Movie Review: VENOM. Or How I stopped worrying and embraced the symbiote.
Let me get this out in the ether right away:
I don't like Venom as a character.
I feel it's no more than a pale variation on a popular hero, seasoned with a ''bad-ass'' attitude meant to please mainly a sensation-hungry juvenile audience who has their own skewed views of what is supposed to be ''cool".
There. I said it.
Now this old man who likes comics will step down from his soapbox and take a few deep breaths.
The journey to the VENOM movie is a convoluted one, and it started with the suggestion of a 22 year old comic book fan named Randy Schueller. He had written way back in the early eighties to Marvel Comics Editor-in-chief Jim Shooter about a story idea where SPIDER-MAN would acquire a new, black costume. He then received that letter:
Schueller submitted some story lines, but nothing ever came out of it. But he did see his costume idea make its first appearance about a year later on the cover of SPIDER-MAN # 252. How Spidey acquired the costume would be explained months later in SECRET WARS #8 . Fans were shocked by the change to the classic red and blue webbed suit and protested, but it was too late to back up. Obviously, Schueller wasn't credited anywhere, but he didn't mind that much. His idea was out there and he was pleased.
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| Original artwork by Ron Frenz and Klaus Janson for SPIDER-MAN #252 (May 1984) |
One can assume that the controversy around the black suit must have lead to the eventual return of the classic costume. Also, reportedly, Todd McFarlane who was the artist on SPIDER-MAN at the time, admitted he didn't care for the black suit. So the symbiotic nature of the alien costume was revealed, as well as Peter Parker's loss of control over his own outfit, which was attempting to bond more and more with him. With the help of FANTASTIC FOUR's Reed Richard, the symbiote was removed, and found a new host in bitter Peter Parker rival Eddie Brock. Brock's anger fed the symbiote a negative energy that turned it into a savage beast that became for a while one of Spider-Man's most powerful enemies; Venom.
The character became quickly a fan favorite after its first story SPIDER-MAN # 300 in 1988, and slowly evolved to be more of an anti-hero with time, eventually acquiring its own mini-series in 1993, followed by multiple mini-series and eventually a regular series in 2011 where the new host was an old schoolmate of Peter Parker's; Flash Thompson.
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| Venom's first appearance, at the very end of SPIDER-MAN #299 (Art by Todd McFarlane) |
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| Original artwork by Todd McFarlane for SPIDER-MAN # 300, featuring the first full length story with Venom. (1988) |
In 2002, Sam Raimi directed the first SPIDER-MAN movie that would be end up being wildly popular. The second film, released in 2004, was even better, and is still regarded as one of the best superhero films of all time. However, by the time he made the third film in 2007, where he planned to feature Sandman as the main villain, and introduce the Vulture as a potential for for the fourth film, as Thomas Haydn Church explains in a JoBlo interview: "...Because, when they first pitched me the movie, Sandman and, of course, Franco’s transformation to the Goblin, we were who he [Spider-Man] had to deal with in the picture and Venom wasn’t even in it. They introduced at the very beginning the character of Vulture, but he was only in it briefly and then at the very end of that picture they were gonna bring The Vulture back just to sorta set the stage that he was probably going to be the main villain in Spider-Man 4. But then, obviously all of that stuff sort of derailed. Well, not so much derailed, but took a different railway."
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| Topher Grace as Venom in the ill-fated SPIDER-MAN 3 (2007) |
Why was Venom added in the film then? Producer Avi Arad takes the blame. '' I think we learned that Venom is not a sideshow. In all fairness, I'll take the guilt because of what Sam Raimi used to say in all of these interviews feeling guilty that I forced him into it. And you know what I learned? Don't force anybody into anything. Therefore, (Sam) wasn't interested in the inside to make how is Venom like us? How do we deal with the Venom, and Marvel is all metaphors.''
Raimi was indeed not a fan of the character. He had grown up on the classic SPIDER-MAN, and had little interest in the character. "But I had worked on the story with my brother Ivan, and primarily it was a story that featured the Sandman. It was really about Peter, Mary Jane, Harry, and that new character. But when we were done, Avi Arad, my partner and the former president of Marvel at the time, said to me, Sam, you're so, you're not paying attention to the fans enough. You need to think about them. You've made two movies now with your favorite villains, and now you're about to make another one with your favorite villains. The fans love Venom, he is the fan favorite."
The film ended up a mess, fitting in too many plot lines and characters that all ended up too shallow and uninteresting. It brought about the end of Raimi's involvement in the series, and Sony decided it was time for a Reboot. The new series starring Andrew Garfield and spearheaded by Marc Webb started in 2012 and lasted only two films, until Marvel reacquired the rights to the web-spinning superhero and introduced him in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2016's CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR. The first trailer to feature Tom Holland as Spidey broke the internet that day.
By this point, many supporting characters in the so-called ''Spider-verse'' are still owned by Sony, and a plethora of movies featuring some of them are presently in the works, most likely waiting eagerly to see how VENOM does at the Box-office.
I can honestly say I was not going to see the film with a smile on my face and a song in my heart. The trailers left me cold, and the dialogues sounded horrendous. However, some of my friends had seen it and were praising it, so there was a bit of hope that it could be like DEADPOOL, and help me forget how I dislike the original comic book character.
Since Venom, like other SPIDER-MAN supporting characters, is still owned by Sony Pictures, he is set apart from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and runs no chances of ever meeting Tom Holland's SPIDER-MAN. In fact, it is set in a world where Peter Parker and his alter-ego have never existed. In a way, it can feel odd, like making a DOCTOR DOOM movie without acknowledging the FANTASTIC FOUR, or a CATWOMAN movie without BATMAN. (Who would think of doing such a thing?). To a comic book fan, the film feels like a bit of a cheat, although the script by Scott Rosenberg, Jeff Pinkner, Kelly Marcel and Will Beall goes at length to make the narrative work without our friendly neighborhood web-slinger. One of my friends told me it reminded him of the superhero films from the late 90s, and sure enough, there is a certain simplicity to it which harkens back to those ''bygone days''. No hints at a ''shared Universe'' with other costumed crime-fighters. Streamlined, borderline simplistic narrative. It certainly has shared DNA with a film like SPAWN (1997, Mark A.Z. Dippé) for instance. (Not surprisingly, both SPAWN and VENOM were created by Todd McFarlane)
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| Tom Hardy facing his own inner demon in a scene from VENOM. |
There is a mix of horror and comedy that sometimes work pretty well, thanks to director Ruben Fleisher's affinity with the genre with his 2009 ''Zom-com'' ZOMBIELAND. The casting of Tom Hardy is an inspired one, as he portrays Eddie Brock as a somewhat sympathetic sad sack who, while imbued with a certain moral sense, is far from being a hero. He brings a lot of humor to the role as well as physicality (His loss of control at the hands of Venom who takes over his body at times brings back memories of Steve Martin in ALL OF ME (1984, Carl Reiner), albeit in a more sober way). The internal dialogues between the two is also often quite entertaining, yet brings to light some major lack of character developments, especially in Venom's motivations and his progressive appreciation of Earth and its people.
Most likely the grinning, drooling nature of the creature leaves little room for pathos or subtlety in its emotional range. In the MCU, one can guess that the filmmakers may have tried to ''humanize'' the symbiote somewhat, but here, its character arc feels forced and unconvincing. Venom's comment about being a ''loser'' on his own planet comes off as a laughable attempt at making him more sympathetic.
In the comics, it took a while for Venom to go from villain to Anti-hero, but he is here left with little time to achieve this, and it never really rings true. Not that I expect a hell of a lot of depth from a snarling alien monster, but it might help making it a bit more relatable somehow.
The movie's success, and the overall popular trend of superhero movies, pretty much insures we will have a sequel to VENOM. One can only hope that there are more interesting directions to go for the character, although I can't really imagine where, as I still have a rather deep antipathy for Venom, and the film did little to sway me.
Overall a highly forgettable but still quite palatable entertainment, not deserving of the vitriol it is receiving from critics, but neither worthy of earning a prized spot in our collective cinematic memory.
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