If Venom proves anything, it's that: just because you slap a Marvel logo on a movie does not guarantee it to be good. Because throughout recent years, it has proven to be a fact that even though the films residing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe turn out to be good, the other Marvel films, "the loners", usually turn out to be below average. Take Fantastic Four (the remake) for example. Marvel had control in the making of the film, and it turned out to be one of the worst superhero films to this day. This situation shows directly in 2018's Venom, based off of the popular character from the comics, and from Spider Man 3. Sony, the studio behind the film, saw this film as a way to start a sort of universe for "dark superheroes." And all I have to say is this: if this universe is filled with films like Venom, then it should be cancelled right here, right now. Because, there is no way to sugarcoat it: Venom absolutely sucks. The film tells the story of Eddie Brock, a reporter who begins to become sick after reporting at a shady lab for one of the most successful corporations in the world: Life Industries. He begins to feel strange symptoms, and a deep voice inside his head. This voice turns out to be an alien named Venom, who latched itself onto Brock, and can shape Brock into its body. Yep, that's the movie. That's what is destined to make millions and millions of dollars, somehow. And, the film is just as bad as the plot is. 112 minutes, that is the runtime of Venom. I just don't understand why it took over an hour to start the plot up, and stop giving exposition about what the film is actually about. That is the beauty of films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, they start up instantly. They throw the viewers directly into the action, and don't waste irrelevant time in forcing the viewer through the cliched origin story that haunts almost all superhero movies. I wish Venom could have learned from Marvel, because the origin story took way too long, making the actual fun and entertaining part sloppily rushed for a brief time, until the whole thing was over. Tom Hardy is a great actor, and Michelle Williams is a great actress; which just leads me to question why they both acted awfully throughout the whole movie. I'm convinced it's not their fault, though. We have seen them act so wonderfully in so many iconic films that it is not the fault of Williams and Hardy. The fault is the lazy script: filled with countless moments of pure exposition, stupid cheesy one-liners that don't stick well with the viewer, and loads and loads of empty substance. The script makes the characters unlikable and impossible to relate to, which makes the film one jumbled mess. No effort is put into anything in this film, from the horrendous plot to the terrible acting, and even the directorial effects. Following the footsteps of other films in the genre, the CGI is laughable, not looking real for a single second. The action scenes are simply abysmal, making it hard to concentrate, and impossible to enjoy. There are so many problems with Venom as a whole, but there is one problem that is so much more prevalent and important then all the others combined. For a film to be remarkable, it needs to have style and substance. For a film to be average or decent, it usually has one or the other. The problem with Venom: it simply lacks both style and substance. Nothing stands out, absolutely nothing. In fact, I spent pretty much the whole time thinking about all the other things I could be doing with my time, like walking down the hall to see A Star Is Born again. There is nothing to Venom, and in a world where superhero movies are actually pretty good, Venom just proves to be even more of a flop.