The movie that filled Eddie Brock (And I) with Venom

Oh dear god, I wanted to love this movie, I really did. I am such a huge fan of Venom in the comics, and I desperately wanted a redemption of the character that Spiderman 3 failed. With a heavy heart, I give this film a Good Bad.

This movie starts off with Eddie Brock, an investigative reporter with his own show, where he exposes people and corporations that harm the public. He is invited to interview Carlton Drake, the founder of the Life Foundation. Eddie instead uses this opportunity to attempt to expose Drake for his possible criminal practices of recruiting emotionally vulnerable people for deadly experiments. This costs him and his fiancee Anne Weyning their jobs. He then probes deeper into the investigation, which puts him into contact with the symbiote Venom.
The film uses great CGI, and fantastic casting, with the unfortunate lack of plot or proper development of characters outside of Brock and Drake. The lack of direction is only slightly boosted by the inside jokes and references to the comic books, which longtime fans spotted almost immediately. The production quality was definitely there, but unfortunately that was all. It broke records, but critics had an absolute field day tearing it to shreds.

I have a complicated love-hate relationship with this film. I was enraptured by all the references that I understood, and completely adored the character of Venom. The conversations between Eddie Brock (played by Tom Hardy) and the symbiote Venom (voiced by Hardy as well) made for an excellent banter, with some of the action scenes making the film fantastic. Unfortunately, with some of the slower action taking up large portions of the movie, and Venom not appearing until well into the second act, the film was a long slog for anyone not on the edge of their seats waiting for the symbiote battle. The film tried way too hard to be an R-Rated movie, while maintaining its appropriate PG-13. The initial rating was upsetting because any way you slice it, Venom has always been an R-Rated character. The plot, on paper, was fantastic, and all of the little things making up the whole boosted this for me. As much as I wanted to love it, there was too much out of place, or too much relying on the references for me to fully love this movie the way I wanted to.

All the little references I found interesting
The post-credits scene featured Woody Harrelson in an atrocious red wig, portraying the serial killer Cletus Kasady, who in the comics is the bloodthirsty symbiote Carnage. He alludes to this by saying "When I get out, and I will, there's gonna be carnage."

Anne Weyning, Eddie Brock's ex fiancee in the film, temporarily dons the Venom symbiote, in a tribute to her time in the comics as She-Venom.

In the opening scene with the spaceship containing the symbiotes crash landing in Malaysia, one of the astronauts is credited as John Jameson, an astronaut in the comics who happens to be the son of J. Jonah Jameson, Peter Parker's boss at the Daily Bugle. Peter Parker is the secret identity of the superhero Spider-Man.

The symbiotes that appeared, while some not named, were
Venom- The villain turned anti-hero turned S.H.I.E.L.D operative, initially possessing Eddie Brock before moving over to Flash Thompson. In the movie he bonds to Eddie Brock when Brock breaks into the Life Foundation's secret lab, and accidentally exposes himself to the symbiote.
Riot- One of the 5 offspring of Venom, he is the most powerful, and the most volatile. In the movie, he is portrayed as the leader of the Klyntar race, otherwise known as the symbiotes.
Scream- This symbiote made an appearance as a blob, not as a fully fleshed (haha) symbiote. The yellow colour gave it away though.
Toxin- In the comics, one of Venom's offspring that bonded with a police officer, becoming an antihero before succumbing to the symbiote's evil nature and turning to villainy. In the movie, he is just a blue blob symbiote that is used in various tests by Carlton Drake.