Road to No Way Home: Venom

 "Venom" (2018)

It was only a matter of time until Venom got his own solo movie. Much like Wolverine and Deadpool, Venom is a character that came to prominence in the Nineties and if the latter characters can have their solo moment to shine, why not Venom. I always thought that Spider-Man would somehow factor in to a Venom solo film, but with the MCU utilizing Spider-Man, Sony decided that they would start their own Spider-Man movie universe... sans Spider-Man. What better way to anchor that than with Venom... I guess.

Principal photography began on "Venom" in October 2017 and ended in January 2018. The film stars Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock/Venom, Michelle Williams as Annie Weying, Riz Ahmed as Carlton Drake/Riot, Jenny Slate as Dora Skirth, Scott Haze as Roland Treece and Reid Scott as Dan Lewis. The film was written by Jeff Pinkner, Scott Rosenberg and Kelly Marcel. It was directed by Ruben Fleischer. "Venom" premiered on October 5, 2018.

Lethal protector.

"Venom"is a comic book movie that definitely feels like it was teleported to 2018 from a different time. Do you yearn for the halcyon days of superhero films like the first "Fantastic Four" or Ang Lee's "Hulk" or Ben Affleck's "Daredevil?" If you do, then "Venom" is the movie for you. If it wasn't for the modern technology, I wouldn't have been surprised if you told me that this movie came out in 2005. Even the "humor" is from that era. I remember seeing this movie in the theater with my ex-husband and the script would make these lame jokes and lot of people in the theater would laugh so hard and he and I would just stare at each other. It was like we were in the twilight zone.

Tom Hardy takes on the titular role and let's not beat around the bush. Tom Hardy is hands down the best thing about this movie. Hardy is making a completely different movie than anyone else. Everyone else may be making a lowest common denominator comic book movie, but Tom Hardy is making an avant garde, experimental comic book movie. That is the movie that I want to see. I honestly think that if Tom Hardy hadn't been involved that this movie would have totally flopped. From the moment that Brock and the Venom symbiote bond, Hardy just lets loose. He is so physical and just like goes full throttle with whatever the script throws at him. It doesn't matter if he is eating frozen tater tots and chicken out of the trash or going buck wild in a fancy restaurant, Tom Hardy doesn't hold back. The thing that I remember the most about "Venom" isn't an action sequence it is Eddie Brock sitting in a lobster tank eating one raw. That is saying something.

Michelle Williams is given the absolutely thankless role of being the female lead in this movie. This movie cost millions of dollars to make and I can't believe that they couldn't toss some money to wardrobe to give Williams a better wig. She is a multiple Oscar nominee. She deserves better than that center part, hard front atrocity she's saddled with for the entire movie. Annie isn't as bad as Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane, but she gets very little to do. I did really appreciate her She Venom moment, maybe my second favorite moment in the movie, and that she doesn't listen to Venom when he tries to get her to stay away from the final battle, but she is still the generic girlfriend for the majority of the film.

Is this a weird mating thing?

Riz Ahmed plays the villain of the piece, Carlton Drake. A genius inventor who is experimenting on symbiotes using the forgotten of society who Brock is fired for trying to expose. He ends up bonding with another symbiote named Riot. I need to say that Ahmed is a fantastic actor and has been in some great things. The HBO miniseries "The Night Of..." is absolutely brilliant. I really think that he should have won the Best Actor Oscar last year for "The Sound of Metal" over Will Smith. He really deserved better than this. Drake is a textbook nondescript, generic villain. Ahmed has enough pure charisma that he almost is able to raise above the material, but he never quite makes Drake someone that anyone is interested in. We are just biding our time until Riot shows up.

I really like Jenny Slate so I want to give her a little shout out. Her character, Dora Skirth, is who clues Eddie in to what Drake is doing with the symbiotes and she is the one that convinces him to do something. She is, of course, found out and has a symbiote sicced on her that ends up killing them both, but it was nice to see her even for just a minute.

What a woman.

The plot of "Venom" is ... I mean, who cares? Drake sends rockets into space, the rockets crash land on Earth with symbiotes, he experiments on them using people he thinks society won't miss, Brock tries to expose him. Hilarity ensues. I feel like there is a better story in here somewhere. Maybe something that focuses more on Eddie Brock and his past. At the beginning of the movie, Eddie is a prominent journalist in San Francisco, who uses his online show to expose people taking advantage of people less fortunate them and championing those same people. There is an arrogance to Eddie that I really wish they would have explored more. In the comics, Eddie is duped by someone claiming to be a serial killer when the real killer is someone else. Brock's false exposé gets him fired and blacklisted from journalism. Annie mentions an incident in New York with the Daily Globe that got him ran out of NYC, but they never elaborate on it. I really wish they had, it would have given Brock a little more depth and added something to his overall journey in the film.

The action sequences in the movie aren't terrible. The big fight between Venom and Riot is pretty cool, because it gives us some things that we haven't really seen in a superhero movie before. The way that the symbiotes fight is really fluid and a lot of times you don't know where one ends and another begins. The times when the symbiotes pull away from their hosts and you can see Eddie and Drake inside are really neat and it kind of makes you want to pause the movie to study them a little closer.

It's not these CGI heavy action scenes that you remember though. The action scene that I remember the most from "Venom" is when Drake's security team shows up at Eddie's apartment and Venom takes over to defend his new host. Again, I really have to give it up for Hardy's physicality in these scenes. He really throws himself into these scenes and I have never really seen Tom Hardy do this kind of physical action but also physical comedy. Kudos to you, sir.

Bosom buddies.

I really like how the movie shows Brock and Eddie talking. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to describe it properly so I found the photo to the left to illustrate. The head of Venom coming out of Brock's body to have a face to face chat with his human host is directly out of Venom comics and I really enjoy that they employed it here. "Venom" really excels when it leans hard into the more ridiculous comic elements which is probably why I enjoy the back half of the movie a lot more than the first part. It takes entirely too long for Venom to show up and bond with Eddie. There is so much exposition that I feel like could have been delivered faster and better. It really bogs things down, but as soon as Venom bonds with Eddie things move at a pretty breakneck pace and that is all the better for a movie like this. The less time you have to think about how the sausage gets made with this movie the better.

The movie ends with Eddie and Venom coming to an agreement and Brock truly becoming the "lethal protector" of San Francisco. We get a mid-credits scene with Eddie going to conduct the big interview he teased Annie about earlier. It's with psychotic serial killer, Cletus Kassady, who comics fans will recognize as the killer Carnage. And he's played by Woody Harrelson in another awful wig. Seriously. If drag queens can afford gorgeous, realistic lace front wigs, why can't a multi-million dollar Hollywood production?

Next up, we reach the end of the road to No Way Home with "Venom: Let There Be Carnage."

What do you all think? I know a lot of people really like this movie and to be clear, I don't hate it. I just wanted more? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.