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Venom
Movie

Venom

2018 • Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

Woke Score
4.2
out of 10

Plot

After a faulty interview with the Life Foundation ruins his career, former reporter Eddie Brock's life is in pieces. Six months later, he comes across the Life Foundation again, and he comes into contact with an alien symbiote and becomes Venom, a parasitic antihero.

Overall Series Review

The movie "Venom" (2018) follows investigative reporter Eddie Brock, whose personal and professional life is destroyed after he attempts to expose the unethical human experimentation of the wealthy industrialist Carlton Drake and his Life Foundation. After being infected with an alien symbiote named Venom, Eddie gains incredible power but must contend with the alien's violent, hungry urges and its dark, comedic influence. The central narrative focuses entirely on the unique, dual-identity dynamic between Eddie and Venom, who must learn to coexist and eventually become an antihero to stop the villainous Carlton Drake and a rival symbiote, Riot, from bringing an alien invasion to Earth. The film explores themes of moral ambiguity, the struggle for control, and a peculiar form of co-dependent partnership. The primary conflict is a secular battle against a powerful, corrupt corporation and a literal alien invasion, maintaining a consistent focus on action-comedy and character chemistry rather than broad political or cultural commentary.

Categorical Breakdown

Identity Politics3/10

The narrative does not focus on race, immutable characteristics, or intersectional hierarchy. The main conflict is an anti-hero journalist taking down a corrupt, unethical billionaire-led corporation, which is a class/power critique. The villain is played by a non-white actor (Riz Ahmed), subverting the typical 'evil white male' trope. Casting choices are generally colorblind without explicit political lectures.

Oikophobia4/10

The central antagonist is the Life Foundation, a powerful, corrupt American bio-engineering corporation engaging in illegal human experimentation in a major US city. This critiques institutional Western greed and lack of ethics. However, the film ultimately results in the antihero Eddie Brock, aided by the alien Venom, choosing to defend all of humanity and the Earth against an alien invasion, which counteracts a civilizational self-hatred trope.

Feminism3/10

Eddie Brock's ex-fiancée, Anne Weying, is depicted as a strong, successful, and competent attorney who ends the relationship due to his recklessness and poor decisions. She momentarily becomes 'She-Venom' to save his life, demonstrating competence and power, but the narrative focus remains squarely on the male-led anti-hero team-up. There is no overt anti-family or anti-natal messaging, but the female characters are secondary to the main conflict.

LGBTQ+7/10

The core of the movie is the intimate, co-dependent, symbiotic relationship between Eddie Brock and the alien entity Venom. The Venom symbiote is biologically agendered and is shown to bond with both male and female hosts. The intense, non-sexual, co-habitation 'odd couple' pairing between the two male-presenting characters forms the central emotional arc of the film and is widely interpreted in cultural commentary as centering a non-normative 'queer' or 'romantic' relationship. The plot centers this pairing over traditional male-female romance.

Anti-Theism4/10

The plot is entirely secular, focused on science, corporate corruption, and aliens. There is no depiction of or hostility toward organized religion, specifically Christianity. The anti-hero's journey embraces a form of moral relativism where he and Venom are willing to 'eat bad guys' and punish evildoers outside of the law, which is a critique of transcendent or objective moral law, but it is not framed as an anti-theist message.