“Venom” the Movie: “We” Think It’s Okay

The “Venom” movie premiered at local cinemas on Oct. 5, and I find it hard to best describe how I feel about it. As superhero films go, it’s on the pretty generic side: the hero is the down-on-his-luck underdog, and the main villain is essentially “What if hero, but bad?” The secondary villain (who is played up to be the main one) is a not so subtle stand-in for Elon Musk, which is pretty funny in hindsight. Not to say it’s unwatchable though; it’s just odd to have a movie about a Spider-Man villain without Spider-Man being involved in any way.

There were definite high-points to the movie. Scenes such as Tom Hardy’s character Eddie Brock jumping into a restaurant’s aquarium to eat a live lobster or being mocked by the symbiote for refusing to jump out a window were definitely humorous. There are some aspects of horror to the film as well, such as when Venom fights a SWAT team and eats several people later. I personally felt the grossest scene in the movie is when Eddie makes out with the symbiote.

As super-hero films go, you won’t really be missing out on much if you decide not to see it. It’s not connected to the main Marvel films in any way, so don’t worry about being lost when the next Avengers film comes around. As horror movies go, it’s more of a lite-thriller. Not nearly as terrifying as “Alien,” but not a film I would take a 10-year old to see (seriously don’t take a kid to this movie, Venom straight up eats several people). Overall, it’s an okay movie to see if you’ve got nothing better to do.