‘Blu-ray or Bust’ - VENOM

‘Blu-ray or Bust’

VENOM (2018, PG-13, 112 minutes, MARVEL ENTERTAINMENT/SONY/COLUMBIA PICTURES)

Just when you thought that you’d had enough of superhero movies, Sony decides to remind everyone that they still own the rights to several key characters in the Marvel Universe.

Interestingly enough, they can also produce a kickass film, too.  VENOM is the first in a planned series of films featuring several Spider-man villains, a curious move for a studio hell-bent on throwing its super-powered hat into the ring.  The bad guys aren’t supposed to win, so how to treat this rogue’s gallery of evil?  Starting with an antihero is a smooth move, and one that works surprisingly well.

Tom Hardy (MAD MAX: FURY ROAD) stars as Eddie Brock, a down-on-his-luck investigative journalist who crossed the wrong billionaire.  When we first see Eddie, he is successful in life; he’s got the beautiful girl (Michelle Williams), steady employment, and a positive outlook on life.  But in an attempt to ferret the truth out of a company magnate, he loses it all.

And in a last ditch effort to get his life back, he inadvertently gets infected with an alien lifeform called “Venom”, a dark, evil presence that would like nothing better than to live on a diet of human heads.  All sounds a bit glum and borderline horrific, does it not?

But writers Jeff Pinkner and Scott Rosenberg interject enough humor to keep the film from an R rating—which upset many fans of the character.  How could you possibly tell the story of a brain eating villain without blood and guts—er, blood and brains?  Apparently by focusing on the “fish out of water” storyline.  This is Venom’s first trip to Earth, so it is a learning experience for him, just as much as it is for Eddie, who is trying to deal with a symbiote living in his head.

By keeping the film to a short (by genre standards) hour and forty-odd minutes—don’t let that runtime fool you, as the credits are nearly fifteen minutes long as they include a promotional spot for the animated INTO THE SPIDERVERSE—the story moves at an effectively quick pace.  This is an origin story, and the writers and director all know that you’ve seen enough origin stories to not need a whole lot of exposition.  Also, there was supposedly forty minutes of the film left on the cutting room floor to allow for that PG-13 rating.  And so that Sony could sneak in that promo at the very end of the credits…

The special features are handled well, but don’t expect to see any of those deleted scenes that would FLESH OUT more of the story.  That wouldn’t be included on a PG13 release, kids.  Hopefully, we’ll see either an R-rated cut, or an uncut version of the film at a later date, just as Sony did for THE WOLVERINE.

But this version, on its own, stands up perfectly well.  Sure, you might wish to see a bit more (ahem) CARNAGE, but for a studio’s attempt at marking their place in the Marvel Universe, they do just fine.  Whatever they intend to do with these villains, I’m on board.  So long as the studio continues to take the subject matter and the world they have created with VENOM seriously, the future looks brighter for edgier, harder, superhero films.

Grade: B

Special Features: B

Blu-ray Necessary: Absolutely

-- T.S. Kummelman