Thursday, February 8, 2018

MadCap's Trailer Reactions - "Venom"


...well, I suppose that are more pointless ways to fill one minute and forty-nine seconds.

Oh, sorry! I didn't see you there!

...y'know, sitting at your computer or reading this from your phone somewhere. I'm totally not right behind you right now. I just watched the Venom teaser trailer! You can watch it right here:


Well, congratulations. You wasted almost two minutes of your life that you will now never get back. Do you feel the pointlessness now? Feel it enter you being and then unleash it with a nice, long "meh".



And no, this is not me being dense. I'm aware that it's a teaser trailer. However, let's put aside the fact that teaser trailers are inherently useless anyway. Let's look at the trailer itself, what do we see? Tom Hardy (massive upgrade over the last time Eddie Brock showed up all Topher Grace-shaped) screaming in rage, running through some woods, and being generally Tom Hardy-ish. We see some of the iconic black goo that Venom is. And some other scenes that could have come out in any generic action film in the last fifteen years.

Y'know what we didn't see any of? Venom.

Which, again, I wouldn't mind given that this is a teaser, but then I have to put in my bit about how teaser trailers are inherently useless and the entire thing falls apart. If the Marvel logo were not front and center in it, then I wouldn't have even known and I don't think anyone else would have, either. It's really just incredibly boring and generic.

I wanted to keep out my feelings on doing a Venom movie at all when the MCU version of Spider-Man is barely out of his diapers (being in high school in the films at the time of this writing) and we haven't had an apology film for Spider-Man 3 having been made yet, and I've gone as far as I can without doing that. You cannot have Venom without Spider-Man.

They are intrinsically tied to one another in concept. Venom is a dark reflection of Spider-Man, a being that has all of his powers and abilities, as well as knowledge of everything that Peter Parker is and doing everything they (being both Eddie and the symbiote) can to ruin his life and - eventually - kill him. While Venom has reformed and become an anti-hero, and has been so now through a few different hosts (incidentally, I'm still really rather pissed that Venom Space Knight got cancelled), that happened overtime and would need to be built up to.

It's not where you start Venom from the jump. That's ridiculous.

Seriously, Sony. Pack it in. You worked out a deal with Marvel to get Spidey into the MCU, now sort out the rest. Having Venom, Silver Sable, and Black Cat films are nice, and they might even work well on their own, but we would rather have them as supporting characters or antagonists to Spidey first in order to give them a proper set up.

It says something when I actually have to praise the DCEU over the MCU, but at least DC has bothered to establish Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad before trying to throw her into three or four different spin-off films.

Venom is a very interesting and complex character. He can work as a villain and as an anti-hero with Eddie Brock under the symbiote. He deserves better than a generic-looking rush job that could be any pointless, brain dead action film of the last few years.

Sony. Marvel. Work it out. Work together rather than apart. The MCU has proven that the shared universe concept can work, you just have to space things out or, at least, rush them in a way that's moderately entertaining. Venom deserves much, much better. And so do his fans.

Fans that will be willing to give you money for making not stupid decisions. Like making a beloved character's first outing in eleven years into a dumb-looking action film. And not using any more teaser trailers.

Hint hint.

Venom is scheduled to be released in theaters from Marvel Entertainment and Sony Entertainment on October 5, 2018.

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