This movie had a few strikes against it. I'm not a huge fan of the principle actors. Tom Hardy is fine, but his American accents very often make him sound brain damaged or at least punch-drunk. Michelle Williams, who plays Anne, the love interest, has never done it for me. Her acting is not spectacular enough nor are her choices of roles sufficiently up my alley for me to have seen her in anything that I enjoyed. Thus, her playing the love interest in an action/comic-book movie is another negative for me, since I will have very little interest in the hero's emotional arc. Girlfriends in comic book movies are not sufficiently developed people to care about, so they had better be hot if you want me to be invested in the hero's attempt to appease her, especially since that is usually a diversion from the sorts of things one goes to such movies to see the hero do.

Aside from them, there is the twitchy pilot from "Rogue One" playing an Eon Musk type, a corporate empire scientist, sort of like Norman Osborne, who is bringing the symbiote back from space, and Jenny Slate, from "Parks and Recreation" plays one of his henchscientists. The one with a personality and multiple lines.

Anyway, the last movie with Venom was notoriously awful, and easily the worst of the tedious Spider-man trilogy with Tobey Mcguire. Given Venom's role in that franchise, it really seems impossible to make a solo vehicle work, since he appears to be intrinsically connected to Spider-man. It would be like making a movie about Lex Luthor or Magneto without Superman or Xavier, but moreso, because they at least sort of have their own thing going on that conflicts with the heroes' thing. Venom is just Spider-man's evil twin, who came from Spider-man directly. More than 20 years ago, I read a novel where Spider-man and Venom had to team up against, I believe the Goblin guy from the movies, but I think I can recall Spider-man calling him a different name than Osborne. So I got a little more backstory on the original Venom (which is even stupider - Spider-man let aliens make him a costume with no explanation for how a costume had superpowers and then he was astounded to find there was a catch - I have very little respect for Peter's intellect in any iteration I've ever encountered).

Anyway, this movie totally cuts off any connection with the SPider-man movies, except for the fact that in the credits, there is a character who had no lines in the movie and no one identifying or addressing him on-screen, named J Jonah Jameson. And I think there is a thing where someone references Eddie Brock getting in trouble with the Daily Bugle & necessitating his movie to San Francisco, where the whole movie is set.

Eddie is an investigative field reporter for a TV network, whose work seems to focus on homeless and poor people who get victimized and the lack of resources dedicated to their situations. Then he defies specific orders from his boss to do a puff piece on Riz Ahmed's character, Carlton Drake, asking prying questions on camera about a lawsuit, he loses his job. And because he learned about the lawsuit by going through his lawyer-fiancee's private work documents, she gets fired by her firm, which works for Drake, and as a result, dumps him. So instead of hating on Peter, he hates that company, and eventually becomes exposed to a symbiote that the company brought to Earth on their private space ships. The company wants the symbiote back, Eddie hates the company, the symbiote does not want to go back, has a natural inclination toward extreme violence and cannibalism and little sense of proportion and so we get this movie.

And it's really not bad. I definitely enjoyed it more than the Tobey McGuire movies and the second Andrew Garfield movie. Honestly, I'm not the hugest fan of Peter Parker or Spider-man. I think I only liked "Homecoming" to the extent I did, because of its tie-in to a superior franchise, and had an established figure of respect putting him in his place. I kind of find that signature moral aphorism connected with Spider-man a bit off and morally deficient. It was good to see someone filling in the blanks, even if Tony is being absolutely OOC in being the one to do it. But hypocritical douche is not outside his wheelhouse, either, so it still works.

Anyway, "Venom". I think cutting free of all the Spider-man baggage and making everything about the problems that writers all seem to love to throw at Peter because the rule is he has to suffer, whether he deserves it or not. Venom is actually more interesting, because he's actually a problematic vigilante, who is bad in the way people screenwriters seem to think the Punisher is, except they won't let the Punisher cross some lines, like shoot the wrong person.

An interesting thing in this, is that Venom is the symbiote's name, rather than the name of the gestalt entity of symbiote+Brock. The symbiote is the one who grows and changes in the movie, and decides he likes Earth and becomes invested in helping Eddie, and he identifies himself as Venom in a conversation with Eddie, and other characters use the name 'Venom' in a context clearly referring exclusively to the symbiote. But Venom is restrained to whatever extent he is, but the morals of Eddie Brock, but otherwise has absolutely no qualms about eating people for whom they have no emotional attachment. Eddie is a sanctimonious activist journalist whose compassion for the less fortunate manifests as a desire to punish those he perceives as peripherally responsible. That means, that when he gets superhuman strength and extrasensory awareness of his surroundings and the ability to make tentacles with no apparent material limits, and serves as the sole restraint on a cannibalistic psychopath of a monster, there are going to be people getting eaten who don't strictly speaking, deserve it. And there is no question that personal feelings motivate Eddie (and by extension, Venom) a lot more than any concern for justice, and they don't really help anyone aside from Eddie & Venom.

This, being the introductory movie, is about the process of getting Eddie & Venom to the point I describe above, as Eddie comes to understand what is happening to him and Venom adjusts his thinking to compatibility with his symbiotic organism. He does not like being called a parasite, by the way.

The best part of the film is the interactions of Eddie and Venom. Venom is mostly a voice-over that only Eddie can hear, although when he is in full costume mode, sometimes speaks out loud. People with an accent or unique sort of voice saying "Eddie" always cracks me up and brings to mind Eddie Murphy's routine about getting himself an African wife. But Venom's voice is deep and sinister (kind of like Bane, so it's probably Hardy, but with a little Darth Vader echo-y quality), but his commentary is often sarcastic or derisive, and is often expressing interest in a very direct solution to Eddie's immediate problem. And Hardy's reactions to that stuff is great.

Another different handling of a thing in this movie, is Anne & her new relationship, who is actually not the sort of despicable cardboard cutout the ex's current significant other usually is, and generally behaves rather reasonably toward Eddie. Anne is pretty reasonable toward Eddie herself, considering her reason for dumping him is objectively correct and inarguable, but that does mean you spend the whole movie waiting for the other shoe to drop in regard to the trio. And when it does, however disappointing, it makes sense for the PORTRAYAL of Venom and their character.

It's kind of like Deadpool, except for not being explicitly a comedy, in that it has a kind of cartoony quality more appropriate considering the source material than the head-up-its-own-ass gravitas in which the non-MCU films of this genre usually wallow.

It's not going to change your life or anything, but it's a fun 100 minutes. What else can you ask for?

There are two post-credit scenes. One is fairly early on and sets up a sequel, which is promising just from the casting alone. The second, which comes after 800 million visual effects people's names (I had to pee pretty bad, and I ran out after the first, mid-credit, scene, went to the restroom, hit the urinal, and came back, with plenty of time before the 2nd one finally came up) is an excerpt from a new Spider-man cartoon movie coming out, where a bunch of alternate universe Spider-men come together, including an adult Peter Parker, an awkward black kid, Gwen with Spider-powers and a bipedal talking pig.

Sidebar rant on an issue I hate in movies, because screenwriters are stupid about itOr not so much in this case. When asked how he knew to ask Drake the insider questions, at least Eddie avoids the cliche in which a reporter refuses to disclose a source. That trope (and real world argument) is bullshit. It's a sensible professional tactic for a reporter, because it does help him do his job, but it is NOT a legitimate issue of confidentiality which other professions have with their clients. A reporter's "clientele" is the general public, which is only indirectly served by the reporter keeping secrets. Confidentiality is for those professions that need their clients to trust them absolutely, in order to allow them to serve those clients to the best of their ability. Professions like priest or therapist or real doctor or, wait, I know, LAWYER! Drake had every right to demand that Anne's firm fire her, no matter how evil he is, because her clients need to know their stuff is private. That she doesn't reveal the information willingly is the only reason she still has her license, but it doesn't really excuse her, since she made a serious error in judgment in giving Eddie access to her life. The great thing about this movie, is that it never exonerates Eddie for that, nor has her apologize for her reaction.