Well. This was a thing, wasn’t it?
How do you take a fan-favorite character so rooted in another character’s story and make them not about that character’s story at all in order to jump start a completely different story and universe that you can make endless sequels to? That was the question asked in a Sony conference call. The answer was a movie called Venom.
It wasn’t a great answer.
I honestly didn’t think you do worse to Venom than Spider-Man 3. But stripping him completely out of Spider-Man’s history might just have done it.
So – let’s look at it from the point of view of someone who knows nothing at all about the character. In that light, it’s a decent scifi flick about aliens. The SFX are really good. Hardy is great. He plays Eddie Brock as equal parts competent, neurotic and terrified. The story isn’t terrible.
Now let’s look at it from the point of view of someone who knows all about the character. What. The. Fuck? Why? A cash grab? Something to hold onto a license? Ugh. UGH! You lose all the power and emotional arc of the characters – both Brock and the Symbiote – when you take them out of Spider-Man’s story. Brock hated Peter Parker. The Symbiote hated Peter Parker. That hatred brought them together and made them Venom. Not to mention the whole arc from villain to hero.
I guess what I’m saying is – if you know nothing at all about Venom from Spider-Man, this is a great movie!
If, like me, you’re not that person who knows nothing about Venom from Spider-Man, run.
For the record, I watched this when it hit Amazon Prime Video for like $5.
