VENOM tries to find his motivation

Somebody needs a speech.

Monologuing in movies gets a bad rep these days, especially in superhero movies.

But in Venom, that famous Spiderman villain appearing in a movie with no Spiderman, someone at some point needs to step up and explain their motivation and why they are doing what they are doing.

The villain (Riz Ahmed) does his villain stuff, because well, he’s the bad guy. The antihero Eddie Brock, a game Tom Hardy, also offers no real reason for his actions, nor does that symbiote that has taken up residence inside him.

Venom, and a few of his fellow space organisms are brought back to earth for research but it becomes apparent these aliens have other ideas about how they want to integrate with humans, and that is bad news for us Homo sapiens.

But in Eddie Brock, Venom finds salvation, changes his tune, and becomes… a good guy? I’m not sure. There are no explanations, or speeches, or monologues that explain why people or symbiotes do what they do.

There are a lot of funny moments among the action/horror, something director Ruben Fleischer is known for, especially in his hit movie, Zombieland.

But the story and the character motivations are surprisingly weak, in a film with such a strong, shiny, and hungry protagonist.