The Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is now 20 movies deep and counting, is beginning to evolve, but not in a way that is particularly groundbreaking. The MCU is fun—some of the films, like Black Panther, are even great—but there is a sameness to the whole ordeal that feels close to wearing thin. Superhero movies can be only so synonymous and bizarrely sexless for so long before they start feeling tired. Thus, the non-MCU superhero films that shake up the formula—the meta crassness of Deadpool and the Western-inspired vibes of Logan—are a breath of fresh air.
Which brings us to Venom. Is Venom a good movie? Absolutely not. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if it won every single Razzie award next year. But Venom is also one of the most entertaining and idiosyncratic theatergoing experiences of 2018. Actual good movies achieve symbiosis between lead performers and the people behind the camera; with Venom, director Ruben Fleischer is trying his darndest to make a straightforward superhero (antihero?) movie, while Tom Hardy mounts a stunning resistance with a beguiling lead performance that feels like part Tommy Wiseau, part ’80s New Yorker “I’M WALKIN’ OVAH HEAH” on quaaludes.
Nothing about Venom works in isolation, but as a slimy coagulation of competing ideas, it’s the best Good Bad Movie in years. I can’t stop thinking about Venom, to the point that I’m concerned an alien parasite infected my body and a deep, surly voice inside my head is gonna tell me I’m a loser several times (which happens to Tom Hardy in Venom).
The best way to comprehend Venom’s badness is to break down all its individual, incomprehensible parts. To do this, I’m going to have to dive into heavy spoiler territory—and while I usually urge caution for these things, I promise knowing the most batshit moments of Venom will do nothing to spoil your enjoyment of the film. Without further ado, here is why Venom is the new Citizen Kane.
The Gift of Tom Hardy
Were there Venom MVP voting, Tom Hardy would be the unanimous selection, and it’s not even close. Hardy is the reason this hot mess transcends boring movie badness to become something unmistakable. His work is unhinged.
Hardy imbues his character—a super-cool journalist (shout out oxymorons) named Eddie Brock—with an awkward twitchiness that, frankly, makes no sense given that he’s the on-camera personality of a popular investigative series. (The Eddie Brock Show is basically the Vice-themed episode of Documentary Now!.) Imagine if Anderson Cooper drove a motorcycle during his opening credits, had tribal arm tattoos, wore a leather jacket, slurred his words, and frequently avoided eye contact during interviews.
Pre-symbiote-infected Eddie is a strange, fascinating human being. He’s dating a successful corporate lawyer (four-time Oscar nominee Michelle Williams, get that paper) and living with a cat named Mister Belvedere—that is, until Eddie breaks into her work computer to get incriminating information on Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed doing his best Elon Musk impersonation). For some reason, Eddie thinks that the best way to drop the bombshell he uncovered is in the middle of a puff-piece interview with Drake, despite the fact that he has nothing to corroborate his claims and has never once broached with his editor—or, for that matter, his company’s legal team—the idea of accusing one of the richest, most powerful men in the world of MURDER. Picture someone being like, “YO ELON, DO YOU KILL HOMELESS PEOPLE?” without context.
At this point, Venom is a fairly derivative movie, distinguished only by Hardy twitching and mumbling his way through boring dialogue. However, once the alien goo calling itself Venom infects Eddie, the whole enterprise becomes performance art. When Eddie and the alien symbiote first, uh, hook up, he begins scouring his apartment for frozen food to munch on. When that doesn’t satiate him, he burrows through his garbage and eats remaining bits of old chicken wings. Sweating profusely, Eddie rushes to his toilet and vomits; then, as he’s brushing his teeth, Venom speaks to him for the first time, causing him to shriek, fall back into his shower, and knock himself out. It’s the first of several scenes that require Hardy to pull off a heavily physical one-man show about a person slowly losing his mind and some of his bodily functions. In a later scene, Eddie storms into a restaurant—still sweating like a marathoner—and jumps into a lobster tank. He then chomps on a live lobster as Michelle Williams looks on in bewilderment, potentially confused about how she was convinced to sign up for this disasterpiece.
All of this works because Hardy just goes for it, in a way that recalls Johnny Depp in the first Pirates of the Caribbean or Bruce Campbell in the Evil Dead movies. Even if you don’t like those films, you have to respect the leads’ level of commitment. Prestige actors often get flak for jumping into superhero movies and “selling out,” but that doesn’t capture what Hardy does in Venom. He delivers a genuinely unforgettable performance, playing Eddie and Venom like a grotesque version of Jim Carrey in The Mask (or on the set of Man on the Moon). In so many ways, Venom purports to be a boilerplate antihero origin story; thankfully, Tom Hardy refused to let it be so average.
The Possibly Erotic Dynamic of Eddie Brock and Venom
At first, the slimy entity doesn’t really talk to Eddie; rather, it belts out commands in a gravelly voice. With Eddie minding his own business on the street, suddenly the slimy entity shouts “FOOD, NOW” in his head. (And what does Venom eat, by the way? Initially it seems that the creature subsists on live flesh, considering that it constantly wants to devour people—“I WANT TO EAT A BRAIN, EDDIE,” it helpfully notes at one point—and that after biting into a porterhouse steak at the aforementioned restaurant, it shouts “THIS IS DEAD!” But as it turns out, Venom also has cravings for tater tots and chocolate. The rules of the symbiote’s diet were not effectively laid out.)
As the movie progresses, and as Venom gets more comfortable speaking in complete sentences, the dynamic between the alien and Eddie reveals itself to be masochistic, to the point that it could inspire some curious fetish material on Tumblr. The symbiote repeatedly calls Eddie a “loser” and seems to get off on insulting him, tearing down Eddie while simultaneously acknowledging that they need one another to survive. More than once Eddie and Venom call to mind the twisted relationship at the center of Phantom Thread. When Eddie elects to take the elevator rather than jump off a skyscraper—he’s afraid of heights, you see—Venom retorts: “PUSSY.”
The semi-erotic, fully toxic relationship between host and symbiote reaches an actual erotic climax in the final act, when the slimy thing has been forced out of Eddie’s body but goes to great ends to get back in there. I have spoiled pretty much every facet of this movie, but I want to keep the details of how this happens under wraps; the only reason I’m even disclosing it is because Twitter can’t stop talking about it. Just know this: Eddie and Venom totally make out.
The Reason Venom Doesn’t Want to Wipe Out Humanity Is … Well, Please Read
Venom is just one of his kind; there were four symbiotes that landed on Earth with nefarious motivations. As Venom tells Eddie, the plan for wiping out humanity involved a plethora of additional symbiotes coming to Earth, infecting some human hosts, and eating everyone until mankind is rendered extinct. It’s a brutal plan from a brutal alien race.
But in a sudden about-face, Venom elects to help Eddie, explaining, “ON MY PLANET I AM KIND OF A LOSER, LIKE YOU.” Venom is the billionth character in a movie to provide a variation of “We’re not so different, you and I,” but this is the first film I can recall in which the exchange happens between a gooey alien parasite and a human being. Just throwing this out there: You guys are nothing alike!
So yes, Venom decides to help Eddie instead of its own kind because Venom feels really cool on Earth and, if more symbiotes show up, he’s gonna seem like a loser again. In Venom, the fate of humanity hinges on the collective debilitatingly low self-esteem of a down-on-his-luck journalist and a “loser” alien monstrocity.
I love this movie.
Quotes From the Movie Venom, Presented Without Context
Bodega owner: “How’s it going, Eddie?”
Eddie, in Sammy Davis Jr.’s voice: “Aches and pains ... aches and pains.”
Venom to Eddie: “WE HAVE NO SECRETS.”
Venom, an expert on human relationships: “YOU FEEL SAD WHEN YOU ARE WITH HER.”
Relationship expert Venom, once again: “LOOK AT HER. SHE HAS NO IDEA WE’RE GOING TO GET HER BACK.”
Eddie, coming to the realization that Drake has also paired with a symbiote:
“Ohhhh, he has one up his ass, too.”
Venom, talking to a nameless bad guy: “YOU WILL BE THIS ARMLESS, LEGLESS, FACELESS THING, WON’T YOU? ROLLING DOWN THE STREET, LIKE A TURD IN THE WIND.”
Michelle Williams, very earnestly, after Venom is supposedly extinguished: “I’m sorry about Venom.”
The (Terrible) Potential of a Venom Cinematic Universe
By all accounts, Venom is going to make a ton of money, both domestically and overseas. So despite the overwhelmingly negative reviews—“HATERS!” my symbiote just shouted inside my head—the box office haul should be enough for Sony Pictures to consider a sequel. Please let that happen.
On its part, Venom is already prepping for a follow-up. The movie has a mid-credits scene that is, well, terrible, but, considering that this film’s finest currency is it’s so-bad-it’s-good-ness, that is a feature, not a bug. (Big spoiler ahead!) Eddie has pivoted to the written word for some unexplained reason—seriously, dude, read, like, one trend piece about the future of journalism—which leads to him interviewing an imprisoned serial killer named Cletus Kasady, in what feels like a really bad spinoff of Mindhunter. That serial killer is played by Woody Harrelson with a terrible red wig. He says the word “carnage,” which just so happens to be the name of another notorious comic book villain. So yes, Venom sets up a sequel in which Hardy’s gooey antihero will face off against an even more sinister symbiote that has latched onto an actual psychopath.
And I will love Venom 2: Symbiote Boogaloo—not because it looks good, but because it will bless us with not just Unhinged Tom Hardy, but Unhinged, Red-Wigged Woody Harrelson. Imagine if Wild Wild West had a sequel green-lit. (Also, imagine how funny it’s going to be if a sequel doesn’t happen, and Woody Harrelson was paid just to spend a couple of days in a dark room wearing an awful wig.)
Good Bad Movies nourish the soul; in the right mood, and with the right group of friends, they make for the perfect moviegoing experience. Venom is one of these films. If The Ringer updates its best Good Bad Movies ranking, this masterpiece should crack the top 10. This weekend, A Star Is Born might earn all the critical praise en route to a months-long Oscars campaign. As for me? I’ve fallen off the deep end with Venom.
