STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) makes a living doing online videos, attempting to expose big scandals. In his latest video, he has tangled with Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), the head of a bio-engineering firm that has been involved in a number of controversial events, costing him his job and his fiancé. Drake has secretly got hold of a bizarre, shape shifting mutagen, and after breaking into his laboratory, Eddie unwittingly becomes its host, transforming him into the crime fighting gargoyle Venom.

There's nothing like an adult orientated comic book adaptation, not least because it excludes the auditorium you're watching it in from any noisy, rambunctious kids, as well as just generally providing a more rounded, uncensored experience. They tend to be more obscure, little known creations that just have their own little cult following among their devotees, and no parents will be pestered by their offspring to take them along to see it, having never heard of it. These have ranked among some of my favourites, such as Deadpool 1 and 2 and The Punisher films (no matter what anyone says!) but Venom sadly falls short of this mark, while doing nothing aesthetically wrong, it's just too mechanical and ineffective to be one you'd want to see again.

The first big disappointment is that, in spite of the 15 certificate, there doesn't seem to be anything more edgy than in your average Spiderman film, despite some rocky language. The host character, played charismatically by a wise-cracking Hardy, takes up much of the first half of the film, but the titular character takes too long to make his presence felt, and despite being physically impressive, with a seriously scary face, sounds too much like The Honey Monster from the Sugar Puffs ads. The action is shot too close up, with too many quick cuts and, even being an action film, is too loud. All the dialogue feels stilted and staged, and none of it sounds real or convincing. The wafer thin plot isn't strong enough to hold everything together throughout the course. Meanwhile, Ahmed is too weedy and nerdy to be taken seriously as the villain.

It subtly borrows little pieces of other films, from more adult fare like Predator, to kids films like Super Mario Brothers, without having any kind of solid structure to stand as a film on its own. It's all rounded off with the title track from Eminem, who's gone from making personal, deep raps about his life to doing the soundtrack to superhero movies. I've just found out the character was created by that Todd McFarlane guy, the same guy behind Spawn, which this reminded me so much of. The film version of that was absolutely savaged by critics when it came out, but I loved it. This, sadly, doesn't hold up, but you just know there'll be an inevitable sequel that'll be even worse. **