BEFORE: And it's three in a row for Stan Lee, who carries over from "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse". It seems like maybe he'll be immortalized for this, just in case his decades-long career creating just about every important Marvel super-hero isn't enough for us to remember him by. I tried to watch this one in last year, because I know Woody Harrelson makes a cameo in it, too, and I had SO many films with him already on the docket that I had to split them up into two sections, one with "Solo" and "War for the Planet of the Apes" and "North Country" and another one with "Wilson", "The Prize-Winner of Defiance, Ohio" and "The Edge of Seventeen" - and STILL I couldn't work this one in, because it was released in early October, and by then I was on to my horror chain. Sure, this could be considered like a Marvel Comics horror film of sorts, but it didn't seem to share any actors with the other horror films on my list, so I was forced to table it.
And it's still not on premium cable - it's on iTunes, but since it's a Marvel movie I spent some real money on it last month and ordered the DVD from Amazon. Some people still do that, right? Now I'm realizing that I should have done some kind of "March Madness" tie-in and called this part of the chain "March Marvel Movie Madness" - is it too late for that?
THE PLOT: A failed reporter is bonded to an alien entity, one of many symbiotes who have invaded Earth, but the being takes a liking to Earth and decides to protect it.
AFTER: Monster movies don't need to be relegated to October any more, right? I mean, like if I need to use them during other months for their linking qualities, that has to be allowed. I just saw a bunch of toothy monsters in "The Great Wall", and I'm working my way toward both "Alien: Covenant" and "A Quiet Place", neither of which has cast lists that lend themselves to October-like linking. Anyway, October is sort of reserved for Draculas and mummies and maybe a Swamp Thing or two - I should probably start parsing out my films and making a plan now for October, which is only like 6 1/2 months away.
But let's focus on Venom, who was seen in "Spider-Man 3" with Topher Grace playing his human host, but I guess some people felt that this film didn't really do him justice, anyway, that storyline has now been retconned out of existence, and there's a new actor playing Spider-Man in the "Avengers"-related films, so I guess that means they needed a new actor to play Venom. If you're not up on the character's comic-book origins, way back in 1984 there was a comic-book cross-over called "Secret Wars", in which all the big heroes - Spider-Man, the Avengers, the X-Men, most of the Fantastic Four - and all the biggest villains like Dr. Doom, Magneto, Doctor Octopus, Kang, Klaw, Ultron, the Absorbing Man, Molecule Man, the Lizard, and the Wrecking Crew, were teleported away to another galaxy, where they were forced by an entity called the Beyonder to fight each other for some kind of ultimate prize. It was an epic storyline that got me hooked on comics, and changed the direction of every book starring one of the characters involved.
Or, at least it changed the way they look. Even though the storyline took a year (12 issues) to play out, the effects were seem immediately as the characters were teleported back for the next issue of their individual books, and some team line-ups changed, and Spider-Man suddenly had a black costume instead of his traditional red & blue one. Even better, this black costume could shoot webs (no need for a separate web-shooting device) and also change its look to resemble street clothing, so Peter Parker could transform into Spider-Man more quickly, and not have to stash his clothing before joining the action. However, a few issues later, it was revealed that the costume was really an alien life-form that he'd found during the "Secret Wars", and it was feeding off of Peter Parker's life energy, excreting webs as some form of waste product (Ewww...) and also taking Peter's host body out for midnight jaunts to fight crime while he was supposed to be sleeping. No wonder he was tired all the time...
Spider-Man got rid of the symbiote suit with the help of Mister Fantastic and a sonic gun, and the suit escaped captivity and joined with a reporter who had been disgraced and lost his job, and for this he blamed Spider-Man, so both the suit and the man, Eddie Brock, had a common enemy, and joined together as Venom. This led to many dramatic encounters during the 1990's, as Venom became a popular villain character, and then something of an anti-hero on his own.
In the new continuity, they've removed the connection to Spider-Man, there's merely a visual resemblance between Venom's eyes and the ones on Spider-Man's suit. Sort of. I don't know if I'm sold on this idea, it's a little bit like making a Joker movie and removing all references to Batman. What is a villain if you take away his connection to a hero? Would people go to see a movie about a James Bond villain if Bond wasn't anywhere in it? That would have to be a really popular character, right? Or a film about Ultron or Thanos if the Avengers weren't involved? I kind of doubt it.
They do their best here by creating an even bigger villain, a sort of Elon Musk-type billionaire who wants to use these alien symbiotes to merge with humans, and create a new hybrid type of lifeform that will be better suited for space travel or colonizing the universe. Umm, great plan dude, but it seems like these creatures (now called the Klyntar in the comic books) seem a lot more interested in eating people than they are colonizing new planets with them. But this billionaire, Carlton Drake, persists and uses a bunch of rounded-up homeless people as test subjects. Well, I guess that's a unique solution to solving the problem of people being homeless, not to mention general overpopulation. (see also: "What Happened to Monday")
But the process is imperfect at best, and even the scientists here don't seem able to explain why the symbiotes bonding with certain lifeforms like rabbits doesn't seem to work, and then bonding with some humans doesn't work either, but once Venom finds Eddie Brock, things seem to go (relatively) smoothly. Why do some species seem to burn out so quickly, does Venom just regard them as "food" rather than as a viable host? OK, then why aren't some people able to survive the bonding, while others are? Do these parasites kill all of their hosts until they find one that they like, or can get along with? So much of this is unclear that it starts to push everything into the territory of "junk science". Or else it starts to feel like some screenwriter is unable or unwilling to explain everything, so let's just forge ahead and hope that nobody notices.
I've got to call a personal NITPICK POINT on the fact that everyone in this film seems to pronounce the word "symbiote" as "Sim-BEE-oat", when in my mind, it should really be "Sim-BYE-oat", like "bio" should sound like it does in "biology" and "biography", right?
Also, I've got clear concerns about how Eddie Brock eats after he's bonded with the Venom symbiote - the first thing he does when he gets home is to reach for some frozen Tater Tots, and dump them into his mouth without even heating them up. Did he suddenly forget how to cook food? There's nothing about the bonding process that would make him suddenly stupid enough to crack his teeth on frozen foods. I realize he might have been a little out of sorts, but this seems to go beyond what would be reasonable for being confused. Another point about eating - when Venom is in control, he manages to bite the heads off a good number of enemies. Since his face is covering Eddie's, does this make Eddie Brock a cannibal? If not, then where does the head go? And yes, I get that this is based on a comic book, but that doesn't mean that the rules of "cartoon physics" would suddenly apply.
There is a "Venom 2" currently being planned for release in 2020 - it would be extremely easy to follow up Venom's story by developing the character that "spawned" from it and joined with a serial killer, who's glimpsed in a post-credits sequence. The resulting creature is named Carnage, and this would be a very simple way to maintain Venom's anti-hero status, by just putting him up against another symbiote creature who's more villainous and bloodthirsty than he is.
There's also a post-credits scene featuring footage from "Into the Spider-Verse", so I guess I watched these two films in the wrong order, but how was I supposed to know?
Also starring Tom Hardy (last seen in "The Revenant"), Michelle Williams (last seen in "The Greatest Showman"), Riz Ahmed (last seen in "Nightcrawler"), Scott Haze (last seen in "Only the Brave"), Reid Scott (last heard in "Nerdland"), Jenny Slate (last seen in "The Polka King"), Melora Walters (last seen in "Matchstick Men"), Chris O'Hara (last seen in "Red Sparrow"), Woody Harrelson (last seen in "The Edge of Seventeen"), Peggy Lu, Sope Aluko, Wayne Pére (last seen in "The Beguiled"), Scott Deckert, Ellen Gerstein, Ron Cephas Jones (last seen in "Half Nelson"), Michelle Lee, Jared Bankens, Mac Brandt, Christian Convery, Sam Medina.
RATING: 6 out of 10 missing homeless people
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