Venom: A botched-up origin story begging for a sequel to start afresh

Never mind the critics, trust Marvel nerds to dash to the nearest  IMAX to catch the murmuring Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) become Venom.

And they should. The origin story of the eccentric anti-hero is not entirely flawed. By the time credits hit the screen and Eminem’s potent title track bamboozles your senses, the post-credit scenes will step in to wash down the film’s lazy writing. Don’t you get the message? It’s the Marvel Universe you just inhabited — be thankful and move on.

It’s difficult to stomach the fact that such an anticipated origin story of an anti-hero — in a universe overrun by superheroes — was left to action and animation. Sticking to the comic book is no justification for a bad screenplay. It takes Brock, the investigative reporter who’s trying to expose the evil designs of Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed) — the Elon Musk of Venom, who sends rockets into space to find habitable planets and bags an extraterrestrial life-form instead — just half-a-day’s physical struggle to get used to an alien living inside his body. And the symbiote (as its kind is known), whose job is to feed on its human host, finds a brother from another mother in Brock, and decides to deceive his own kind to save the earth. Who doesn’t like a visual rendition of a good ol’ comic book, but where’s the finesse?

I find it extremely difficult to place this film within the superhero genre. It’s spooky in one scene, funny for a few punches and dark only in atmospherics. And Venom, the supposedly terrifying-yet-funny alien who bites off human heads for kicks, is as mushy as it is gooey. That wouldn’t have been such an odd thing if there was any depth to his character, or Brock’s. After all, the whole point of an origin story is to develop the lead characters.

However, once their unison is established, Brock’s chemistry with his alien alter-ego is palpable. Venom is determined to get Anne Weying (Michelle Williams), Brock’s love interest, back in his life, and jumps in with his ill-timed love advice whenever he gets the chance. It’s an uncanny threesome.

Poster from movie Venom.

At almost two hours, Venom moves quickly. There’s a well-edited road chase, which is made more engaging with a death metal track playing in the background and a realistic outcome. When Venom takes over Brock (like Hulk takes over Bruce Banner), it becomes a devilishly beautiful character, especially in the deep blacks of IMAX 3D. The climax, however, is led down by a predictably shoddy plot when Venom (in Brock’s body), the anti-hero, takes on Riot (another symbiote in Drake’s), the villain. We all know what happens in the end. The action sequence slows down to show all four faces in a single frame — kudos to the animation studio. And that’s about all the praise that the sequence deserves.

Even Ryan Reynolds played Green Lantern before he became the badass Deadpool. This one is clearly not on Hardy. The worthy superhero is just dealt a bad hand in Venom. The eponymous character must redeem itself by playing third fiddle in Spiderman films till it proves itself worthy of a sequel. Or maybe, it’s time to fold.

Speaking of badass superheroes and worthy sequels, maybe it’s time to get Will Smith back as Hancock.