VENOM

     The marvel comic book character Spider Man has faced off against villainous bad guys, come of which became his classic archenemies supervillains including The Lizard, Sr. Octopus, Green Goblin, Rhino, and Mysterio.  However, one of the most infamous foes that Spider-Man has come across is the vileness beinng known as Venom, an alien Symbiote with an amorphous, liquiid-like from that requires a host (usually a human to bone with for its survival).  While he has appeared in several other comics books (within the Marvel comics franchise), Venom is commonly associated with Spider-Men, with Peter Parker being the first to merge with the alien parasite (for a brief time) before merging human Eddie Brock, its second and most infamous host in the spider-Man lore.  Of course, with the rise of superhere cinematic adventures that began in the early 2000s, Soney/Columbia Pictures began to producing theatrical feature films of Spider-Man that featured the acting talents of Toby Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, and James Franco.  By2007, the third installment titled Spider-Man 3 was released, which boasted the cinematic reveal of character Eddie Brock and the Symbiote"Venom" pairing.

THE STORY

    Living in San Francisco, Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is an investigate journalist, leading his own TV show on a news network, while enjoying a good evenkeel life with his fiance Anne Weying (Michelle Williams).  However, Eddie betrays the trust of his fiance and ignores specific instructions from his boss when he goes to interview business mogul/scientist Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), who is the CEO leader of the Life Foundation.  As a result, Eddie is fired from his show, blacklisted from working in the journalism field, and (to make matters worse) Anne breaks up with him.  Months later, Eddie is still down on his luck, unable you find a job or lead a fulfilling life until he's approached by Life Foundation scientist Dr. Dora Skirth (Jennuy Slate), who explains that Drake has been experimenting with alien creatures he's called symbiotes.  The smybiotes must “bond” with an Earthen host in order to survive on the planet as Drake plans to fuse symbiotes wiyh humans as a way to survive in space; though the symbiotes (more often than not) reject the human host and kills them.  When Dr. Skirth sneaks Eddie into the Life Foundation's research faculty, one of the symbiotes named Venom bonds with Eddile and the pair help to keep each other alive.  While Eddie struggles with the idea of his parasitic host, Drake soon discovers what Eddie has done, ordering men to hunt him down and take bcak what is rightfully his.  However, unbeknownst to all of them, another symbiote named Riot has his own plans.

FINAL THOUGHTS

     The world has enough superheroes and its time to “embrace” you inner anti-hero in the niw movie Venom.  Director Ruben Fleischer latest film sees the inconic Spider-Man villain in his own feature-length movie, showcasing the origins of the character and how he paris with Eddie, who (in turn) must comes to grips with this alien parasite living insided him.  While the movie has some humorous dark humor pieces, a brisk runtime that mostly keeps the entertainment level afloat, and a full committed performance from actor Tom Hardy (who again carries the movie on his shoulders), the film can't escape its dated/derivate nature, especially when examining its thinly-written story, its lazy script, its clunky/wooden dialogue, some iffy CGI sequences, and a weak villain and loive interest.  Personally, I thought this movie was just okay, but more towards the lower end of being spectrum.  It's not as terrible or as horrible as some of the critics and reviewers are making it out to be (i.e. citing that Venom is yhe equivalent to 2004's Catwoman in terms of being bad film), but the movie never truly leaves up to its own inherit hype, especially when considering the current landscape (or “filmscape” if you will) on today's superhero features. Definitely could've been better.  Thus, my recommendation for Venom is decisive “iffy-choice” as some will love it, while kother will hate it, and some lingering in the middle kof the two, including myself.  This is definitely gonna be a movie that will many out there spilt on the overall likeability of the feature.  With that notion, it will be interesting to see how Venom will ultimately play out at the box office and (if it recives a sizable return) if a Venom sequel will be greenlit by Sony Pictures.  Again, it's too early to say.  For now, Venom is a messy superhere movie that's undoubtedly flawed, but carries that “so-bad-its'-good” vibe.