Venom

I watched this on a Tuesday night behind a couple who were clearly on a first date, and watching the girl’s face during the scene where a sweaty man climbs into a restaurant lobster tank was more entertaining than the actual CGI climax. It was the perfect microcosm for Venom: a movie so bizarrely committed to its own weirdness that you can’t help but lean in, even if you’re slightly repulsed.

When Venom arrived in 2018, the superhero landscape was reaching a point of maximum "polish." We were mid-franchise-saturation, with the MCU operating like a finely tuned (and often predictable) Swiss watch. Then came Tom Hardy (Mad Max: Fury Road), stumbling into the frame as Eddie Brock like he’d just spent forty-eight hours in a laundromat dryer. Directed by Ruben Fleischer (the man behind the sharp Zombieland), the film felt like a relic from 2003 in the best and worst ways possible. It ignored the "prestige" superhero trend and instead opted for a chaotic, gooey buddy-comedy energy that shouldn't have worked, yet somehow devoured the global box office to the tune of $856 million.

The Man, The Myth, The Parasite

The secret sauce here isn't the script—which often feels like it was assembled from three different drafts using a glue stick—it’s the performance of Tom Hardy. Hardy acts like he’s in a completely different movie than everyone else, and thank god for that. While Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal) plays the villainous Carlton Drake with a grounded, tech-bro intensity that fits our current era of billionaire-savior skepticism, Hardy is out here doing a one-man vaudeville routine.

Hardy famously recorded his lines for the Venom voice before filming, wearing an earpiece so he could argue with himself in real-time. This creates a frantic, twitchy energy that makes Eddie Brock feel genuinely inhabited by a hungry alien. My favorite moments aren't the big explosions; they're the quiet, weird ones, like Eddie frantically apologizing to his neighbor while Venom screams insults about the neighbor’s TV volume in his head. It’s a performance that reminds me of the physical comedy of the silent era, just with more black slime and head-biting.

Michelle Williams (The Fabelmans) is also here, and while she’s clearly overqualified for the "ex-girlfriend" role, she brings a much-needed sanity to the proceedings. There’s a specific look she gives Hardy throughout the film—a mix of pity and genuine confusion—that I suspect wasn't always in the script.

High-Octane Sludge and San Francisco Hills

As an action film, Venom is a bit of a mixed bag. The centerpiece is a high-speed motorcycle chase through the streets of San Francisco that leans heavily into the "Contemporary Cinema" toolbox. We’ve got seamless CGI transition as the symbiote uses its oily tendrils to pull Eddie back onto his bike or slingshot him around corners. It’s clear that Ruben Fleischer wanted to capture the physical impact of the environment, but the climax eventually devolves into what I call "The Slop Fight"—two CGI blobs hitting each other in the dark.

However, the stunt work in that San Francisco sequence is genuinely fun. Seeing the practical vehicles bounce off the pavement provides a necessary weight to the digital chaos. The film thrives when the action feels personal—like the apartment fight where Eddie’s limbs seem to have a mind of their own. It’s slapstick body horror, a subversion of the typical "hero discovers his powers" montage. Instead of feeling empowered, Eddie looks like he’s having a very loud, very public mental breakdown.

A Billion-Dollar Identity Crisis

From a production standpoint, Venom is a fascinating study in franchise survival. Sony was essentially trying to build a "Spider-Man Universe" without Spider-Man, a gamble that many critics thought would fail spectacularly. The marketing leaned into the tagline "The world has enough Superheroes," positioning Venom as an anti-hero for an era of political polarization and social media cynicism.

The trivia behind the scenes suggests a much darker film almost existed. Hardy mentioned in interviews that about 40 minutes of his favorite footage—mostly the weird, dark comedy stuff—didn't make the final PG-13 cut. While some fans clamored for an R-rating to match the character’s comic book brutality, the decision to keep it accessible was a masterstroke of box-office strategy. It captured a younger audience who found the Eddie/Venom dynamic "relatable" in a weird, meme-able way. It’s a film that succeeded not by being "great" in a traditional sense, but by being memorable in an era of franchise fatigue. Venom is essentially a $100 million remake of Steve Martin’s All of Me, but with more biting.

Venom is far from a masterpiece, but it’s a total blast if you’re willing to meet it on its own bizarre terms. It’s a messy, loud, and frequently hilarious film that owes everything to Tom Hardy’s willingness to look like a complete lunatic for two hours. In an age where blockbusters often feel focus-grouped to death, there’s something genuinely refreshing about a movie this weirdly lopsided and proud of its own sludge. Turn your brain off, grab some tater tots, and enjoy the show.