Venom Review: 5 Ups & 5 Downs

1. Tom Hardy's Performance

This film is all about Tom Hardy and you can see why he lamented the missing footage that robbed us of the 40 minutes of film that he supposedly had the most fun making. He's had an absolute riot making this film and his duel performances as Eddie Brock and Venom deserve an awful lot more than the rest of the film provides for him.

There's something of Tyler Durden's bravado in his Venom, something of Vincent D'Onofrio's brilliant body-snatched performance in Men In Black in his Eddie Brock and some brilliant choreography that has him literally fighting with himself at times. He's funny, charming and self-effacing at times and enough of an Alex Jones-like douchebag at the start (albeit with a better moral compass) that you're sort of glad he becomes a loser and starts a two man Loser Band with Venom pretty quickly.

If there's not a sequel that hands Hardy even more control over how this story unfolds - in the same way Ryan Reynolds took over the Deadpool sequel - it will be an absolute travesty. Because we deserve to see more of the Tom Hardy/Venom show as soon as possible. It's really that good.

What did you think of Venom? Share your reactions below in the comments thread.