This may be a Marvel character, but this sure ain't the MCU. Ruben Fleischer hasn't made a good movie since Zombieland. Although I will admit that I laughed more at 30 Seconds or Less than I should have. It shouldn't be this hard to make a superhero horror movie. We've had a few successes over the years with the likes of The Crow, Hellboy, and maybe a few others. Venom is more along the lines of Spawn though. Gets too caught up with humor. Even worse is that it fundamentally misunderstands the character. I hear a lot of people criticizing this for being "tonally inconsistent." I don't really agree with that. To me it seemed like the tone was steadily focused on being lighthearted entertainment throughout. Just another product of the superhero craze. Which of course doesn't do the character justice. The reason so many were excited for and potentially interested in a Venom *movie was because he would bring something different to the table. A darker, more villainous alternative to the MCU films. Instead we got something that tries to emulate the same kind of laughs and big-blockbuster thrills that Disney is using to conquer box-office sales multiple times per year with only the briefest, fleeting glimpses at the people-munching monster we were supposed to get. An approach that might not have been too bad had the movie been better made. The action is pretty generic. We get a car chase and a bunch of guys with guns getting thrown around. Occasionally someone will get their head bitten off. Nothing too exciting. Even the big symbiote battle is kind of lame because of how blurry it all is. The CGI is really dodgy. Something is also off with Venom's design. His head is fine, but the body looks weird. Not a fan. His enemy "Riot" looks so much cooler. A foe who is brought to life by Riz Ahmed in a very memorable, charismatic, and arrogant performance. There's never a dull moment though because things keep moving. *Venom rushes from plot point to plot point so the time flies by. As a matter of a fact a meaty portion of it's 2h 20m running time is dedicated to the credits. Not the kind you sit through to see the stinger either. This naturally hurts the development of things a lot. Like how the symbiote goes from "I own you" to "you changed me" in the course of what feels like 20 minutes. There's a buddy element between Eddie and his extraterrestrial hanger-on that never feels fleshed out. It's also never really explained how Eddie is able to keep the suit from killing him. I was able to intuit that he's protecting his body by keeping the symbiote fed or maybe Venom itself just decided to stop gradually feasting on his organs, but it's never something the movie addresses. It just stops being a danger to him at a certain point. I also think it's odd how his fiancé immediately dumped him when she lost her job (admittedly his fault) without any feeling. Just completely moved on with her life to the point where a mere six months later we learn that she's been seeing a guy long enough for him to have a key to her apartment. Maybe her and Eddie had some other problems, but it certainly didn't seem that way considering they were about to get married. Then we're supposed to believe she starts helping him when he gets the symbiote because she still cares for him a little? Uh honey, if you were capable of human emotions then you wouldn't have completely annihilated your relationship with him like you did. That's just cold. Why does he want her back again? The biggest flaw with the movie though is that this isn't really Venom. I like how it portrayed the duality of the character. Both Eddie and Venom are in constant communication and have differing degrees of control. However their dynamic is far too cute. Silly buddy comedy stuff that's good for some chuckles, but is a poor fit for the anti-hero. What the movie fails to understand is that Venom's appeal comes from more than just his appearance. There's a real tragedy to his story that made his rise from pure villain to sometimes hero so compelling. In the comics Brock was guy who thought he lost everything, but then found out he had more to loose after coming contact with an alien parasite. He thought it was great at first, but it took him down an even darker path than the one he was already on. It used his desire for revenge to manipulate him and gained control over his life. None of that is found here. The guy goes through some bad stuff, but then the symbiote comes along and makes everything better. It removes all of the danger out of his bonding with an alien entity with it's own dark motives. Instead making it look like something you would really want to do because you would quickly become best friends and get superpowers. This is a waste of a great Tom Hardy performance. A mediocre superhero flick that I maybe could have forgiven for only briefly touching on the body horror elements had it actually felt like a movie about Venom. I wasn't even bothered by the PG-13 rating because the character mattered more and it was totally possible to do him (them?) right without gratuitous violence. Instead they played it safe and made him your typical superhero. Surrounding him with predicable humor and action that is behind the standards set by the likes of the MCU and even the DCEU to a certain degree. I was never bored so I can't say don't watch it, but the Venom fan in me was sorely disappointed.**