What Critics HATED About Venom
And why you're going to love Tom Hardy's Spider-Man spin-off...
A Venom movie without Spider-Man was always going to be somewhat divisive, but let's get this straight right away: by hiring Tom Hardy, Riz Ahmed and Michelle Williams, Sony did serious work to convince us all that it wouldn't be a problem. There was SURELY no way those talents would sign on for a bad movie, let alone making one to completion.
But it seems that something went wrong, at least in terms of the critical response to the movie. Currently, Ruben Fleischer's spin-off sits on 30% on RottenTomatoes, which is disastrous, considering Justice League sits on 40%, The Amazing Spider-Man on 52% and on X-Men: The Last Stand 58%. All of those were effectively franchise killers (or at least required serious rethinking) and Sony apparently have big plans for their Spider-Verse.
Luckily for the studio, there's some hope that fans will react better to the movie (and they should because it has some seriously great moments and lots of promise for a sequel). If that's going to happen though, they're going to have to address why critics hated it...
6. The First Half Is Pretty Dull
Venom has an identity crisis, ironically, and the biggest problem comes in the first half before we get to see the symbiote and Brock bond. It all feels like an outdated, dull attempt to set up a conventional horror movie that is never coming. The major story beats are derivative at best and cliched at worst but the really fatal issue is that it's just so damn boring.
In actual fact, everything that isn't directly tied up in Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock or Venom or both is pretty dull. Which should hopefully mean the sequel will pull focus onto them more.