Venom

Hardy would be funny even if he played a used roll of toilet paper. This is true even in a film that is written and composed as cumbersomely as Venom. Something is being prepared for a very long time and quite illogically, then everything is revealed and resolved very quickly. The disobedient film works thanks to Hardy's charm. But it is on pretty thin ice. (24/10/2019)

One of Marvel's most interesting characters finally made it to the silver screen, but it deserved a better story, a little better execution, and overall better care. Such an entertaining, strong and hard-nosed antihero could have been handled much better than waiting a third of the film, getting to know him a third and then lurking in front of a green screen for a while. Hardy does a decent job in the role of a weird journalist, but his digital counterpart is considerably worse. Boring. 20 minutes in, and you know how it's going to end, and of course there's going to be a final battle, because you usually can't do without that in comic book adaptations these days. So predictable. (07/01/2019)

Venom is getting a lot of hate so far, because critics on RottenTomatoes gave it an average rating of only 4.3, but on IMDB it's a rather satisfactory 7.0, so again it looks like the audience is mostly satisfied, only the critics are grumbling, but they always do when it's not a sophisticated drama, musical or cheap indie. Personally I wasn't expecting much, but Ruben Fleischer, director of Zombieland and Gangster Squad, has once again pleasantly surprised me. It's a shame it’s not R-rated, but it still looks pretty gritty and dark even without the blood. The opening half hour is slightly slower, but once Tom Hardy meets Venom (the scene in the lab is atmospherically horrific), the film becomes an action adrenaline ride to the end that doesn't let off the gas. Tom Hardy's performance is different than ever before and he's surprisingly very funny, and those who like the guy will like him even more after this. Venom's voice is also great and his looks are perfect. The action is great, even though it often takes place in the dark, it's still suspenseful, gritty enough and with decent cinematography. So my only criticisms are the mediocre villain and the rather underwhelming finale, but I had a great time and that's what comic-book movies are all about. Woody Harrelson as Carnage is going to be awesome. The theater was packed, I hope the film succeeds financially. 75% (04/10/2018)

Following on from conflicting mixed reviews, I didn’t expect much, and in the end, Venom is just sort of OK – which slightly irritates me because this film could have been much better. This is due in part to the limits of a PG-13 certificate, so scenes intended to be gory are either cut so that you can’t see the gore, or made in a ridiculous way of not showing blood (for example, a symbiote turns its limbs into sharp blades, but does not slice up their opponents; instead he throws them on the side). The plot is nothing new – it’s a relatively engaging origin story with, unfortunately, a completely generic and uninteresting villain played by Riz Ahmed. At times, the logic is lost, like when Venom tells Eddie that he was in his head and knows everything about him, but then five minutes later he asks who Anne is. Paradoxically, the film works best as a comedy with Tom Hardy humorously muttering and fooling around, which is a fail if Venom is intended as a darker film – because it isn’t. (09/01/2019)

Sometimes I'm happy to be wrong. And I haven't been so wrong for a long time as when I was proclaiming that Tom Hardy, with his certain type of grim expression, could in no way be a suitable Eddie Brock. But he is not only good in the role of a talkative stubborn person, he is excellent. When combined with the thankfully presented second voice in his head, the comedic potential of the resulting situations, and the imaginative action scenes, Venom is a surprisingly enjoyable bit of entertainment. I would obligatorily send the authors of reviews that qualitatively equate the efforts of the Sony stable with the level of such bombs from the beginning of the century as Elektra or The Punisher to go fetch the DVDs of the aforementioned films and refresh their memory. (10/10/2018)