I am a huge fan of Spider-Man and one of my favorite villains in his rouge’s gallery is Venom. In interpretations like the Ultimate comics, you can see Eddie Brock slowly develop from a brotherly figure to Peter Parker into someone that hates Peter more than anything. Seeing Eddie then get the power to really hurt Peter as much as he wants makes Venom both a threat to Spider-Man but who Peter is as well. The problem is that when all of that is removed, you just have the Venom movie. Venom without Spider-Man just frankly isn’t interesting. All of the difficult events in Eddie’s life that would ordinarily drive him to hate Peter are now just catalysts for the plot to happen. In the movie, I don’t feel like it really changed Eddie all too much. And then there’s the characterization of Venom himself. This is the title character and should be portrayed a certain way. This movie should show why comic readers feared the villain. Instead, they chose to give him oddly cheezy dialogue. I have no idea why they thought this was the ideal direction. Like, imagine that you were cast to play this role and needed to do a deep, threatening voice but you’re given lines like “On my home, I was kind of a loser like you.” It just doesn’t work. So in conclusion, Eddie’s character is missing a major piece that made him so well regarded in the first place. Venom is characterized poorly with dialogue that just doesn’t fit. This movie isn’t valueless, but I’d have trouble giving it more than two stars.
The problem is that when all of that is removed, you just have the Venom movie. Venom without Spider-Man just frankly isn’t interesting. All of the difficult events in Eddie’s life that would ordinarily drive him to hate Peter are now just catalysts for the plot to happen. In the movie, I don’t feel like it really changed Eddie all too much.
And then there’s the characterization of Venom himself. This is the title character and should be portrayed a certain way. This movie should show why comic readers feared the villain. Instead, they chose to give him oddly cheezy dialogue. I have no idea why they thought this was the ideal direction. Like, imagine that you were cast to play this role and needed to do a deep, threatening voice but you’re given lines like “On my home, I was kind of a loser like you.” It just doesn’t work.
So in conclusion, Eddie’s character is missing a major piece that made him so well regarded in the first place. Venom is characterized poorly with dialogue that just doesn’t fit. This movie isn’t valueless, but I’d have trouble giving it more than two stars.