I Watch Films: Venom
Venom, a spider-man villain, gets his own film as a dark hero. A billionaire uses his dubiously obtained pharmaceutical wealth to fund a space exploration program (he believes the Earth will inevitably become uninhabitable). On a comet they find alien symbiotes.
Eddie Brock was an investigative reporter, but after he looked at his lawyer girlfriend’s emails without her permission to find details of difficult questions to ask the billionaire, he loses his job, his relationship and is blacklisted. Then one of the billionaire’s scientists has a crisis of conscience and calls Brock, offering proof. Inevitably one of the symbiotes merges with Brock.
But of course another symbiote is already loose, having caused the crash of one of the exploratory shuttles, and is on its way with its own plan.
The best part of this film is the buddy comedy of Brock and Venom arguing inside Brock’s head. The second best part is when – very occasionally – the transformation effects go from superhero cool (or plain confusing) to body-horror disturbing.
I’m not sure there’s a third best that raises it above other superhero films; the space-apocalypse obsessed billionaire is not so specific as to be a version of a particular real one (worrying) but no one really has a solution to the (real) problems he raises.
His solution is bad and goes wrong incidentally. SPOILERS I guess.
Watch This: For a bit of action, a slightly dark superhero film
Don’t Watch This: If you insist on Spider-man being in a Spider-related film
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