Venom

Vampire Owl: This creature is known to me from a long time ago.

Vampire Bat: Which one exactly are you talking about?

Vampire Owl: The one with the twisted tongue and bad teeth, coloured black or really dark grey.

Vampire Bat: That was a creature summoned by the Northern Witches. This is an alien we have here.

Vampire Owl: I don’t think that the creatures among these are less alien.

Vampire Bat: The portal to other dimensions is closed now, and so I don’t think that there is the need to discuss this matter.

Vampire Owl: Well, I had this vision. The portal is no more in ruins.

Vampire Bat: You have no gift of dream vision!

Vampire Owl: Well, there is one that goes with the nightmare visions.

Vampire Bat: You will need to prove it after watching this movie.

[Gets three cups of cardamom tea with Tiger Biscuits].

What is the movie about? :: A bio-engineering corporation known as Life Foundation has been sending probes into space, as it would stop at nothing to find the unknown. There is something sinister about the organization and its CEO Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), who is known to be a man of mysteries with many allegations related to human rights violation made about him. He is still one of the richest and the most powerful men in the nation though, who tries to keep a clean image in more than one way. It is during those times that one of the corporation’s probe finds something which it cannot control. With four symbiotic life forms, it crashes in the remote area of Malaysia, and one of the symbiotes known as Riot escapes to the wilderness, possessing different people at different times, as it made its way towards the Head Quarters of the Life Foundation, leaving a trail of dead bodies.

So, what happens next? :: The three remaining symbiotes are transported to San Francisco, where the Head Quarters and the main research facility of the corporation are located. There, Carlton goes on to remake the human body with a combination of the two, as the creatures can’t live without human support and he believes that it could make humanity better. But he finds out that it resists and kills the human host on most occasion, and this process known as symbiosis is really difficult to achieve. Meanwhile, investigative journalist Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) reads about these human trials in a classified document which is with his lover and fiancee, Anne Weying (Michelle Williams) who is a lawyer. He confronts Carlton regarding the same, and he is fired from his job. At the same time, Anne is also terminated from her job for leaking classified information, and there, the relationship between the two ends.

And, what is to follow next in the adventure? :: Wandering in the streets without doing anything substantial, Eddie is approached by a Life Foundation scientist Dora Skirth (Jenny Slate) who reveals the the horrors that have been happening in the research facility of the corporation, and asks him to do something about it. He is initialliy reluctant as he is no longer a journalist, and feels that he doesn’t have enough resources to expose him. He asks her to contact the police or someone with high influence, but she is not someone who would give up that easily. Finally, he decides to break into the facility with her help, and find clues to how the illegal activities are going on there. There he tries to help Maria (Melora Walters), a homeless woman who is one of the subjects, and has a symbiote inside her. The result is that the symbiote which identifies as Venom gets into him, and everything begins to change.

The defence of Venom :: Venom is the anti-hero that rises to the occasion yet again – without the silliness of Deadpool, this one opposite to Spider-Man is certainly the better anti-hero compared to Wolverine’s opponent in his origins story. Our hero of Mad Max: Fury Road, Tom Hardy is no stranger to the chaos which can be seen on the big screen. The Dark Knight Rises had him bringing chaos as Bane, and here we have the internal chaos at work. Michelle Williams is a fine addition too, and she even gets to become the Lady Venom herself – that was one of the best moments in the movie. There is also the big symbiotic fight by the end of the movie, and by that time, we already had some big fights in between with Venom taking over and fighting through the mortals of Planet Earth with ease. Riz Ahmed makes a fine villain, a controlled one at the same time too.

The claws of flaw :: It is to be noted that Venom doesn’t maintain the same pace throughout the movie, even though it could have easily done that with Tom Hardy and Michelle Williams around. The symbiotes are worth more than this, as more experiments could have made the whole setup darker even while keeping the lighter side there. The beginning of the movie could have been better too. You see how well the other Marvel characters have turned out to be with their solo movies – Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Ant-Man, Thor – all have had their appreciation, and Venom had to stand out to reach that level, considering the fact that it came later. We would have always wanted more of Lady Venom, which is special in its own way. Maybe, a sequel could do the trick by adding more of this creature, and could focus further in a world unknown too.

How it finishes :: Venom doesn’t just manage to be better than the other anti-hero Deadpool, but it also proves to be better than its own nemesis Spider-Man in Spider-Man Homecoming. Compared to a matured Venom, those two are not of much significance. The team of the host and the parasite makes a lot of fun in store, as this one should defeat the new Spider-Man at some point, and bring another reboot with our older Spider-Man movies. It is the next level of hope that we all have. Until then, enjoy Venom as the two personalities in one, half-alien, half-earthling, and with Tom Hardy and Michelle Williams who power the same. Marvel continues its winning run, and whatever they make, seems to be of more significance than those made by anyone else. At the same time, one can keep wondering about the possibility of having Venom with the Avengers – can’t they let this alien save the world in a big way too?

Release date: 5th October 2018
Running time: 112 minutes
Directed by: Ruben Fleischer
Starring: Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams, Scott Haze, Reid Scott, Riz Ahmed, Jenny Slate, Melora Walters, Chris O’Hara, Sam Medina, Sope Aluko, Scott Deckert, Marcella Bragio, Michelle Lee, Mac Brandt, Christian Convery, Ron Cephas Jones