Ven­om

At var­i­ous points dur­ing Ven­om, appar­ent­ly intel­li­gent char­ac­ters make the same baf­fling sug­ges­tion: that Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock, whose body has been forcibly fused with a sen­tient alien organ­ism, is sim­ply suf­fer­ing from a gar­den vari­ety par­a­site. Hardy jumps into a tank of lob­sters at a posh restau­rant and pro­ceeds to munch hun­gri­ly on one of the live crus­taceans. Best check his tem­per­a­ture. Hardy starts vio­lent­ly mutat­ing dur­ing a rou­tine MRI scan. A course of meds should straight­en him out. Hardy shape-shifts into a night­mar­ish crea­ture before devour­ing a pet­ty crim­i­nal whole in front of a store clerk. Yeah, you might want to get that looked at, mate.

It’s hard to sus­pend your dis­be­lief and immerse your­self in a fan­tas­ti­cal sto­ry when the script active­ly dis­cour­ages it. Yes, this is a com­ic book movie that doesn’t take itself too seri­ous­ly – which is always to be encour­aged – but it’s also one where char­ac­ters say and do improb­a­bly stu­pid things, to the extent that lines of expos­i­to­ry dia­logue and casu­al­ly igno­rant remarks feel like an open insult to the audience’s basic intel­li­gence. It’s a shame, because the prin­ci­pal cast are all ful­ly com­mit­ted to their roles. Not least Hardy, whose sweaty fits of rage and trade­mark com­bustible ener­gy pow­ers the film for two fre­net­ic hours.

That said, Hardy’s intense, pow­der keg per­for­mance feels strange­ly out of step with the joc­u­lar tone direc­tor Ruben Fleis­ch­er (pre­vi­ous­ly of Zom­bieland fame and Gang­ster Squad infamy) attempts to strike. The actor has revealed that his favourite 40 min­utes of Ven­om end­ed up on the cut­ting room floor: ​“Mad pup­peteer­ing scenes, dark com­e­dy scenes”. Regard­less of whether or not these scenes were nixed in order to secure the desired PG-13 rat­ing, you get the sense this is not the movie Hardy thought he was making.

There is a half decent body hor­ror-sci-fi hybrid buried some­where in this film – some­thing in the vein of techy viral thrillers like Life, Prometheus and Upgrade (the lat­ter two of which, inci­den­tal­ly, star Hardy looka­like Logan Mar­shall-Green), only dark­er, edgi­er, more dan­ger­ous. Alas, Ven­om is essen­tial­ly ​‘The Strange Case of Jekyll and Hyde’ reimag­ined as a freaky body swap com­e­dy, with the epony­mous antag­o­nist pitched as a sassy side­kick­/al­ter-ego, aggres­sive­ly co-opt­ing Hardy’s brawny jour­nal­ist before pro­ceed­ing to lark about in San Fran­cis­co. (Also inci­den­tal­ly, Fleis­ch­er is attached to a fea­ture-length adap­ta­tion of the BBC dra­ma Jekyll along with Mar­vel stal­wart Chris Evans: because movies.)

Brock, mean­while, is a self-styled TV per­son­al­i­ty who gets sol­id rat­ings with his rov­ing enter­tain­ment news show ​‘The Eddie Brock Report’, but has a ten­den­cy to rub peo­ple up the wrong way – name­ly those who could do with being knocked down a peg or two, or are plain­ly just up to no good. His lat­est assign­ment-cum-tar­get is busi­ness mag­nate Carl­ton Drake (played with cold-blood­ed rel­ish by Riz Ahmed), whose Life Foun­da­tion is com­mit­ted to pur­su­ing human space coloni­sa­tion by what­ev­er eth­i­cal­ly dubi­ous means its ego­ma­ni­ac CEO deems necessary.

Com­plet­ing the cen­tral trin­i­ty of rep­utable dra­mat­ic actors slum­ming it for a pay cheque is Michelle Williams as Brock’s high-fly­ing lawyer fiancée, Anne Wey­ing. Their rela­tion­ship breaks down after Brock opens a sen­si­tive work email of hers impli­cat­ing Drake in the deaths of three vol­un­teers in a mys­te­ri­ous med­ical tri­al. This sim­ple act of domes­tic betray­al results in both Anne and Eddie los­ing their jobs, and sets in motion a sequence of events with far wider-reach­ing and more dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences. (A tip for any aspir­ing lawyers out there: if you do hap­pen to date a scur­rilous reporter, be sure to dis­able push noti­fi­ca­tions on your desk­top web browser.)

You may recall that Venom’s big screen debut came in Sam Raimi’s unfair­ly maligned but over­stuffed 2007 tril­o­gy clos­er Spi­der-Man 3, care of Topher Grace. It was recent­ly report­ed, how­ev­er, that the char­ac­ter only joined that par­tic­u­lar par­ty at the behest of pro­duc­er Avi Arad (Rai­mi orig­i­nal­ly want­ed to intro­duce Vul­ture to the series). Sony’s sec­ond roll of the dice is a marked improve­ment in terms of cast­ing and char­ac­ter devel­op­ment, and there’s some nifty CGI in the mix, too, espe­cial­ly in the vis­cer­al trans­for­ma­tion scenes – but there is still some­thing fun­da­men­tal­ly lacking.

In its bid to appeal to a main­stream fam­i­ly audi­ence, the film makes cer­tain con­ces­sions that amount to an under­min­ing of the character’s essen­tial appeal, which stems from its ruth­less, mur­der­ous ten­den­cies. ​‘The world has enough super­heroes’ sneers the film’s tagline. True, but this is a cyn­i­cal, sani­tised take on Marvel’s Spidey-both­er­ing bad­die. There are just so many hor­ri­ble, wrong-head­ed artis­tic choic­es made here. In one scene the amor­phous ​‘sym­biote’ latch­es on to a female host, and though this brief inter­jec­tion has absolute­ly no bear­ing on the plot, it’s a moment that will sear your soul. Suf­fice to say you won’t be able to unsee Girl Venom’s shape­ly bosom and tight butt.

By the time Fleis­ch­er and his four-man screen­writ­ing team implore us to take pity on Ven­om – this grotesque mon­ster is not so dif­fer­ent from you or I, you see – what­ev­er lin­ger­ing invest­ment in the char­ac­ter and nar­ra­tive we had instant­ly evap­o­rates. This film, then, is less like a hos­tile par­a­site and more like one of those 24-hour bugs that always seem to be going around: you feel rough for a while, but it quick­ly pass­es and is soon for­got­ten about.