Not a huge fan of superhero movies but I enjoy trying to keep with with some Marvel lore from time to time between all the movies. I'm not well versed in spiderman/venom storylines from the comics so it's just a take on the movie from someone wanting to see a decent superhero flick with action and laughs.

This movie barely delivered on the laughs and couldn't even scrap together any memorable action scenes. Venom's awful storytelling definitely begins with the incoherent and messy script, with multiple plot lines leading nowhere and a villain that challenges the cheesiness of phase 1 marvel villains in blandness and forgettable lines.

Tom hardy as Eddie Brock seemed to be the only redeeming quality in this movie, using his natural charm and persona to interact with the venom creature in a meaningful way. However, his initial backstory as a news reporter was told in a matter of minutes at the beginning of the movie as a series of montages. Same thing with his relationship, quick few scenes and BOOM cut to 6 months later after everything goes downhill for Eddie. The movie spends roughly 30 minutes on 2 absolutely useless plot points involving symbiotes, adding nothing to the story and dragging it down even further.

The jokes were a hit and miss, but a lot of them just came down to 'the venom symbiote is talking funny in Eddie's head teehee!'. The comedy was one of the better aspects of the movie in terms of enjoyment.

The action? wow, it was downright handheld garbage for a good 80% of it. The character of venom looked pretty good most of the time, and big fans of him will be pleased to see his CGI on screen. The issue is 2 of the bigger fights involving venom fighting the villain and his goons of course take place at night and are barely lit enough to gain a coherent visual on the action. Venom absorbs heaps of bullets and damage and leaves Eddie without a scratch, yippee. The final fight played basically like Black Panther's final fight in terms of being a forgettable, dimly lit mess with no memorable action.

I'll try not to spoil anything, but the movie basically boils down to ' bad man wants bad thing to happen to earth, but good man who make past mistake try to stop bad man because he bad!'. No subtle underlying themes or messages. I'm not asking for Kubrick levels of subliminal messaging, but the story had no substance to offer whatsoever, except for a hamfisted relationship that's been played out to ensure the audience connects romantically to the movie, which of course adds nothing to the already barren story.