Review #1,430: 'Venom' (2018)

I don't recall ever seeing Tom Hardy attempt comedy, but he's in full Ace Ventura mode in Venom, Sony's latest (and successful) attempt to squeeze the dollars out of what few Marvel characters that remain under their ownership. After failing to reboot Spider-Man and coming to an agreement with Marvel Studios to share the character, Sony have been left with the web-slinger's rogue gallery, and with some kind of anti-superhero universe clearly in mind, they have kicked events off with their most popular villain, the hulking and long-tongued Venom. You may remember the character from the franchise-killing Spider-Man 3 in 2007, and you also may believe you've gone back in time over 10 years when watching this spectacularly dull and frustratingly origin story, which harks back to the dark days of the Ben-Affleck-headlined Daredevil and Tim Story's Fantastic Four.

A spaceship launched by the shadowy Life Foundation crashes down to Earth carrying four symbiotic alien lifeforms gathered from a nearby comet. Three are retrieved by the Foundation's Elon Musk-esque CEO Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed) and taken back to their San Francisco research facility for experimentation, but one escapes, latching itself on to an ambulance driver before hopping between various people in an attempt to find a suitable host. Enter Eddie Brock (Hardy), an investigative journalist who trades in exposing and bringing down corrupt organisations. When given the chance to interview Drake, Eddie naturally uses the opportunity to question the entrepreneur about some of the horrific allegations, including experimenting on humans. The interview is cut short, and soon Eddie finds himself fired and split from his fiancee Anne (Michelle Williams). He sees the chance to redeem himself when a disgruntled Life employee gives him access to their labs, which turn out to be holding cells for symbiote testing on the homeless. The rest you can guess: a symbiote finds its way onto Eddie and he spends the rest of the film dealing with newly-acquired powers (and taste for human heads).

Marvel Studios have got the formula down to a tee, endearing superheroes to millions of new fans who had never touched a comic-book in their lives. It's somewhat sad to see Venom try to take the genre back more than a decade, when many studios were under the impression that the only way an audience will buy into a world of superpowers is through forced humour. The MCU balances humour and drama in a way that almost guarantees your emotional investment, and if you're going to go for all-out comedy like Ant-Man or Thor: Ragnarok, y'know, make it funny. The sight of Hardy cooling down in a lobster tank or flashing expressions of gormless confusion for nearly two hours does not make for pleasing entertainment. The actor is incredibly bad, and his choice to go with a mumbled accent and hunched posture means that his character fails to convince as a journalist with serious credentials. The remainder of the cast don't fare much better, although its hardly their fault. It's a thankless role for Williams, who is given little to do other than playing the role of Eddie's conscience, and Ahmed has no dimension to play around with as the stock soulless corporate type. The climax is a forgettable smack-down featuring two indistinguishable CGI creations, something The Incredible Hulk did far better ten years ago. Despite all of this, Ruben Fleischer's bland fossil of a film raked in over $800 million worldwide, so I'm afraid a sequel is inevitable.


Directed by: Ruben Fleischer
Starring: Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams, Riz Ahmed, Scott Haze, Reid Scott, Jenny Slate, Melora Walters
Country: USA/China

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #630: 'Gangster Squad' (2013)

Information is extremely easy to come by these days. Seemingly any fathomable topic can be typed into a search engine, and a world of information is unlocked. The biopic genre, that so often relied on myths and hearsay about its chosen topic, faced the reality that their 'artistic licence' would be stepped on, and audiences wanted something much more closer to fact. So, recent biopics, such as The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) and Lincoln (2012), brought the myth back down to Earth, showing us the human beneath the magazine serials and profiles. Director Ruben Fleischer has chosen to ignore this change in attitudes, and opted for a heavily stylised, operatically over-the-top portrayal of the downfall of Los Angeles kingpin Mickey Cohen with Gangster Squad, one of the biggest let-downs in recent memory.

Mickey Cohen's (Sean Penn) choke-hold on Los Angeles is growing increasingly tighter, with the police force, judges, and politicians all backing him up. Seeing no legal method of capturing Cohen and his criminal empire, Chief Bill Parker (Nick Nolte) calls in no-nonsense police sergeant John O'Mara (Josh Brolin) to infiltrate and destroy Cohen's businesses. O'Mara quickly rounds up his tight crew, who he dubs the 'gangster squad', while O'Mara's friend and fellow police sergeant Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling) woos Cohen's girlfriend Grace Faraday (Emma Stone). Using wire-tapping and some simple brutality, the squad start to break down Cohen's money-making schemes, until Cohen's starts to hit back in force, waging war in the city he wants complete control of.

While obviously heavily elaborating on 'fact', Gangster Squad's story is undeniably luring. Set amongst possibly the most corrupt and out-of-control era in America's history and against a backdrop Hollywood razzle-dazzle, it's amazing just how dull the film is. I would estimate about 95% of the film is complete bull-shit, which I could live with, but it's the way it goes about it's bull-shit that makes the film such, well, bull-shit. This is a film that tries to capture the 50's noir cool of the era, with sharp suits and cool hats, but there's only so many Gosling poses or look-how-cool-this-car-is moments that I can take. If it spent a little less try trying to be cool, and more time getting to the grit of the story then it may have worked a little better. But this doesn't capture the style of the era like L.A. Confidential (1997) did, it's all forced, hat-tilted-to one side, cigarette-hanging-loosely-out-the-mouth, forced cool.

For such a stellar cast, only Sean Penn manages to tune in a performance. As ridiculous as his prosthetics are and as outlandish as his performance is, he seems to be the only one really trying. Don't expect any depth, Penn's Cohen is a simple thug who will kill you if you fail him, and you would find more complex villains in early James Bond movies. Brolin and Gosling, two of the most interesting actors to emerge in the last ten or so years, barely register, failing to breathe any kind of life into their archetypal roles. But it is Emma Stone that suffers the most, serving no purpose other than to be the helpless damsel-in-distress and to give Gosling a reason to take his shirt off. In fact, you could label every one of the Gangster Squad as a familiar archetype you would think we'd moved away from. Brolin is The No-Nonsense Leader, Gosling is The Handsome One, Harris (Anthony Mackie) is The Black One, Keeler (Giovanni Ribisi) is The Nerdy One, Kennard (Robert Patrick) is The Veteran, and Ramirez (Michael Pena) is The Rookie.

I mean come on, this is 2013, can't we expect a little bit more from our mainstream films? It's just one cliché after another, including a little boy friendly with Wooters who gets killed by one of Cohen's men, convincing Wooters to join the squad. It even features a scene where a character throws his badge into the sea. At the point where Cohen opens fire on the squad and shouts 'here comes Santa Clause!', I gave up all hope. Apart from the cinematography, and Penn's energetic performance, I would have nothing good at all to say about this film. Maybe Fleischer should stick to comedy, as his previous movie Zombieland (2009), I actually really enjoyed. But if you want a more powerful, honest and dramatic depiction of Mickey Cohen, check out the first five minutes of L.A. Confidential instead.


Directed by: Ruben Fleischer
Starring: Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Sean Penn, Emma Stone, Giovanni Ribisi, Anthony Mackie, Robert Patrick, Michael Peña, Nick Nolte
Country: USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie