Tom Hardy is Venom in new Sony Venom movie...

[Username taken]

Venom was a very silly movie. Worse still the trailers showed a lot more of the movie (all the action scenes with the exception of the final battle were shown in the trailers/tv spots) than I expected.

The movie was actually a lot more of an action comedy and the symbiote was a pretty funny character (almost entirely comedic). Heck, the movie had scenes of slapstick and gross out humor, it wen't full comedy at some points.

As per the characters, they aren't really like the ones in the comics. This version of Eddie Brock is a LOT more conscientious than the one in the comics and the symbiote is a lot funnier than in the comics. The movie was a LOT like the first Ghost Rider from Tom Hardy's hilariously bizarre performance (very Nicholas Cage like) to the PG-13 horror violence. People say the movie was filmed to get an R-rating but i don't think so, the look and feel of the movie seems very PG.

It's definitely a pre-MCU, pre-Dark Knight kind of superhero movie but it wasn't the train wreck it's been made out to be (folks comparing it to Catwoman are insane!). Overall, i'd give it a 6.5/10.

[Username taken]

Marvel brand? That's weird I don't recall Ant-Man, Ant-Man and the Wasp or Fantastic 4 opening this big despite also having the Marvel brand attached to them. Hell Venom has had a bigger worldwide opening than any Spider-Man movie, maybe people just were excited to see the movie?

To be fair, Venom is likely to do $80m domestic over the weekend and Ant-Man and the Wasp did $75m domestic, it's not quite as high but they aren't too far apart.

[Marvelgirl]

Which is why I said the secret is to ignore the scores and pay attention to what the reviews say. For instance, a predominant theme of Venom reviews, even ones that scored the movie fresh, is that the script is disjointed and can't make up its mind what sort of movie it wants to be. If it was one or two reviewers saying this I wouldn't take it too seriously, but enough are saying it that I have a pretty good feeling it's true. I've been to enough movies like that to know I don't enjoy them, so I'll steer clear.



Another secret to living with Rotten Tomatoes isUnderstanding that because a movie wasn't made the way I wish it was made, and the reviews praise it for that, doesn't make the movie bad or the review good. Critics (the good ones) critique films on how well they pull off what they are trying to be. Ant-Man was written, directed, and acted to be a silly and funny movie, and the majority of reviews say it does that well. If silly and funny isn't the movie you wanted it to be, then the movie isn't for you, but the review isn't bad and the movie isn't bad just because you wanted something else.

Wonder how many movies written, directed, and acted to be silly and funny gets good reviews for that. Only MCU movies seem to be achieving this unflattering feat, Can't blame anyone for getting suspicious when you know no other movie is getting good reviews for that. How Ant-Man rates higher than Kingsman: The Secret Service is beyond ridiculous, Kingsman: The Secret Service was silly and funny but like any Mathew Vaughn film it had a certain smartness, film style and wittiness to it that most of these comic movies lack.

For any worth relevant, Venom doing well at the box office is a good thing. By the time 2018 is over Sony would have had a huge year for Spiderman (Venom, Into the Spiderverse, Spiderman Game). An excellent reminder of what can still be achieved outside the cinematic universe bubble.Venom could be the next fast and furious franchise. start off a bit rough, but shows a lot of potential to get better and better in a very Spiderman story sense.

[Arsenal]

“In a very Spider-Man story sense”? What does that even mean?

[Carabas]

An excellent reminder of what can still be achieved outside the cinematic universe bubble.

Venom is very much part of a cinematic universe.

[Marvelgirl]

“In a very Spider-Man story sense”? What does that even mean?

Become as good as SpiderMan's stories can be in the comics.

[Immortal Weapon]

An excellent reminder of what can still be achieved outside the cinematic universe bubble.

Only it's not. It's meant to kick off a universe for Spider-Man, his villains and supporting cast.

[Jokerz79]

Serious question even Hardy was displeased with them cutting the film so my question is this every bad decision for X-Men Last Stand and X-Men Origins Wolverine can be traced back to Tom Rothman former head at Fox now the current Chairman at Sony is it possible Rothman strikes again?

[MarkRodriguez09]

Only it's not. It's meant to kick off a universe for Spider-Man, his villains and supporting cast.

That's almost impossible. If anything, Homecoming did that.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Its clear this film was a body horror type movie and was rated R. But the edit cuts of no blood , the biting folks heads off etc was all cut out to do PG-13 and make that franchise movie. I can see why Tom Hardy was displeased with this film because it was an edited mess by the time it was done. Even Venom's turn to good was rushed to where your like...really ? Why ? Had we had time to see why Venom would turn good and want to stay on Earth ...well it makes sense.

[Arsenal]

That's almost impossible. If anything, Homecoming did that.

Didn’t stop Sony from making venom the launching pad for their new Sony’s universe of Spider-Man Charcters

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

He never had lots of mainstream appeal. And I am somewhat surprised to see those who actually are familiar with the creature expected a laugh fest from the movie. But I I've been surprised by other things in life

Dude I was a kid in the 90’s. ALL my friends knew who Venom was. There’s a reason he was pushed so hard for Spuder-Man 3. You couldn’t go down the action figure section of a toy store without seeing like 50 different variations of Venom.

Maybe he wasn’t Joker level (who is) but he was a big deal

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Lets put it this way , the budget for Venom was $100 million. The film made 90% of its production budget back in week one with $80+ million as an opening...in October. The character is pretty damn popular. Even in a shitty film.

[Nate Grey]

Serious question even Hardy was displeased with them cutting the film so my question is this every bad decision for X-Men Last Stand and X-Men Origins Wolverine can be traced back to Tom Rothman former head at Fox now the current Chairman at Sony is it possible Rothman strikes again?

Interesting. I didn't know that. Wonder why they'd hire him.

[JKtheMac]

This is a solid movie. Nothing glaringly bad about it. The acting is passable and very good in places, the action is reasonably paced and the overall flow of the narrative is clear and concise for an origin. I will now make it seem terrible by pointing out the problems but really it is a serviceable addition to the budding Spider franchise.

The most obvious ‘problem’ is the movie doesn’t quite have the courage of its convictions. If it’s going to have humour and be dark then it should lean into the black comedy. It occasionally does this, but in such an abashed way. There were laughs, but not enough for me. Opportunities were missed to really explore the absurdity of the situation. I also can’t quite believe watching a glorified cartoon eat people would have gotten it a higher age rating.

The movie tries to show us Venom swaying towards Eddie by building a rapport, but again it doesn’t really go for it. There’s a lack of wit in their conversation, a lack of dark edge to the internal threat. It does feel like material was cut here but we can’t judge based on what we don’t see or hear. The crazy thing is, extra dialogue could have been placed over multiple scenes to give us any missing progression. Added voice work isn’t as expensive as reshoots. More internal dialogue would have served the story well.

I suspect a producer somewhere insisted that the internal threat should be played down in favour of the villain, but we are not in the cinema to just see a standard good vs evil fight. A nastier Venom with a sick sense of humour would have introduced much needed jeapody, because until the final fight we never feel like Eddie is in any real danger from external threats.

There is only so much you can do with the final fight, but they don’t nail it. Indeed every major action sequence could have done with a bit more style, originality, or wit. The Bike/Car/Drone chase was probably the most convincing and that comes early, leaving little sense of escalation. There is a brief sense of delight and elation in the chase and it left me thinking why didn’t they go for more of that. It could have been interesting and helped with the bonding element.

The cross cultural identification angle was terrible. As if they ran out of ideas on how to create a bond. We have dozens of mismatched hero action flicks to model this on and they chose a weak line of dialogue for an explanation of why Venom likes Eddie.

The rival boyfriend angle felt like it belonged in an entirely different movie.

Overall I was broadly optimistic that this could be the beginning of a franchise but they need to decide if they want to play it straight or not. At times it feels like Hardy was taking the role a little too seriously. Most importantly they wisely kept the budget down and I think we are guaranteed sequels.