Marvel explores its violent side in “Venom”

Although Marvel’s new movie “Venom” lacks character development and a main plot. it has good comedy and action.

Zainab Khan, staff writer

“Venom” is the newest addition to the list of Marvel movies that came out this year, and it did not disappoint. Since coming out on Oct. 5 this year, many students and staff members have gone to see the film, some even watching it twice.

“I thought it was great,” senior Aru Rajpurohit said. “The director tried to relate it to today’s society by talking about space travel because of our dying planet, which I thought was cool, but not authentic. The concept is still pretty cool, though.”

The movie starts like any Marvel movie, with a short scene introducing an issue that will affect the story before the title screen appears. This is nice to see because it doesn’t immediately introduce the protagonist thus increasing suspense. This scene takes place in East Malaysia, although most of “Venom” is set in San Francisco.

Eddie Brock, a well-known journalist and the person who will become Venom later on, is then shown for the first time, along with his fiancee Anne Weying, who is a lawyer.

Unfortunately, their bliss doesn’t last long because Eddie soon loses his job when interviewing Carl Drake, founder of the Life Foundation. Anne breaks up with him the next day before the movie cuts to six months later. Although it was sad to see his life falling apart so fast, it was necessary for the action that will happen later in the movie.

The movie then shows Drake experimenting with extraterrestrial life forms, also referred to as symbiotes. These scenes show how inhumane and desperate he is as a scientist because he is eager to find out what the creatures can do when joined with humans, no matter what the cost is. The results concern one of his scientists, Dora Skirth, who reaches out to Eddie to expose the truth about him.

She and Eddie enter the lab after hours and the symbiote goes into Eddie. This is the first time viewers see what the symbiote can do when merged with the right person. There is a short scene of Eddie using his superhuman strength and agility to break through walls and escape from security guards before climbing up a tall tree. It was cool to see how fast his newfound power kicked in and see Eddie and the symbiote in action.

Next, Eddie is shown acting almost hungover from the events of the day before and eating everything he can find, while looking insanely ill. Eddie is going crazy trying to feed his hunger, eating frozen tater tots and rotten meat. He goes to the restaurant where Anne and her new boyfriend, Dr. Dan Lewis, are eating lunch and tries to get her to help him. The main problem is he’s still hungry, so he starts eating off of random people’s plates.

Anne and Dan finally realize that something is wrong with him, so Dan does an MRI test on Eddie. This scene was in many of the trailers and shows the symbiote inside Eddie go crazy because of the sound frequencies the machine emits. Dan concludes that Eddie has a parasite and sends him home, so he can look at the scans more.

Once at home, Eddie barely has any time to relax before the guards from the Life Foundation knock on his door, and a huge chase ensues. This long scene was definitely entertaining, and the computer-generated imagery (CGI) looked very natural and easy on the eyes.

“The audience loved the CGI about ‘Venom’, saying he was more intense,” junior Jay Van said. “The CGI was way better than the original Venom in Spider-Man 3.”

The rest of the movie focuses on Eddie and Venom, the symbiote from another planet, working together to fight evil and defeat the antagonist, Carl Drake. Dan and Anne also work with them to find out what Venom’s weakness is and whether it is good for Eddie. The ending was oddly peaceful and positive, but the after-credits scene hints at a sequel.

Overall, the movie had great CGI and there was lots of humor, along with mild violence, and it is really fun to watch with friends and family. The action and fight scenes were well-made and had great choreography and stunts as well. The whole cast did wonderful, and although critics were not pleased, the audience seemed to love it.

“I think the audience thinks differently from the critics because these are fans that have grown up with these characters and have grown to love them, while the critics are rating the movie based on plot or cinematography,” senior Jason Chu said. “The fans appreciate the film more because they are already fans of Marvel.”