Marvel’s “Venom” premiered Oct. 5, becoming the top earning movie in October, earning $200 million domestically and $540 million worldwide.  Despite its box office success, “Venom” was a let down because it lacked clear direction.

“Venom” presented an alien symbiotically bonding with Eddie Brock played by Tom Hardy; the symbiosis resulted into the two becoming one. Unfortunately the same could not be said about the direction of Venom as it could not decide whether it was a comedy, an action movie or a dark psychological thriller.

“It was the epitome of mediocrity,” junior Aidan Lankler said.

First off, there was little to no character development at all. Marvel marketed this movie as an anti-hero movie but that was not the case. Venom is only a “villain” because he murders a few useless thugs. Eddie Brock’s backstory is given little attention and time in the movie, which leaves him feeling shallow and underdeveloped.

Furthermore, the villain Carlton Drake played by Riz Ahmed followed the standard wealthy, power hungry, bad guy, who wants to profit off the suffering of the world. None of the characters were compelling.  

Most of the $100 million budget must have gone to the filming in animations because they were well shot and it looked really cool. Unfortunately it’s as if they shot all of these scenes and then realized they had to make a movie so they just figured out someway to stitch it all together.

The worst part of the movie was the fact that it had so much potential to be a dark R-rated movie. The plot could have been something akin to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde where the light hearted do-gooder Eddie Brock would have to deal with his murderous counterpart venom. There were scenes where Venom bites people’s heads off but it always felt like the directors did this for mandatory gore, rather than actually having substance to Brock’s more evil counterpart.

The only redeemable parts were the action scenes because they were entertaining and over the top. In addition they used the movie as somewhat a metaphor for mental illness as Brock descends into chaos and has to deal with the conflicting personalities inside of him.

“I thought that Venom was very incohesive but an overall enjoyable action flick,” junior Matthew Pittman said.

Even with these action scenes, the jumpiness of the movie and overall shallowness makes it a flop.  At best it earns two out of five stars.