Review Megathread: Venom

Rotten Tomatoes: 32%Metacritic: 32/100​Written Reviews:Chicago Tribune - Katie WalshHardy and Fleischer do manage to reel it back to that bizarre but charming tone they've created, and amazingly, for all of the wild weirdness and wackadoo mess, this character is, shockingly, one we'd be happy to spend more time with, thanks to Hardy.Collider - Perri NemiroffBear with me here; Venom the movie is an actual “turd in the wind.” Chop off its legs thanks to a weak first act. Lose the arms because every single supporting character is essentially worthless. The head obviously has to go because Venom is pretty brainless. And, not for nothing, but that leaves us with the heart (or for the sake of this visual, the torso) of the movie, the Venom and Eddie relationship, a component that’s just going where the wind takes us in this downright wacky comic book adaptation.Entertainment Weekly - Chris NashawatyVenom isn’t quite bad, but it’s not exactly good either. It’s noncommittally mediocre and, as a result, forgettable. It just sort of sits there, beating you numb, unsure of whether it wants to be a comic-book movie or put the whole idea of comic-book movies in its crosshairs.Forbes - Scott MendelsonThe most surprising thing about Venom (opening worldwide this week) is that it’s relatively unassuming. The long-in-development solo flick for one of the more popular Spider-Man baddies is clearly a picture born of compromise, one that is torn between the desire to be taken seriously as a respectable comic book superhero movie and a competing desire to openly make fun of itself. Warts and all, it stands on its own two-feet and tells a self-contained story that doesn’t make you wait for the sequel and doesn’t operate as a backdoor pilot for Sony’s alleged Spider-Verse spin-offs. As both a shameless cash-in and a knowing ode to some of the lesser post-Blade and pre-Iron Man comic book flicks, it’s at its best when it embraces its own inherent stupidity.The Guardian - Peter BradshawCan Tom Hardy play comedy – intentionally? The question remains worryingly unanswered in this clumsy, monolithic and fantastically boring superhero movie-slash-entertainment-franchise-iteration. The supposedly massive final showdown is so anticlimactic and pointless that it was only when it was followed by Hardy ruminatively sipping coffee on a stoop and chatting that I realised… that was it. That was the big finish. Hardy himself has said that the film’s best 30-40 minutes have been cut. At least that makes this shorter than it would otherwise be.Los Angeles Times - Justin ChangDirected with flat, joyless competence by Ruben Fleischer (“Zombieland,” “Gangster Squad”), “Venom” brings with it a laborious, decades-spanning development history. A movie this long in the works should arrive on-screen feeling like more than just an afterthought. But next to the much more visually and narratively elaborate entertainments that make up the Marvel Cinematic Universe — or even compared with other snarky anti-superhero movies like “Deadpool” — “Venom” feels like pretty weak poison.The Hollywood Reporter - Todd McCarthyA significant problem in a film full of them is that Eddie comes off as a dope, an eager doofus hardly convincing as a boundary-pushing journo or someone who can out-think a titan of technology. Whatever his shortcomings as a journalist or a mate, the character needed a deep repository of intelligence and resourcefulness that is nowhere detectable; he's all Basset Hound and no German Shepherd. Hardy has always had a terrific screen bearing and presence, but this may be his least interesting role and performance.IGN - Laura PrudomSadly, Venom suffers from the same lack of cohesion and rejects everything that might’ve turned it into a badass joyride in the vein of Deadpool or Guardians of the Galaxy. The result is a muddled hodgepodge that isn’t sure whether it wants to be comedic or take its troubled antihero way too seriously.Indiewire - Michael Nordine“Venom” is very much its own entity — one in which, for better or worse, a parasitic alien calls its host a pussy for deciding to take the elevator instead of jumping off a skyscraper and Tom Hardy jumps into a lobster tank in the middle of a crowded restaurant. This leaves the viewer with two choices: reject the parasite or let it take you over. Fight it off and you’ll have a bad time; become one with it and you may achieve a kind of symbiosis.ScreenCrush - Matt SingerOnce Tom Hardy bonds with this alien “symbiote,” and this goo begins to talk to him as a gravelly voice in his head (also performed by Hardy), Venom suddenly becomes hilarious. Hardy and his evil side trade insults. They get into slapstick fights with bad guys where Venom marionettes Tom Hardy’s body like a puppet. They eat inexplicable amounts of tater tots. It’s like if Laurel and Hardy were the same guy — and also one of them liked to bite the heads off people This is epically, fantastically weird stuff. The only thing stopping this movie from becoming an immediate cult classic is that it takes nearly an hour for Tom Hardy to go full Venom. If they’d trimmed 15 minutes out of this thing, cut right to the chase, and just piled on the Hardy, Venom would be unmissable Oh, that first hour. It is bad. Not fun bad. Not so-bad-it’s-good-bad. Just painful.The Telegraph - Robbie CollinPerhaps the hardest thing to process about Venom – and allow me to warn you that this is not an easy film to process in general – is the sheer ugliness of Venom himself. Sony Pictures appear to have lavished a nine-figure sum on, and are now hoping to establish an entire cinematic universe on the back of, a character who looks like someone drizzled with Creme Egg filling onto a bin bag.Uproxx - Mike RyanNow, I do want to make it clear that I think Venom is not a good movie, but I also want to make it clear that I had the time of my life watching it. I think in a couple of years Venom could be the type of movie that sells out midnight showings as people come up to the screen and act out their favorite parts – like a Rocky Horror Picture Show type of thing. My point is, if you’re in the right group and right frame of mind, Venom is really fun to watch.Variety - Owen Gleiberman“Venom” is a textbook case of a comic-book film that’s unexciting in its ho-hum competence, and even its visual-effects bravura. Make no mistake: The effects can be dazzling. The alien matter splattering itself around like random tentacled liquid, the way Venom cross-breeds Spider-Man’s skyscraper-hopping agility with the Hulk’s dynamo destructiveness — it’s all diverting eye candy. But to what end? This gateway into the Sony Universe of Marvel Characters (get ready: there are 90!) may not sputter as badly as Tom Cruise’s “The Mummy,” but it could turn out to be a similar case of a franchise kickoff that doesn’t fully attain franchise liftoff.The Verge - Bryan BishopBut in its finished form, Venom is PG-13, more devoted to humor than the more disturbing aspects of the lead character. As Eddie grapples with the symbiote infection, he parades through jokey sequences filled with physical comedy. Eddie can’t stop eating tater tots! Eddie Venoms-out at his electric guitar-playing neighbor! Eddie sits in a lobster tank in a fancy restaurant — before eating a lobster live! The film is utterly dissonant, recalling the weird camp of Batman & Robin, which illustrates a fundamental conflict between the presentation of what the Venom symbiote is and does and the filmmakers’ efforts to turn his story into a Deadpool-esque laugh riot.The Wrap - Alonso DuraldeThe neither-here-nor-there plotting is matched by the wispiness of the characters, who rarely seem to have clear-cut motivations or anything resembling depth. And that’s what makes this film such an egregious misuse of a fine ensemble. Hardy is always mesmerizing, even when the material is less so, but in “Venom” he’s finally found a project he can’t overcome by sheer talent. via /r/movies https://ift.tt/2NXgMBP