Venom (2018)

  This movie was so much funnier than it had a right to be.  I am not one of those people that think antiheroes (or superheroes in general) have to be grim, joyless, brooding sacks of violence.  Humor and its relatability are what creates genuine pathos when it is needed, and for an antihero to work, you need empathy from your audience.

Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is a successful street journalist until he goes up against CEO Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed) and finds himself fired, broke, and broken up with by his fiancée Annie (Michelle Williams).  Desperate for redemption and maybe with a little axe to grind, Eddie follows up with a story from one of Drake's scientists (Jenny Slate) about ethical violations surrounding Drake's newest venture:  a handful of alien symbiotes collected from a comet.  Eddie accidentally bonds with the symbiote Venom and must find a way to stop Drake as well as keep the alien consciousness from eating the faces off random people.

One of the biggest talking points before this movie came out was if it would be R-rated.  The producers decided to go with the more audience- (and box office-)friendly PG-13.  Personally, I would have preferred a hard R so you could actually see the gore that is just implied by Venom.  Otherwise, I don't see how the rating would have made much of a difference.

I read a lot of reviews comparing Venom to superhero movies from the 90s and I feel like that's accurate but also not a negative.  We don't need every single movie to follow the Marvel formula.  Sometimes it's nice to see one follow Blade.  So there you go.  This is the buddy-cop, superhero, action comedy you didn't know you needed.