Venom - Paradox of the Comic Book Movie

The comic book movie genre, while active in the 80s and 90s, gained leverage after the Sam Raimi Spideman trilogy. People loved it and the studio executives were watching. Throughout the years we saw different approaches to making comic book movies. Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight series reinvented the genre and set the standards of character development, aligning the mood of the movie to the central character and background score (lets not forget how much Hans Zimmer's scores contribute to a Nolan movie). In effect, the Dark Knight trilogy was not just a comic book movie. It set an undeniable and inescapable tone for the DC Universe and Warner Brothers. While this was safe in the hands of Zack Snyder in general, certain characters just did not feel right for the overall tone - like Flash.

Cinematic Universe set the standards of how fun a comic book movie should be. It successfully captured the spirit of Marvel comics, including its flaws. Not too serious, the scripts interspersed with jokes and one liners, Marvel went the opposite direction of DC. So much so that, the most R-rated hero of Marvel is also its funniest (I'm not gonna say who, but he loves breaking the fourth wall).

Enter Venom - a character so chaotic and probably the most scary in creature design in the marvel universe. Introduced in the comics just as a reason for Spiderman to have a cool black suit, Venom soon caught the attention of the public and started gathering fan following. They loved the anti-hero and the struggle of the two characters to maintain control over each other. The script tries to show justice to the character of Venom and Eddie Brock while trying to maintain the general Marvel mood. The end product is uncertain and indecisive. There are scenes where Venom bites people's heads off and even eats someone, while immediately trying to joke about it. This character probably could have benefited from a Snyder treatment for which Tom Hardy is more suitable.

Speaking of Tom Hardy, there is no argument whether he is a good actor or not. We loved him the last time he put on a mask. The casting decision looked great in the beginning and when the trailers where out. But after seeing the movie, I have second thoughts. While Tom Hardy manages a great performance, he just doesn't fit in the role of a failed reporter even though he looks a lot like the comic version. He probably should have played the role of Cletus Cassidy/Carnage in the next installment (by the way check out Woody Harrelson as Carnage in the mid

Overall, the movie is fun to watch. Just don't expect some soul searching thespian performance from Tom Hardy - the script lacks the scope.

Rating: Lukewarm filter coffee.