I found that I had a surprisingly good time with Venom. Hardy’s performance as Eddie Brock is spectacular, and the visual effects get a passing grade for a modern hero flick. Diehard fans of the source material may take issue with Sony for marketing this as an -antihero- story, as the portrayal of both Brock and the Symbiote in this film reads as generously heroic. Banter between Venom/Brock is fun and adds an interesting internal dialogue layer to the character. Sony managed to absolutely nail the voicework for Venom, and even doubled back and fixed their mispronunciation of “symbiote” that they’d let slip in early trailers. You can see where graphic aspects of the violence have been cut away, having to keep in line with a PG-13 rating, but as weird as these bits of soft-censorship feel (killing a room full of soldiers with nary a drop of blood) this surreal watered-down violence somehow seems to fit with the equally surreal Hero-Venom direction they’ve taken the character in. In want of more visceral brutality, Venom works, but it feels as if a bit of the spirit of the character is lost in the process. Add to this the typical Marvel sin of a poorly written clone-villain of convenience, and you’ve got yourself a standard, fun-oriented marvel flick.

Two post credit scenes follow the movie: The first, which teases Woody Harrelson as Carnage/Cletus Kasady in the sequel, and another, a roughly 5ish minute feature of the upcoming animated “Into the Spiderverse” film.