This
was a bit of a dog’s breakfast, wasn’t it? I’m trying to figure out where this
went wrong and it’s weird because none of the individual parts, taken in
isolation, sound all that bad, it’s just they never quite combine into a
coherent whole. Basically, I think the movie tries to do too many things, and
as a result does nothing particularly well.
I
didn’t write it so I’m kind of trying to read minds and guess what happened
here, but it does feel like a good idea butchered through rewrites or edits in
an attempt to check certain boxes that didn’t need to be checked.
What
is this movie even about? The minimalist, bare-bones outline of the plot is: “Down-on
his luck reporter Tom Hardy gets infected with an alien being that gives him
superpowers. The two must prevent a tech-bro tycoon/mad scientist who wants to
bring more of the aliens to Earth for Reasons.”
You
look at that, and you realize that the first sentence has almost nothing to do
with the second.
How
does Hardy being down on his luck move the plot forward?
Well,
gives him a reason to dislike the tycoon. Check that box. What, you mean a
reason other than the whole “infect the entire human race with alien spores”
thing? Uh, yeah, well, that doesn’t come up until the final act, in a scene where
a space shuttle is readied for launch in five minutes.
Why
does the alien symbiote agree to help Hardy prevent this from happening?
Well,
it likes him for, um, reasons. I don’t know, there’s a throwaway line about
them both being losers, whatever that means. Check that box.
Just,
so many scenes and beats don’t seem to have a reason for existing in this
movie.
After
he’s infected, there’s an extended sequence where Hardy/Venom break into a news
corp office tower so he can plant evidence that the tycoon is up to no good.
After his escape from a SWAT team whose rules of engagement
are apparently shoot to kill for offences like breaking & entering (hey,
this is America, so… maybe?) this never comes up again. Cool action scene (even
though we already had one), check.
Immediately
after, we discover that the alien goo thing is slowly killing Hardy. Second Act
hurdle, check. At the end of the movie, Hardy is reunited with his alien goo. The
health problems are never mentioned again and Hardy looks quite chipper.
Well
into the third Act, the tycoon is ALSO infected with an alien spore thing.
Before he is infected, the tycoon plans to find more alien spore things because
he thinks human-alien hybrids are the next stage in evolution (idk man I don’t
write this stuff). After he is infected, the tycoon plans to… find more alien
spore things. Huh. Okay. Third Act twist, check.
In
all this mess I think what should have been the heart of the movie, a kind of
odd couple slash buddy cop action-comedy with Hardy and the alien sharing his
body kind of gets lost. You can kind of see glimpses of it in the first chase
scene where the tycoon’s goons try to capture the pair (starting by attempting
to ram them with explosive kamikaze drones, look I really didn’t write this
thing) with Hardy playing the oceanically out of his depth reporter unwittingly
and unwillingly turned superpowered killing machine.
Hardy is good in these scenes though eccentric and uneven in others. Eddie Brock is a tough character to make likeable, a charming but self-centered asshole who lacks the brains of a Tony Stark or Stephen Strange to balance it out, and the part feels like it was written for a much younger actor. With Hardy, he seems more arrogant man-child than headstrong kid. What does Brock want? I don’t really know. What does Venom want? I… don’t know. What are Brock and Venom trying to achieve? Mainly to stay out of the bad guy’s clutches—it’s only at the very end that their motivation switches to stopping the bad guy’s plan, but then again the bad guy only came up with the plan 10 minutes before the ending so you can’t really blame them there.
Still, being unable to answer those
questions makes these guys to relate to.
Same
goes for the rest of the cast. Riz Ahmed as the big bad spews a couple of lines
about how awful the Earth is and how humanity needs to migrate to the stars, so
I guess he’s a kind of Elon Musk not-quite-parody, but quite why he thinks
bonding with aliens is the way to go is all a bit say-wat-ish. And then he gets infected
with the alien which changes his goals and motivations… in no way whatsoever.
Huh.
There’s
also an ex-fiancée and her new boyfriend in there. Yup. They exist in this
universe. There’s a kind of funny moment between Hardy and the
no-longer-ladyfriend about her pet cat mainly notable because the joke actually
lands. Otherwise, they’re just plot devices.
All
of these issues could, I think, maybe have been resolved if there was greater
focus on what this movie was going to be about. Odd couple learn to appreciate
each other? Okay, gotta give each of them something worth appreciating. Then
show how their adventures drive the realization. Dramatic climax where they
finally learn to work together to stop the bad guy. Boom. Roll credits.
I
did write that, so you can blame me for that one.
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