Metro Manila Film Festival

‘Venom’ review: Toxic universe

Oggs Cruz

This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

‘Venom’ review: Toxic universe
'It is so limp in everything it wants to do, it fails to penetrate anything'

Ruben Fleischer’s Venom, like the titular Spider-Man nemesis it attempts to humanize, is not all bad. There are actually promises of goodness in this weirdly wayward film that isn’t exactly shy about its noxiousness.

Goop from outer space

Tom Hardy is still very good here.

If there is one thing that film surely does very right, it is the casting of an actor who infuses the most mainstream of roles with layer-building nuance.

After all, Hardy is the actor who, without mouthing an intelligible sentence, reinvents legendary Max Rockatansky into a compelling sidekick in George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), effectively bringing the fourth installment in a decades-old franchise into this era of female empowerment.

It isn’t obvious at first but his Eddie Brock, the disgraced journalist who ends up being the perfect host for the devious black goop from outer space, is more than meets the eye.

The character suffers from scripting issues, with the film rushing his development from being the ambitious reporter to the loser who lives next door to a failed rocker. However, Hardy makes it very clear that his Brock isn’t just a cardboard cutout nobody who blossoms into a super-being.

He makes it apparent that while his human character may not be gifted with brains or brawn, he is blessed with a curious capacity to withstand a very toxic universe. He is a walking epitome of today’s mental health issues, skirting everyday stresses and developing a suspicious quirk of talking to himself.

ALTER EGO. Eddie Brock tries to calm Venom, who became part of him. Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures

Contemporary dilemma

In a sense, Venom could have been more than just a comic book movie by addressing the contemporary dilemma of having to live in a world of too much noise and vitriol, where the only escape happens to be welcoming another personality that symbolizes severe aggression.

Unfortunately, Fleischer’s film is content with its lowbrow sci-fi, satisfied with being a loud and glossy mutation that marries B-movie shlock with comic book movie sensibilities. It could have worked if only the film had more guts to pull off its attempts at humorous hyper-violence.

However, to do so would have compromised its commercial intent. Instead, the film makes most of suggestive brutality and jokes.

However, there are no real surprises here.

The humor becomes so routine and repetitive that it gets tiring. The film also doesn’t maximize its affinity with villainy, resulting in conflicts that offer no true thrills and excitement. The climactic battle isn’t reinforced with any real value. The film is just lacking the drama to sustain any interest in its main conceit of forming a franchise out of a character with evil reputation but is forced to do good.

ATTACK. Venom goes out of control. Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures

Half-hearted

Venom is just so half-hearted that its pleasures are barely noticeable. It is a film that is unable to escape its own confusion of what it really wants to become.

It is so limp in everything it wants to do, it fails to penetrate anything.  – Rappler.com 

 

Francis Joseph Cruz litigates for a living and writes about cinema for fun. The first Filipino movie he saw in the theaters was Carlo J. Caparas’ Tirad Pass.

Since then, he’s been on a mission to find better memories with Philippine cinema. 

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