Venom

Set in the same world as Spiderman, the story centres around Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy – Inception; Dark Knight Rises) – a passionate and fearless investigative reporter with his own TV show 'The Eddie Brock Report’. Tasked by his boss to do a fluff piece on the founder of the Life Foundation, the same organisation his fiancé Anne (Michelle Williams – Greatest Show on Earth) happens to work. Never one to rest until he knows the truth, Eddie can’t help but grill Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed – Rogue One) on his latest research, getting himself fired and dumped in the process.

Eddie is convinced that Drake is conducting horrifying experiments on people, with an alien life-form that recently crashed to Earth attached to a Life Foundation space shuttle. As he tries to find out more and expose this immorality, he ends up bonded to this life-form, named “Venom” – a parasite that needs a human ‘host’ to survive. Eddie now has superhuman strength and is virtually invulnerable – but at a cost! The symbiote sees itself as able to do whatever it wants: it doesn’t care who it hurts or kills, and also needs to eat people to survive…

Tom Hardy commits to the duality in man and symbiote, and strange as it may sound, the film’s more of a ‘buddy movie’ as Eddie and Venom get to know each other. While a little slow to get going, it makes up for it in the rest of the film. With great special effects, plenty of action and chase scenes, this is a fun, popcorn flick.

Gail Marshall