Movie Review: “Venom” is not for the faint of heart

Venom opened on Oct. 5, just in time for the Halloween season.

“Venom” opened on Oct. 5, just in time for the Halloween season.

Alex Glaspie, Staff Writer

Based off of Marvel’s Spiderman Comics, “Venom”, came to theaters nationwide on Oct. 5. Actors Michelle Reed, Riz Ahmed and Jenny Slate star alongside Tom Hardy, who portrays the movie’s protagonist.

The story follows successful news reporter Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy), who lives with his fiancée, a lawyer named Anne Weying (Michelle Reed), who represents the Life Foundation and their CEO, Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed). When Eddie is asked to interview Drake for a story on the Life Foundation’s space exploration, he turns the story on the CEO and uses information from Anne’s confidential court files to expose him. Following this, Anne and Eddie are simultaneously fired from their jobs and Anne dumps Eddie because of the way he used her.

Diving into Carlton Drake’s background, the story follows how he sent a rocket to space that picked up four unexplained life forms found on other planets called Symbiods. These liquid like organisms can only survive on Earth if they are bonded with a host, which leads Drake to start testing humans to see whether they can survive with the Symbiod inside of them.

In an unfortunate turn of events, Eddie Brock is merged with one of the Symbiods and becomes the anti-hero, Venom, who takes over Eddie’s body.

A major highlight of the film was the overall action that had viewers on the edge of their seats for the duration of the movie. The special effects used to fuse Eddie and the body of Venom together were very impressive, including how they used the liquid substance that makes up Venom to form different weapons and shields to fight off attackers. Notably, the humor of the movie was also excellent. In an otherwise dark and disturbing movie, the jokes that were made between Venom and Eddie lightened up the mood.

However, this movie is not for the faint-hearted, as there was an incredible amount of gore from start to finish. It’s a given that in a Marvel movie, moviegoers will witness people fight and kill each other, but what was portrayed throughout the trials that Drake held was enough to make viewers walk out of the theater.

With such high reviews from critics and raving comments from people who had already seen it, the movie was sure to be a hit, but it lacked sensitivity. Nonetheless, if the box office is any indication, the movie is a must-see and so is the supposed sequel that was set up in the credits at the end of the movie.

Overall Rating: 4/5