{"id":3430,"date":"2016-03-03T09:01:20","date_gmt":"2016-03-03T03:31:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3430"},"modified":"2016-03-03T09:01:20","modified_gmt":"2016-03-03T03:31:20","slug":"venom-review-terrible-superhero-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=3430","title":{"rendered":"Venom Review: We All Need a Terrible Superhero Film Every Once in a While"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

F<\/span><\/p><\/div>

or most of today\u2019s movie-going audiences, their first brush with superhero films was 2002\u2019s <\/span>Spiderman<\/span><\/i><\/a>. It was the genre\u2019s first bonafide blockbuster, and it spawned two sequels as well as indirectly led to the rise of the Marvel-worshipping culture we now live in \u2013 where today\u2019s schoolkids think <\/span>Iron Man<\/span><\/a> is Tony Stark, not Sardar Vallabhai Patel. The original Spiderman trilogy drew to a close in 2007 with a disappointing third instalment that featured the webslinger\u2019s greatest nemesis, Venom as the antagonist. So naturally, comic book fans were excited that Venom was returning to screens with a standalone film of his own, over a decade after his last appearance.<\/span>\n\nIt wasn\u2019t worth the wait.<\/span>\n\nAs a film, <\/span>Venom <\/span><\/i>is a 112-minute slog through one major letdown after the other. The hype surrounding the film in the run-up to its release is much like the hype that surrounded <\/span>Acche Din<\/span><\/a> four years ago \u2013 completely unwarranted. With a central character who, in the comics, is a ravenous, remorseless alien symbiote, <\/span>Venom<\/span><\/i> promised viewers one of the <\/span>darkest explorations<\/span><\/a> of the superhero genre yet. However, it fails even as a simple superhero origin story, as this is a film that does not know what it wants to be. <\/span>\n\nIn its first act, it\u2019s a tense, sci-fi influenced horror story. After the interval, when Venom makes his first appearance, it mutates awkwardly into an odd-couple comedy, relying on the symbiosis between host human Eddie Brock, played by Tom Hardy, and the titular alien parasite for laughs. And finally, the ending is a CGI-heavy affair, made <\/span>harder to watch<\/span><\/a> by 3D, which feels more like a video game cutscene than a climactic battle fitting a superhero movie.<\/span>\n\n

All scope for exploring the darkness inherent in Venom\u2019s character is ignored, and what we have on our hands is a superhero film that harks back to the genre\u2019s cringe-inducing past.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\nOne of the hardest things to stomach about <\/span>Venom <\/span><\/i>is how it\u2019s proof that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Viewed separately, so many aspects of the movie seemed promising. There was director Ruben Fleischer, who helmed the brilliant, genre-bending road movie\/survival horror crossover that was <\/span>Zombieland<\/span><\/i>. The cast prominently features a trio of critical darlings. There\u2019s regular Oscar nominee Michelle Williams, whose character provides a link between the two remaining leads: Riz Ahmed \u2013 brown people\u2019s answer to Childish Gambino \u2013 and Tom Hardy, an actor who\u2019s magnetic to watch, but still can\u2019t rescue this dumpster fire of a film. In fact, Hardy provided one of the most damning indictments of <\/span>Venom <\/span><\/i>himself, when he stated during interviews that his favourite parts of the film ended up on the cutting room floor.<\/span>\n\nHardy\u2019s interview statements are the showbiz equivalent of a witness turning hostile in the box. It\u2019s similar to sentiments expressed by Jared Leto when he played Joker in <\/span>Suicide Squad<\/span><\/i>, who also felt his <\/span>iconic villain<\/span><\/a> was let down by the film\u2019s editing. It makes sense, as <\/span>Venom <\/span><\/i>will go on to join <\/span>Suicide Squad <\/span><\/i>as an anachronistically, indisputably, abjectly bad superhero film in what is a golden age for the genre. While films like <\/span>Infinity War<\/span><\/i><\/a>, <\/span>Black Panther<\/span><\/i><\/a>, <\/span>Logan<\/span><\/i><\/a>, and <\/span>Deadpool<\/span><\/i><\/a> are all pushing the boundaries of what a superhero film is capable of achieving as a storytelling medium, <\/span>Venom <\/span><\/i>seems like a throwback to far-off 2007 and the days of <\/span>Spiderman 3<\/span><\/i>, another film that arrived in theatres riding a tidal wave of hype and potential, only to watch it all go down the drain. That film killed the original <\/span>Spiderman <\/span><\/i>franchise, which hopefully means <\/span>Venom <\/span><\/i>won\u2019t be getting a sequel either.<\/span>\n\nIf this is to be our farewell to Venom on the big screen, then for me, as a fan, it\u2019s a bitter goodbye. <\/span>Venom<\/span><\/i> fails to do any justice to its namesake. Imagine a James Bond film where <\/span>007<\/span><\/a> doesn\u2019t show up until after the interval, and when he does, he fails to drink any martinis, drives an Ambassador instead of an Aston Martin, and forgets how to use a gun. That\u2019s how neutered the film\u2019s version of Venom is compared to the comic book anti-hero, who serves as a moral counterpoint to favourite sparring partner and friendly neighbourhood goody-two-shoes Spiderman.<\/span>\n\nUnfortunately, all scope for exploring the darkness inherent in Venom\u2019s character is ignored, and what we have on our hands is a superhero film that harks back to the genre\u2019s cringe-inducing past. The only way to enjoy <\/span>Venom <\/span><\/i>is to imagine that the rocket taking off into <\/span>space<\/span><\/a> during the finale is carrying all copies of the film off the face of the Earth.<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Venom will go on to join Suicide Squad as an anachronistically, indisputably bad superhero film in what is a golden age for the genre. Comic book fans were excited that Venom was returning to screens over a decade after his last appearance. It wasn\u2019t worth the wait.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":3431,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[4126,1745,19,1451,1788,6558,6559,6560,6561,2024,6562,6563,6564],"class_list":["post-3430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop-culture","tag-film","tag-hollywood","tag-india","tag-marvel","tag-review","tag-riz-ahmed","tag-ruben-fleischer","tag-supervillian","tag-todd-macfarlane","tag-tom-hardy","tag-venom","tag-venom-movie-review","tag-venom-review-superhero"],"yoast_head":"\nVenom Review: We All Need a Terrible Superhero Film Every Once in a While<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Venom will go on to join Suicide Squad as an anachronistically, indisputably bad superhero film in what is a golden age for the genre. Comic book fans were excited that Venom was returning to screens over a decade after his last appearance. It wasn\u2019t worth the wait.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3430\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Venom Review: We All Need a Terrible Superhero Film Every Once in a While\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Venom will go on to join Suicide Squad as an anachronistically, indisputably bad superhero film in what is a golden age for the genre. Comic book fans were excited that Venom was returning to screens over a decade after his last appearance. It wasn\u2019t worth the wait.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3430\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Arr\u00e9\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-03-03T03:31:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1538750733-1024x573.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"573\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dushyant Shekhawat\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Venom Review: We All Need a Terrible Superhero Film Every Once in a While\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Venom will go on to join Suicide Squad as an anachronistically, indisputably bad superhero film in what is a golden age for the genre. 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