger and drinking away his life Eddie is approached by Dr. Dora Skirth
(Jenny Slate) who works for Life Foundation. Seeing the compulsive attitude and
lack of care for life exhibited by Drake she wants to help Brock expose what’s
taking place. She sneaks him into the research facility where Brock recognizes
a homeless friend being used. Breaking her free it turns out the symbiote is
inside of her but transfers to Brock. Taking over he helps him escape the
guards.
Confused and frightened Brock reaches out to Ann for help.
Now dating a doctor they both attempt to find out what’s wrong with Brock
having no clue about the symbiote. At the same time Drake and his black ops
team are trying to find Brock as well. When push comes to shove the symbiote
who calls himself Venom comes forward to protect Brock and take on the bad
guys.
While all of this is taking place remember the symbiote who
escaped at the beginning of the film? It’s made its way to San Francisco as
well. Its intent is to use Drake to get what it wants, a way off the planet to
reach the rest of his race with the intent of taking over the planet. Guess who
stands in his way?
The movie works on a number of levels here. The setup is
easily understood and the demarcation lines between bad guys and good guys are
set. At the same time when Venom makes his presence known he becomes an
anti-hero of sorts, feeding on the bad guys he takes on, most often biting off
their heads. Guess it shows that it doesn’t pay to be a bad guy.
But the movie has a unique combination of horror, action,
comic book heroics and humor that works well and blends nicely. Brock complains
and has no clue what’s going on as Venom sprouts forth and takes over to go
hand to hand with the black ops members. He isn’t happy about being a
repository for the creature either. But as the two combine and learn more about
one another, as Venom helps heal the issues Brock has going on inside of him
they come together to save the world or die trying. Venom even reveals
something about himself I won’t disclose here that makes them a perfect match.
There is little doubt that the main thing driving this film
is the current interest in comic book based films combined with special effects
that would not have been possible to film when the comics first created the
character. Yes the effects are amazing. But let’s not forget that Hardy is an
amazing actor and he brings to the Eddie Brock something we’ve not seen him do
in the past. He makes the character not just human but funny at times. It makes
for a more interesting character and Hardy makes it work spectacularly.
A little bit of language will make this a movie that the
smallest of children might want to bypass as well as the character being a bit
frightening for tykes. But it’s a blast and a fun ride for everyone else and
one to enjoy more than once.
No comments:
Post a Comment