Venom – OCTOBER 5th 2018

WHAT’S IT ABOUT

Journalist Eddie Brock is trying to take down Carlton Drake, the notorious and brilliant founder of the Life Foundation. While investigating one of Drake’s experiments, Eddie’s body merges with the alien Venom — leaving him with superhuman strength and power. Twisted, dark and fueled by rage, Venom tries to control the new and dangerous abilities that Eddie finds so intoxicating.

MOVIESinMO REVIEW

Venom is a character most people know little about. He has been seen in several movies and animated shows over the years, but no one has ever taken the time to devote an entire movie to him. This is because the technology wasn’t there. Now that it is, we will see a lot of seemingly impossible creatures brought to the big screen. Ultimately, none of that matters, if the story is lacking substance and Venom, is sorely lacking substance. Right from the start, there’s a crashing spaceship, and we find out it’s carrying questionable cargo – so far, so good. After the initial ten minutes, more of what’s going on is exposed. Once you find out why you should care about that spaceship and the company that owns it, you finally meet Eddie Brock. He’s a successful investigative journalist that will do whatever he has to to get to the truth. This is what lands him an interview with Carlton Drake, the CEO of the Life Foundation.  As you know from the trailers, Eddie’s nosiness and headstrong attitude get him thrown out for asking the wrong question, and this creates a chain reaction of bad luck for Eddie. He loses everything and decides to give up on practically everything. Things change when a Life Foundation employee helps Eddie get the information he always wanted.

OK, I’m about 30 or 40 minutes into this movie, and Eddie just got infected. The first part of the film should have been no longer than ten minutes. This is a 90-minute movie and more than thirty minutes of it was wasted on an extremely boring pre-story. Does it get better? Yes, but not much. It’s a different movie once Venom and Eddie are together. This is also where all of those scenes from the trailer are. More of the story is explained, and you (sort of) learn about Venom – the race of symbiotes, not the main character. It’s also very apparent there’s a lot of story missing. Certain parts are never explained while some are explained in unnecessary detail. Even Venoms actions are “out of character.” The action becomes cartoon-like after a while, and the movie starts to feel like a bunch of scenes that got stitched together. Venom isn’t a complete waste of time, but I definitely don’t want to see it again.

DVD/BLU-RAY/DIGITAL

Genre –Comic Book

Street date

Digital – December 11^th 2018

DVD/Blu-Ray – December 18^th 2018

Video – 1080p

Screen size – 2.00:1

Sound – English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, French DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1

Subtitles – English SDH, Spanish, French

Extras

• Venom Mode: When selecting this mode, the film will engage informative pop-ups throughout the film to provide insight on the movie’s relationship to the comics, and to reveal hidden references that even a seasoned Venom-fan may have missed!

• From Symbiote to Screen (HD, 20 min): As implied by the title, interviews with the cast, crew and filmmaker Kevin Smith discuss the character’s history and transition to film.

• The Anti-Hero (HD, 10 min): Essentially, an extension of the above with a focus on the fandom surrounding Venom and an effort to explore the complexity of Eddie Brock.

• The Lethal Protection in Action (HD, 9 min): An amusing piece on the stunt and action choreography with attention to Tom Hardy’s dedication and cool BTS footage.

• Venom Vision (HD, 7 min): Similar to the above, but focused on director Ruben Fleischer.

• Designing Venom (HD, 6 min): The CG work that went into bringing Venom to life.

• Symbiote Secrets (HD, 3 min): Brief piece pointing out the various allusions in the film.

• Select Scenes Pre-Vis (HD, 14 min): Collection of eight pre-visualization segments that seem function as storyboards.

• Music Videos (HD): First up is Eminem performing “Venom.” It is followed by Post Malone and Swae Lee performing “Sunflower” from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

• Deleted Scenes (HD, 5 min):

• Ride to Hospital

• Car Alarm

• San Quentin Extended

• Trailers (HD): A series of theatrical previews includes a four-minute sneak peek of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.