Venom

By: Anton Massopust III   

“Don’t give up on her – neither one of you!” – Stan Lee

The lethal protector Venom makes his way to the big screen debut in his own self-titled movie “Venom.” An industrial spaceship crash lands along with a group of symbionts (alien creatures that need other creatures in order to survive). Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed) wants to bond them with human hosts so that a new life-form can be created. Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is a network TV reporter who is asked to do a profile piece on Drake. When he starts to ask hardball questions, his network fires him. His fiancé leaves him, and he loses everything. He feels that the company, Lifetech has ruined his life. Another scientist, Dr. Dora Skirth (Jenny Slate) who was working for the company, finds out about their unscrupulous nature and their unauthorized experiments on homeless people. She turns to Eddie Brock in order to expose the company. 

He decides to investigate the company on his own. He’s accidentally bonded with a creature known as Venom. Venom and Eddie form an uneasy alliance. Lifetech sends in a group of mercenaries to capture him.  Riot (the leader symbiont who bonded with Drake) is making his way to Lifetech who has a spaceship which will bring a symbiotic invasion to take over the earth. 

It’s up to Eddie and Venom to stop Riot before the alien invasion. Can these two unlikely heroes (or anti-heroes) stop them?

The story is pretty generic, but it moves really fast. The movie was a bit too loud for me between the soundtrack and loud sound effects. Once Eddie becomes Venom, the movie moves very quickly. I feel the action was well done and the special effects are really good. Any comic book fan will not like that Spider-Man has nothing to do with this movie. This is because Venom is connected to Spider-Man in many ways, but this character has nothing to do with the long comic book history. There is some inspiration from two series: “Planet of Cerberos” and “Lethal Protector.” Definitely stay to the end for the after-credit scenes and a look at some of extended scenes from “Enter the Spider Verse.”  “Venom” is a good movie, but not great. If you love action and want to be introduced to this character you will enjoy “Venom.”