VENOM! Preview

In this world of frequent superhero movies, it can get pretty repetitive seeing ordinary people get powers just to fight a villain and save the day. Venom is exactly like this!... but also kind of the opposite. It's seemingly a dark horror but also a 12A (PG-13) superhero film? Tom Hardy is playing a villainous monster that eats people but is still the good guy?? Oh and Venom is Spider-Man's greatest villain so where does he fit into all this? It's all very confusing but I'm here to clear it all up and tell you what you need to know before deciding whether to be exited or not! There will be no spoilers, I will only talk about the things seen in trailers. Enjoy!

"Eyes, lungs, Pancleeass" (that's not a typo, read on to the last paragraph) 

Ok so let's start with who Venom is or as I should say, what Venom is. Without going into too much detail, Venom is a 'sentient alien symbiote' which is usually in a liquidised form until it finds a host. Once it finds a host, it bonds with them creating the horrific monster you can see in the picture above. It must feed on humans to then sustain its own life form. Venom creates a dual personality with the human host. It can switch drivers. Basically, Venom can take control of the human body or the human can take control of the Venom body. The two share a constant mental power struggle. Sounds pretty awesome right? So the movie should be too!... maybe so, maybe not. There's a couple things that make this film uncertain for me...

The first reason is Spider-Man. It is seemingly confirmed Spidey will not appear in this movie (although they're being weirdly ambiguous about it). The problem with this is that Venom was made for Spider-Man, originally as an alien life form that turns spidey evil but then also as Spidey's greatest villain when it takes over different hosts, most notable of which is Eddie Brock. Ok, so maybe they will use Venom in the next Spidey movie. Hmmm well, I'll attempt to keep this short. The rights to use Spider-Man in movies are kind of co-owned by Sony and Disney. Disney makes the mainstream Marvel movies hence Spider-Man in the Marvel cinematic universe. These are however limited rights. Sony still owns the rights to other Spider-man characters like Venom. That's not to say they can't crossover though. Originally this standalone Venom movie was to be rated 15 (R) due to the violence, imagery and tone. This was recently lowered to being a 12A (PG-13). Rumour has it, Sony wants to keep the doors open for future Spidey involvement and will try to lessen the violence and lighten the tone of Venom to do this. This defeats some excitement for me. Venom is a human eating, foul-mouthed, vile and hella scary savage. A lightened tone and increased humour defeats the purpose for me.

Could it work as a less violent action movie? Well there's no doubt Venom looks awesome and the action scenes look cool. Tom Hardy is a great actor and seems to be a great fit for Eddie Brock. The trailer has some cool dialogue and looks to explore the alien symbiotes quite well. The villain, well antagonist, of the movie, is Dr Carlton Drake played by British actor Riz Ahmed. The trailer sets him up as a scientist with possibly good intention and hidden agendas that take him down a dangerous path which, directly collides with Tom Hardy's Eddie. I believe that both of these actors will do a great job in setting up a rivalry that's grounded, exciting and intense. The way the trailer has shown the parasite of Venom taking over Eddie looks insanely cool. The duality is at the heart of this dynamic. Venom can stick its head out of Eddie's human body and talk to him face to face or through reflections. They communicate both physically and mentally as you can see from the picture below.

"WE can do whatever WE want" 

Sony hasn't had much luck with Spider-Man previously with the Andrew Garfield Spidey movies being rated quite low and cancelled after just two. Now I like the darker, more mature and sinister comic book movies like Watchmen, Logan, Deadpool, and BvS so I was super excited for this movie and still am. Less so with the drop in age rating but still intrigued to see if the movie can get me to fear Venom and the symbiote as I should. With Venom not being the only symbiote in the movie, I fear the climax will be a huge CGI battle with very little practical effects. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, they can't exactly have someone actually eat someone! However, I feel sometimes this distances the movie too far from it's grounded roots and can damage the narrative. 

Having explored what Venom is, and the exiting and less exciting things, let's wrap this preview blog post up. As you can see, the stills from the movie do look amazing. The cast is strong and the story seems rightfully simple and more character focused on Eddie and how he deals with the Venom parasite. I think the lack of Spidey is a positive, allowing the movie to go slightly darker than family friendly. However, this is limited now that the age rating has lowered. I am genuinely hoping it's a good action thriller. There are two lines of dialogue in the trailers that I don't like but maybe i'm just nitpicking. Listen out for the way Venom pronounces 'pancreas' (i'm being serious) and also how he describes a 'turd in the wind' (again, I'm being serious he says that). Has Venom seen an actual turd in the wind?! I don't know, maybe it just sounds weird to me.  

So that's all for this week, check out the trailer by clicking here and see for yourself. I give Venom a Blog of Steel anticipation rating of 7 out of 10! well it's a 6 really but that Eminem Venom theme song is awesome and deserves to get an extra point. Does the dialogue work for you? Are you ok with it being a 12A? Does Venom scare you or just look weird and silly? Let me know if you are excited about this movie by commenting below or tweeting me @Akash_Sond. Hope you enjoyed this post and feel more informed! Watch out for my next post by subscribing by email on the top right of the page and share this with friends and family by using the social media buttons just below. Until next time, stay frosty! 

It's like he says 'Pancleeass' instead of 'pancreas' (1:28 in the trailer). It's a weird body part to mention as it is, at least say it right! Maybe it's just me that finds it strange. Oh no! I've said it so much that it's stuck! pancleeass will never be the same!