Don't Call Him a Parasite
Venom, a PG-13 Marvel film that, given its violence and subtexts, would've been more effective as an R movie, is nevertheless an entertaining, funny, and well-executed effort directed by Ruben Fleischer.
An advertisement for Venom says, "The world has enough superheroes." The anti-hero in question, Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is a journalist given to doing stories on the homeless, murders of the poor, and other subjects not covered in mainstream news. He seems to be the one outsider-type reporter tolerated by a corporate news outlet, that is, until he interviews billionaire Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), who sends rockets out to comets and other extraterrestrial locations to research the possibility of life on other worlds. One rocket returns, crash-landing in Malaysia, bearing a cargo of four utterly strange alien symbiotic life forms that take hold in hosts, operating that person but allowing the host to maintain their own forms and personality, usually. Eddie, after a career-destroying interview with Drake, whom he accuses, accurately, of making debilitating or fatal tests on homeless human subjects, ends up with one of these aliens inside of him.
The alien goes by the name Venom. When it takes Eddie completely over, it's about eight feet tall, glistening black, with a liquid and sticky manner of flinging parts of itself to grab onto the sides of buildings enabling rapid climbing, or flinging one of many SWAT team members or ordinary cops who, several times, try to stop it. The damage inflicted on the San Francisco Police Department is truly excessive and may reflect a revenge fantasy against police brutalism in this era of law enforcement violence against the African-American population. I may be reading into it, but that's how it strikes me. Blaxploitation risen again, except now it's an alien from an unknown world taking over a white crusader who tries to illuminate the truth of oppressed American lives.
Venom identifies with Eddie, speaking to him telepathically in a grunting low growly voice that sounds pretty funny at times. Some of the best lines are Venom's. He says, "I like you Eddie. You're a loser. On my world, I'm kind of a loser, too, but here I'm powerful."
Riz Ahmed as the young and morals-free rich man Carlton Drake makes a good villain--a mix of Mark Zuckerberg's cluelessness about human suffering and Elon Musk's brilliance and scientific prowess with big ideas. Jenny Slate as one of Drake's scientists, Dora Skirth, is delightful but not in it nearly enough. Michelle Williams plays Eddie's girlfriend and quickly ex-girlfriend after he gets her fired. She nevertheless helps him later on, once his affliction becomes obvious. Eddie's a mess, and not the superhero Marvel usually presents, like Thor or Spiderman, but his virtue as a character, I think, is his humanity, his realness as a fuck-up. Hardy does a good job embodying someone whose life has been ruined (job, career, girlfriend, all gone in one day) who, inadvertently, gets to go on a power trip, except that he's not the vehicle's driver.
Venom himself is trying to stop one of the other aliens that's taken possession of Drake. The entity in Drake wants to blast off and bring back to Earth an invasion force of a million of its kind. Venom, once part of this force, has changed his mind about Earth. Inside Eddie, he's gotten a feel for humanity, mainly through experiencing its loser qualities.
The film sets itself up for a sequel. I will watch that follow-up if its made, mainly because I liked a Marvel film that sets itself apart from the soap opera of the first two Avengers movies, the "we just can't get along with each other" yawn fest of Captain America Civil War, and the gloss over substance of Suicide Squad (granted, that's a DC universe movie, but a comic book-based film nonetheless).
Vic Neptune
Venom, a PG-13 Marvel film that, given its violence and subtexts, would've been more effective as an R movie, is nevertheless an entertaining, funny, and well-executed effort directed by Ruben Fleischer.
An advertisement for Venom says, "The world has enough superheroes." The anti-hero in question, Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is a journalist given to doing stories on the homeless, murders of the poor, and other subjects not covered in mainstream news. He seems to be the one outsider-type reporter tolerated by a corporate news outlet, that is, until he interviews billionaire Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), who sends rockets out to comets and other extraterrestrial locations to research the possibility of life on other worlds. One rocket returns, crash-landing in Malaysia, bearing a cargo of four utterly strange alien symbiotic life forms that take hold in hosts, operating that person but allowing the host to maintain their own forms and personality, usually. Eddie, after a career-destroying interview with Drake, whom he accuses, accurately, of making debilitating or fatal tests on homeless human subjects, ends up with one of these aliens inside of him.
The alien goes by the name Venom. When it takes Eddie completely over, it's about eight feet tall, glistening black, with a liquid and sticky manner of flinging parts of itself to grab onto the sides of buildings enabling rapid climbing, or flinging one of many SWAT team members or ordinary cops who, several times, try to stop it. The damage inflicted on the San Francisco Police Department is truly excessive and may reflect a revenge fantasy against police brutalism in this era of law enforcement violence against the African-American population. I may be reading into it, but that's how it strikes me. Blaxploitation risen again, except now it's an alien from an unknown world taking over a white crusader who tries to illuminate the truth of oppressed American lives.
Venom identifies with Eddie, speaking to him telepathically in a grunting low growly voice that sounds pretty funny at times. Some of the best lines are Venom's. He says, "I like you Eddie. You're a loser. On my world, I'm kind of a loser, too, but here I'm powerful."
Riz Ahmed as the young and morals-free rich man Carlton Drake makes a good villain--a mix of Mark Zuckerberg's cluelessness about human suffering and Elon Musk's brilliance and scientific prowess with big ideas. Jenny Slate as one of Drake's scientists, Dora Skirth, is delightful but not in it nearly enough. Michelle Williams plays Eddie's girlfriend and quickly ex-girlfriend after he gets her fired. She nevertheless helps him later on, once his affliction becomes obvious. Eddie's a mess, and not the superhero Marvel usually presents, like Thor or Spiderman, but his virtue as a character, I think, is his humanity, his realness as a fuck-up. Hardy does a good job embodying someone whose life has been ruined (job, career, girlfriend, all gone in one day) who, inadvertently, gets to go on a power trip, except that he's not the vehicle's driver.
Venom himself is trying to stop one of the other aliens that's taken possession of Drake. The entity in Drake wants to blast off and bring back to Earth an invasion force of a million of its kind. Venom, once part of this force, has changed his mind about Earth. Inside Eddie, he's gotten a feel for humanity, mainly through experiencing its loser qualities.
The film sets itself up for a sequel. I will watch that follow-up if its made, mainly because I liked a Marvel film that sets itself apart from the soap opera of the first two Avengers movies, the "we just can't get along with each other" yawn fest of Captain America Civil War, and the gloss over substance of Suicide Squad (granted, that's a DC universe movie, but a comic book-based film nonetheless).
Vic Neptune
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