After two laughable and pathetic films, Venom is back with a third and final episode supposed to conclude this saga which obviously should never have seen the light of day. If Sony Pictures initially sought the identity of this supervillain, the studio quickly understood that it was not comic book fans that it needed to attract in order to hope to explode the box office. The series therefore quickly spiraled into great chaos from the second opus, to transform into a completely assumed low-brow comedy, where the interest of being a symbiote in this Sony Spider-Man Universe lies in the great no matter What. At least it’s assumed.
When asked why Sony Pictures continues to produce Venom films when each new episode is a festival of killer reviews and a certain pleasure in trashing the film on social networks, you just have to look at the result of the box office. The first Venom grossed over $850 million at the box office and Venom 2 over $506 million worldwide. For films that cost 100 million to produce each, we can say it, it’s not only very profitable, but what’s more, we’re even getting close to the hold-up for the first Venom. And then if we look more closely, certainly the Venom films are reviled in the circle of film buffs and normally constituted people, but if we push the analysis a little further, we observe that overall, the general public adheres to the proposition of Venom at the cinema. On Rotten Tomatoes, the first two Venoms have ratings of over 80% from the public. The same one who probably smiled at the sight of Venom in a nightclub, neon necklace around his neck.
RIDICULE DOES NOT KILL
Regardless, the good thing about what happened with the first two Venom movies is that Sony Pictures is no longer ashamed of its position of making ‘relaxation’ movies. ‘ for the general public, without any coherence, nor desire to please comic book fans, because in real life, it is not with comic book fans that they will succeed in making a billion dollars at the box office. And then, when you have an actor of Tom Hardy’s caliber who is also involved in both writing and production, the studio can only feel like it’s growing wings. Venom 3 was therefore designed with this same perspective, that is to say to please as many people as possible, while relying on characters who are now caricatures of themselves, this is noted and accepted by the painful force of things. And Venom 3 will fully embrace this posture by choosing the road trip movie this time, while keeping this almost unhealthy complicity between Venom and its host Eddie Brock. For almost 1 hour 50 minutes, we will follow the wanderings of these two protagonists not towards the west, but rather towards the east, from Mexico to New York, the final destination. And obviously, when we talk about New York with a character like Venom, it’s hard not to think of Spider-Man and a possible meeting between the two. I prefer to break the suspense for you in order to avoid any vain hope: no, this Venom 3 never introduces the Spider-Man, despite the insistent rumors of a return of Andrew Garfield in the costume. There are 2 post-credits scenes in the film, but they are there only for the joke and nothing else…
MORDO & THE LIZARD
And references like that to the lore of Spider-Man or even Marvel, Sony Pictures will multiply them, even to the point where we wonder if it is not an ultimate giga troll on the part of the studio , who decided to openly spit in the faces of fans. Actor Chiwetel Ejiofor who arrives in Venom 3 as leader of the armies while he plays Mordo in the MCU, the sorcerer enemy of Dr. Strange. British actor Rhys Ifans, who is the face of Dr. Connors (the famous Lizard in the Spider-Man films with Andrew Garfield), also plays a role in this Venom 3, that of Martin, father of a family of vegan hipsters; It makes you wonder what happened during the casting. Because there is no shortage of actors in Hollywood, some are even struggling for roles, so why rely on actors who already have important roles in the MCU and the Sony SpiderMan Universe? It is difficult to understand the interest of the approach, other than to generate a kind of hype among the spectators during its projection. Hype which can only turn into disappointment in the end. Afterwards, we must confess that the moments with the family of hipsters who travel around the US in their van managed to make us smile. Not because it was funny, but because it has a rather bizarre situation comedy. At this moment, Venom clearly falls into the totally assumed family comedy, with this touch of mocking humor, since here we caricature the hipsters right down to the children’s first names, Echo and Feuille, but also that of the mother, who is called Nova Moon. “Namasté” atmosphere therefore for this 21st century family who advocates Montessori education, and who are looking for the existence of aliens in Area 51. Obviously, by meeting Eddie Brock, they came across the right person.
KNULL, IT’S NULL
Venom 3 is therefore a succession of incredible situations to justify the journey of Eddie Brock and Venom between Mexico and New York, passing through the Nevada desert, Las Vegas and Area 51, knowing that he must limit the transformations complete, under penalty of being echo-located by the Xenophages, the creatures sent by Knull to recover the codex which lies in the DNA of Venom and Brock and which will allow him to escape from his prison. Besides, speaking of the ultimate troll on the part of the producers, if you thought that the arrival of Knull was going to finally bring some stakes to the Venom saga, that’s putting your finger in the eye and even further. .. We must also remember how Carnage was treated in the series to hope to believe that Knull is not the subject of proper disrespect. And it didn’t fail, Knull was relegated to the rank of the most useless supervillain in the entire Sony Spider-Man Universe. It’s crazy to what extent Amy Pascal, Tom Hardy and all the creatives of this Venom license don’t care about the readers of the comics who had already started to get excited on the internet, imagining all kinds of theories. Knull, it’s just a bait, nothing more…
In any case, in Venom 3, everything has been done to lure the conciliatory customer, to arouse his curiosity. Venom’s transformations into various animals in the film were clearly manufactured to generate a certain amount of hype, particularly on social media. It is so calculated and adapted to create buzz that the sequences that we see in the trailers or in video extracts are hardly longer in the film. Whether it’s horse Venom, fish Venom or Toad Venom, each transformation lasts no more than a minute on screen, or even a few seconds for certain metamorphoses. Obviously, doing CGI costs a certain amount of time, especially when it involves viscous fluid, it’s always complex to set up… Venom 3, it’s the humor and absurdity of the scene of the nightclub in Venom 2, but multiply for 1h50. This time, we will see Eddie Brock becoming hysterical in front of the casinos of Las Vegas, dancing with Madame Chen to the background of Abba in sequences which have neither tail nor head, with no real link between them, a bit like this was the case with Guillaume Canet’s Asterix and Obelix. We create isolated scenes, designed to create buzz, but never in the service of the film or the narrative. In any case, by putting Kelly Marcel, the screenwriter of 3 Venoms, in the role of director, for whom this is the first film, there could be no miracle. The staging is as flat as it is non-existent, the level of dialogue borders on amateurism or I don’t care because the children will see nothing but fire and it is not the final action scene which will save anything.
We’re not spoiling anything, but here too, in terms of narrative inconsistency and situations compared to what happened in the first two Venom, it’s clearly a mind-blowing shortcut and a reminder that the film only has the character of a totally disposable product. The film is so insipid that we have already forgotten how it happened. No really, to produce such a lousy film, with full knowledge of the facts and with such serenity, I tell you, it’s almost genius.
OUR RATING: 2/10
