Venom is an incredibly stupid movie.
Venom is a fairly entertaining movie.
You got my stupidity in my entertainment.
No you got your entertainment in my stupidity.
Two great tastes that taste great together!
So which is it?
Considering Venom is a movie about the worst case of split personality ever, it is only fitting that both answers are correct.
Let's start with the stupid... and there is plenty of it. Apparently in this part of the Marvel Universe, evil Elon Musk type visionary villains are smart enough to bring back live organisms from space. They are smart enough to secure them in a lab. But they are not smart enough to have a single security camera in the multi-billion dollar lab which contains priceless irreplaceable specimens.
In addition to this utterly ludicrous hole, there is a completely stupid and unnecessary love story that takes 20 minutes too long to be established and destroyed. How about a nice montage of the happy couple and then jump to the point where our anti-hero destroys the relationship?
Why am I in this scene again?
What makes this relationship even stupider is the fact that the ex-girlfriend (played HORRIBLY by Michelle Williams) shows up everywhere. And I mean everywhere. Huge firefight between a SWAT team and a giant man-eating alien? She simply wanders in. An even bigger battle between two giant man-eating aliens? Oh there she is again. A forest filled with assassins who inexplicably march their would-be victim for just enough time for him to be saved? Of course she is there. And this is after the couple is broken up! I can't imagine how much time they spent together when they were a couple.
Wait. What am I doing? Why am I wasting time telling you each stupid detail. Let me just sum it up like this. Any scene that does not involve Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and Venom is completely idiotic.
So how could this ridiculous mess still be entertaining?
It's freaking Venom!
Venom is awesome... and surprisingly funny.
By the way, I only brought my 13 year old son to see this movie and he loved it. It would not be appropriate for my 11 year old daughter.
Not only did I really enjoy the special effects that brought Venom and the other alien symbiotes to life, I actually enjoyed the dialogue between Eddie Brock and Venom. Add to that the fact that the fight scenes, car chases and other action sequences were all well done and you have yourself a nice piece of mindless entertainment.
Sadly, if they had done a better job with the music, it could have been a lot more fun. The credits were filled with some pretty cool rap songs that would have paired very well with the action sequences. Instead, the music seemed like a very cheap afterthought. It was unoriginal, pedestrian and quite boring.
Although Eminem hasn't released a good song in... forever, this video is actually pretty cool.
Speaking of credits... the first after the credit scene is very cool if you are in on the inside joke. The second stinger is an extended scene from the upcoming animated move Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse. I already know I will see that movie with my kids so the time spent waiting for and watching something that I will see again in a few months was also... you guessed it... stupid.
This movie does not even require my typical "geeky guide".
It is pretty simple. If you are a Venom fan, go and see this at a matinee. If you are a Marvel fan, wait for the cheap theaters. If you like mindless action movies, wait for Netflix. If you like intelligent movies, go watch Inception again.