Nothing makes sense, least of all the story. It wants to be an anti-hero story. That's all fine and dandy, except that Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) has no real flaw. There can be no anti-hero if the main character is already heroic. Eddie faces no personal obstacle that prevents him from saving the day. Venom, himself, is a simple guy with a simple flaw: he's an alien that enjoys eating people. This seems to be his entire reason for existing and for being on earth. Then, bam, just like that, he changes. He's actually a nice guy, a team player. No genuine motivation for the change exists.
While I'm slicing up the story, I might as well mention that it takes far too long for Venom and Eddie Brock to be conjoined. The film makes the classic error of starting too early in the story. While the world building is a necessary evil in sci-fi, too much (and somehow too little) hurts more than it helps.
The character development, as is already clear, is something the writers and directors didn't seem to care about. The villain is a rehash of Apocalypse and Zamasu. He thinks he is above humanity and uses the Bible on one occasion to get someone to do his bidding, so I suppose that makes him Luciferian as well. Take all the bad guyness from any superhero movie you can think of and strip it of any emotional weight and anything to make the audience care. That's Carlton Drake/Riot (Riz Ahmed).
Even the female lead, Anne Weying (Michelle Williams), isn't immune to all the development this movie doesn't have.
On to the acting, shall we? Actually, let's move on. There isn't any acting involved, just a bunch of guys going through the motions. I don't see how they could do anything else. The script is a hodgepodge of mostly random sequences and basic origin story stuff.
Venom has no idea what tone it should keep. The moments of intense drama are undone by the film's disinterested attitude towards them. An important character gets murdered and it's like, okay, that happened. The romance angle doesn't work. The film fails to convey tension and heartbreak. Also, since it's Venom, there are elements taken from the horror genre and turned into a game of tag. Go figure.
Pretty much the only entertaining moments in the movie stem from Venom's voiceovers. On a handful of sequences, I genuinely laughed, and not from accidental humor caused by directorial shortcomings. Those few crumbs kept my interest piqued just enough to keep watching without feeling entirely brain-dead. They do not, unfortunately, make up for the rest of this mess.
If anyone expects me to compliment the chase scene and CGI action sequences, you've got another thing coming. I'm not Michael Bay. Recycling explosions and set pieces from superior films does not get me excited. Action that is both cool and helps character development does (think the last three Mission: Impossible movies and The Incredibles).
Whew! That was tasty.
But was she Thicci?
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