Sony’s Spider-Man may be hanging out with the Avengers in Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe, but that hasn’t stopped the studio from creating its own spin-off franchise.
Enter Venom, best known as one of the Web Slinger’s villains, he last featured in the poorly-received and over-bloated Spider-Man 3 back in 2007.
But with Tom Hardy playing Eddie Brock, the host to the alien symbiote that gives him superhuman powers, can the character stand on its own two feet without Spider-Man?
Despite the hopes of Marvel fans this is sadly not the case.
When Venom was announced as an R-rated/15 certificate superhero spin-off starring a talent like Hardy, the film certainly sounded promising.
However the darker, more adult take on the character was ditched for your standard PG-13/12A outing, but without all the charm and excitement of the golden age of superhero movies that has been led by Disney’s MCU.
The main problem with Venom isn’t that Hardy seems to think he’s acting in a light-hearted tongue-in-cheek affair, or that the film is pretty boring throughout, it’s the fact that it’s just so unnecessary.
Venom has nothing new to offer to the genre. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s that it’s plain old ‘meh’. A film that feels like what you’d expect from a below average superhero flick circa 2004, like Ghost Rider or Fantastic Four.
It’s not all dark and serious though, with a few giggles put in here and there, but many of the intended jokes just fell flat with the audience.
To be fair to Venom, the vicious symbiote itself is the best part of the movie, being saved for its first proper reveal until a third of the way through – although the CGI is somewhat ropey at times.
But the character is best known as a Spider-Man villain and so we’re left with it suddenly being this anti-hero goodie, despite wanting to eat people’s heads off, against Riz Ahmed’s Riot, which never feels quite right.
At the end of the day Venom didn’t need his own solo movie, he’d have faired much better as a villain in a Tom Holland Spider-Man movie, just as the comics intended. But as Hardy has teased, hopefully that will become a reality in the future so this lacklustre outing can be redeemed.
The official synopsis for Venom reads: “Journalist Eddie Brock is trying to take down Carlton Drake, the notorious and brilliant founder of the Life Foundation.
“While investigating one of Drake’s experiments, Eddie’s body merges with the alien Venom – leaving him with superhuman strength and power.
“Twisted, dark and fuelled by rage, Venom tries to control the new and dangerous abilities that Eddie finds so intoxicating.”
Venom is in UK cinemas now and in US cinemas on October 5.