Initially, I was pretty exited for Venom. There was enormous potential here for a dark, unique and complex story, and I, like a lot of others, was interested to see how Sony would handle this new Spider-verse of theirs, despite the lack of an actual Spider-Man. My excitement began to deflate, however, when the film's rating came out. The choice to make this film PG-13 seemed odd, having seen the recent success of R-rated antihero movies such as Deadpool and Logan. Then, as the premiere date neared, the abysmal ratings began pouring out from the internet. The film stands at an atrocious 31% on Rotten Tomatoes and has a 33 Metascore, which disappointed me. Nevertheless, as a fan of the Venom character, I went and saw the film anyway, bracing myself to see a disaster.

Having seen Venom yesterday, I can say it in no way deserves the horrible score it got on Rotten Tomatoes. Sure, the movie has tons of problems, but there is a lot to enjoy here as well. It has it's moments, and is by far one of the most entertaining films I've seen this year.

First, the negative. The blaring problem here is the script. The plot is extremely cliché, and the awful dialogue made me want to leave the theater and bang my head against a wall. Some of the lines seemed as if they were written by a 10-year-old. I often found myself laughing out loud at the delivery of some of the dialogue. The script's handling of the characters was also very poorly done. Tom Hardy does an exceptional job, but his character of Eddie Brock and the characters around him are so poorly contrived. Nobody has any sort of character arc, and our main protagonist is written completely backwards. He begins the film as a cocky, arrogant, and awkward reporter, only to end the film the exact same way. Michelle Williams's character was maddeningly boring and her performance was dull. You felt no chemistry whatsoever between the two leads.

The villain is another glaring negative. While Riz Ahmed is a fantastic actor, his portrayal of Carlton Drake, the head of the sinister Life Foundation, felt extremely cliché and formulated. Drake is given almost zero motivation for his actions, and is not interesting in the slightest. He interacts very little with our main hero, then does ridiculous things towards the end that make little sense.

Now I'll head into the positives of the film. The bright spot of Venom is no doubt Tom Hardy's performance. He gives 110% to this role and goes way over the top. The dynamic between the Venom symbiote and Eddie Brock, and the back-and-forth exchange between these two is no doubt another highlight of the film. Despite my wanting them to go in a darker direction, the dialogue between the two lended for some pretty funny moments. The action scenes are pretty well done excluding the final fight between Eddie and Carlton Drake, which had too much going on and was often times hard to see what was happening.

Overall, the film is covered in problems but enjoyable nonetheless. Its damn entertaining once Venom makes his appearance. I'd recommend this movie as it doesn't deserve the terrible reviews critics have given it.