Venom

Blame Alex. I should have known when he texted late last week, asking if I'd see Venom. Then when I visited over the weekend, he insisted I give it a try. Well, it went better than that time he insisted I try the first 10 minutes of the Baywatch movie. It gave me the chance to make numerous innuendoes about tongue or swallowing. Take what I can get.

We get close to two hours of Tom Hardy acting nuts, arguing with the symbiote when it calls him a loser, or asks if he can eat someone. Not quite as far out there as Nic Cage's performance in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, but getting there. Hardy definitely leaves bite marks on the scenery. But watching him act like a lunatic who eats frozen tater tots and live lobsters while looking increasingly pale and sweaty is kind of funny.

Riz Ahmed as the creepy technocrat, high on how special and unique he thinks he is, makes for a pretty solid villain. The part where they're giving the schoolkids a tour, and he acts like he's going to answer the little girl's question, but then brushes it off after some pithy bullcrap. That show of being interested in other people and their questions, but he's so convinced of his superiority and power he doesn't even have to maintain it.

It's something I think he and Eddie have in common, because I don't feel like Eddie, for all that he exposes corruption, really cares about the people harmed by it. It's an ego thing, the joy of sticking it to people who think that never happens to them. Which yeah, is fun I'm sure. Everybody enjoys seeing entitled jerks get their comeuppance, but it's not necessarily a humanitarian pursuit.

Michelle Williams and Reid Scott as Anne and her new beau Dr. Dan do fine with what they've got. I did like that there isn't hostility between Eddie and Dan, them fighting over Anne. Granted, Eddie's got bigger problems, and the symbiote may have ideas of its own, but leaving that sort of posturing out was a good call. Would have just detracted from the movie, and you don't really need it for any emotional heft between Eddie and Anne. She has to weigh the feelings and concern she still has for him against the fact he did abuse her trust and he may always be the kind of selfish person who does that.

The big final battle between the two symbiotes is kind of a mess, with these two CGI goo monsters crashing into each other and throwing themselves around. The car chase through San Francisco is fine, nothing special as those things go. Tom Hardy's terrified reactions as the symbiote keeps saving him are what make it worthwhile.

I don't think it's a good movie by any stretch, but it exceeded my low expectations. That it's willing to be silly and that Hardy's willing to commit to playing Eddie as a guy who fell to pieces entirely once things went wrong helps.