Strange things are afoot in San Francisco these days; do you think Marvel’s Bay dwellers Ant-Man and Venom ever, you know, get together? When The Avengers call a team meeting, they’re probably on the same flight, right? Maybe they carpool –Ant-Man is all, “You get the tunes, I’ll get the snacks, whaddaya say?” And Venom is all like, “I will suck out your spinal fluid through your neck.” Ok, maybe no carpool.
Joining the Marvel world and calling The City home is not exactly a new thing, and, to be fair, Venom was introduced to Marvelistas over a decade ago in the cinematic clunker Spider-Man 3, but don’t let that deter you. This Venom is a unique vision of something truly mesmerizing and horrible, like a slow-motion highway collision.
Yes, last week, Marvel crowed about introducing an anti-hero to its universe as if it hadn’t done so in 2007. Ah, but this time it got do so with somebody a tad bigger than Topher Grace. It was kinda cool to see Tom Hardy introduced while wearing a Golden State Warriors t-shirt. I actually had to weigh that one while discovering his girlfriend is Michelle Williams. Hmmm, which is the cooler thing? I really, really like Michelle Williams, but dude, go Dubs! Anne (Williams) is a lawyer while Eddie (Hardy) is a shock journalist. I think the “shock” part there is he really doesn’t know what he’s doing.
In a set of awkwardly constructed scenes, the film introduces its villain, Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed). Carlton is sort of an evil Elon Musk, so … Elon Musk. Obsessed with space travel and living on a planet that isn’t this one, Carlton has invested his billions in take-out, as in, “go into another realm of space and take-out some stuff.” The stuff that comes back is alive, predatory, parasitic, and Elon, er, Carlton is only too happy to sacrifice “volunteers” in order to get some sort of organic space suit. Cue Eddie with his hard hitting questions like: “Hey, what about this guy?” Unbelievable.
Look, I’m no fan of Trump’s war on a free press, but if you have an interview with the world’s biggest eccentric billionaire buffoon and your homework for the exchange consists entirely of sneaking into your GF’s secret lawsuit papers, you deserve to be shut down; even for a fictional journalist, you’re making the entire profession look bad.
Months later, Eddie is an unemployed loser, so Carlton’s senior scientist Jenny Slate scuttles up to him and the two engage in some of the worst avenging ever, which ends up in several deaths and a dangerous and ugly alter ego named Venom. Who do you suppose gave the parasite the name “Venom,“ anyway? His mother parasite? Is that a thing?
This is where the film gets good, of course. The interplay between the powerful, lethal, good/evil, alien monster Venom and the “normal” Tom Hardy inhabiting the same body is worth the price of admission. Of course, this leads to silly things, like arguments over the term “parasite” and the inevitable car chase through the NE corner of San Francisco. Seriously, have you ever driven in San Francisco, like, ever? It’s one thing to pretend Eddie takes a cable car home. Yeah, sure, maybe. Cable Cars are strictly tourist things, but maybe he knows a guy. For the love of Steve McQueen, however, I find it quite a bit easier to believe Tom Hardy is inhabited by some aggressive, shape-shifting, outer-space parasite than the streets of downtown San Francisco are clear enough to host a car chase, ever. Hmmm, maybe it took place while they were filming a car chase for another movie. Now, THAT, I might believe.
Occasionally fun and occasionally sketchy, Venom struck me mostly as the evolutionary sequel to the Ryan Reynolds film Life – you know, the pic where astronauts completely underestimate some outerspace snot. I won’t go further than that. This was a decent popcorn flick, but nowhere near the two gems from Marvel 2017: Spider-Man: Homecoming and Thor: Ragnarok. That said, if you wanna make more Venoms, I won’t try to stop you.
♪We don’t make a point of being cordial
We like bitin’ heads and sippin’ goo
We didn’t have a green card for space travel
But here we are in San Francisco, woo!
I’m proud to be the Heinous from Uranus
A place where it’s darn cold and then you die
We think Earth’s a goofy carbon playground
With protein snacks a-plenty by-and-by♫
Rated PG-13, 112 Minutes
Director: Ruben Fleischer
Writer: Jeff Pinkner & Scott Rosenberg and Kelly Marcel
Genre: Marvel out-clevers itslef
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Parasites
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Parasites, lost
♪ Parody Inspired by “Okie from Muskogee”
