Well this movie sure is not good, but it does have this sort of gonzo innocence that someway endears me to it. Mostly conceptually. Actually watching it was….well kinda evened out to a neutral experience in the end, because whenever I’d hit another point in all the goopy smashing and crashing where I’d wonder how I could still be watching this, I’d remember watching Jenny Slate and Riz Ahmed standing in a laboratory just saying absolute nonsense to each other, which while not necessarily riveting, was so……weird…that I couldn’t not stick around.

This cast is bonkers. I don’t know if that’s part of it or some other factor, but I mean, Michelle Williams is in this movie. I laughed three times and one of them was just at her delivery of a line. God this movie makes no goddamn sense. Doylist or Watsonian. Within world, I have no idea why suddenly the symbiotes could bond with whomever no problem when before it was a big disaster. Outwith world, I have no idea why anyone in this cast agreed to this script.

Anyway, when I said gonzo innocence, what I mean is that there were clearly no stakes to the success of this film, and it was refreshing to watch a superhero movie that just doesn’t matter. Even less than the X-Men! No one cares about Venom, this is technically a Marvel property but they put no other characters in this, it’s just out here on its own, footloose and franchise-free, and that seemingly let them do whatever oddball thing they wanted without overthinking it. Is it, as a result, under-thought? Oh sure! Again, it’s really not good! But it also doesn’t have that tiring MCU feeling of a movie that’s constantly conscious of its position within an existing mythos. There is no sense of self-importance here. None. Nor self-awareness either, this is not another Thor: Ragnarok. This is just a dumbass comics-based action flick where at one point Tom Hardy crawls into a restaurant lobster tank, chills for a moment like a capybara in a pool, then scoops up a crustacean and just chomps it.

Overall though, and I really am sorry to say it, I just did not find Venom near as funny or as kinky as I’d been expecting. Honestly, found it surprisingly dull. But I do absolutely see where that happy rowdiness came about in the ensuing fanbase. That hungry monster does love that sweet trash man, as he directly roared inside his ear.

★★