Venom Review: 5 Ups & 5 Downs

3. The Ending Is A Little Lacking

Considering how great most of Tom Hardy-centric second half of the film is, it's a bit of a shame that we're led down a path towards an explosive finale that simply does not happen. Or not in enough of a meaningful way anyway.

As the trailers ruined (needlessly), we get a a climactic battle between Hardy's Brock/Venom and Riz Ahmed's Riot - good(ish) versus definitely evil - and we're told for a while that the baddy is a really big deal. In fact, at one point, he's referred to as unstoppable, by which point you should be salivating like Venom considering turning someone into a turd in the wind.

Sadly, it simply doesn't live up to the billing and the film ends on a bit of a down note (though the post-climax tag is actually great) thanks to that vacuum. The Deadpool parallel comes up again here, because that film suffered when there wasn't enough focus on Ryan Reynolds and the ending was a bit of a disappointment. So maybe there's hope for a sequel still?