Venom Parent Guide

“The world has enough heroes.” The official tagline for Venom should tell you most of what you need to know about the latest, highly mediocre offering from Sony. Really leaning into the white male anti-hero prototype, and even taking it to new heights, the film follows Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) on an incredible journey from a career in journalism to unemployment and then back to journalism – but this time he’s host to an alien parasite. The parasite, which is known as a symbiote (I would call it a monster), gives him superpowers but is threatening to eat him about half the time. As incredible as all that sounds, it’s minor compared to the journey that the monster, named Venom, goes on. That one goes something like this: “I’ve come to destroy Earth. No, wait - I think I’ll save it and betray my species instead.”

Venom feels like it is consciously trying to move the superhero genre beyond Marvel’s usual clean do-goodery. Pushing the PG-13 rating as far as it can go, the movie has over two dozen instances of profanity, including scatological curses, names of deity, and one sexual expletive. Violence is probably an even bigger concern for parents: it is difficult to overstate the disturbing and gruesome nature of the many violent scenes in Venom. There are multiple scenes of people growing tendrils out of their bodies and strangling innocent victims. Other violent scenes include creatures erupting out of other creatures, and aliens stabbing and slashing each other. Characters utter gruesome threats and often fulfill them. Venom and his species feed on humans throughout the movie. The real accomplishment of the film is that we find ourselves liking the funny monster that occasionally eats the heads off people’s shoulders.

Probably not appropriate for younger teens, Venom can be visually startling and outright scary. Moments when Venom is bursting out of Tom Hardy’s face are alarming as are the times when we can see his body being controlled by the monster. But mid to older teens might enjoy this scarier, edgier, anti-hero.

I would be hard pressed to find some real uplifting moments in the film. It does explore what is ethical in the pursuit of truth or science, especially when that imperils others. The highlight of the film is Tom Hardy’s performance, and the low point is definitely Michelle Williams’ hair. Look, it’s hard to make a head-eating monster into a hero. But Venom does its darndest, and Tom Hardy’s performance and humor does most of the legwork.