quincytheodore

Spider-Man has been a personal favorite super hero of mine. Despite the debacle with different studios and without having Spider-Man, I personally rooted Venom to succeed. However, the jarring tonal shift, occasional clumsy dialogues and heavy reliance on CGI are eerie reminisces of less sophisticated super hero movie from early 2000. It's disappointing because there are some good set pieces here and Tom Hardy tries his damn hardest.

On a quick glance Venom can be an action thriller, the tone fits perfectly almost in Daredevil crime drama fashion. It almost reaches such darker place but doesn't dare to take the final step, instead it instantly switches to humor. While this new more cynical Venom is not entirely bad, he is such a good character to establish a more intense atmosphere. It does hurt the nuance, toning down on the menacing aura.

Whatever element works on Venom can be credited to Tom Hardy. He displays the reluctant anti-hero so dysfunctionally well. His gesture, slight twitch and banter with the alien invader are a blast. Pacing and script can be problematic, but Tom Hardy just goes all in with sheer tenacity. When it goes to Venom, CGI is inevitable. It's rather unconvincing at times and a more physical choreography would do more wonder than the black suit.

I want to see this as standalone movie, but in the end Venom does need Spider-Man. He could've been a stronger faster version of Spidey and with Tom Hardy as anti hero, that would've made such an interesting clash. Also, if it wants to go for sci-fi thriller route, there's already a recent movie with same premise, Upgrade, which sadly did everything better.

It's not devoid of entertainment, sometimes the humor hits sweet spot, but if you're here for the sentiment of the Venom namesake, this is not the Homecoming you want. It might not be even the Andrew Garfield kind.

What started as racing franchise has now shifted gear into a mix of old James Bond flick and shade of Marvel blockbuster. It may feel zealously exaggerated, and with high level of adrenaline and testosterone, it is indeed excessive. However, fueled by staggering amount of star power and crowd pleasing scenes, it's undoubtedly s fantastic spectacle.

Story doesn't veer much from the already established formula, another new threat that tries to divide and conquer, giving ample opportunities for the myriad of action heroes to fight, as well as collaborate, with each other. For the better parts, this works in creating a minimal drama even though there's bound to be slight disbelief concerning the plot, or just disregard of simple physic in general.

The script consists of war cries from video games and old school banters from decades ago. It's not without the humor and charm, it might even be distracting if they sound too flamboyant seeing the action is downright the stuff of superhero movie. There's the same amount of fists thrown and flying cars, and any other unbelievable shenanigans in between, in glorious slow motion and less glorious CGI.

It's nearly infectious in the delivery, almost looking like collection of scenes deemed to be too absurd and until now was buried in action movie vault yet they are so gleefully pompous, one can't help being dragged around by its pace. The action stars collide in battle royale style, even if one scraps all the other parts of the movie, there's an inevitable hook in the concept of The Rock, Vin Diesel and Jason Statham trading actual and verbal jabs.

It also helps that choreography for fights look convincingly fast and brutal enough to suit each character. The transition between grand locations, or towards another scuffle, is accompanied by good cinematography and equally vibrating soundtracks. While it may screech towards certain parts, the actors contribute in their own way, either it through surprisingly good acting or fitting humor.

There's enough in the production tank to keep the excitement rolling. Sure, it can be campy at times, but there's no denying that it's a high velocity spectacular action entertainment.