Coming out on Oct. 5, ‘Venom’, Sony’s newest attempt at a Spider-Man storyline was quickly picked apart by fans and critics alike. It’s odd seeing one of the web-crawlers most famous villains on the silver-screen without his adversary; however, ‘Venom’ surprised audiences with a fun, superhero film that easily gives ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ a run for its money.

The best parts of Venom were the actor performances by Tom Hardy who played Eddie Brock, the former journalist turned anti-hero, and not to mention it’s great humor. Originally, there were numerous concerns that ‘Venom’ could never succeed as a film without Spider-Man, however, thanks to Tom Hardy and other, minor supporting actors  the film was so enjoyable and easy to get lost into. . Hearing ‘humor’ and ‘Venom’ don’t really sound like a good match when reminded of the demon-like monster, but the film, mainly due to Hardy, has some light-hearted moments. It doesn’t come-off as too blatant, like a smack-you-in-the-face kind of humor, but can be subtle and fun while at the same time not forgetting the seriousness of a scene. Admittedly, there can be times that the film is unintentionally, or even intentionally, cringey beyond belief but it’s a common trend in the last few years and it’s easy to overlook as superhero movies suffer from this the most. It’s easy to look past the cringe when seeing how much work was put in to make it a fun experience.

In every superhero film, there’s some action and ‘Venom’ delivers on fantastic fights that are undeniably a great strength that the film wields. It’s not like “Transformers” where every punch or fall is met by Michael Bay’s barrage of explosions, and it’s not like a “Captain America” movie with simple ‘punch-and-kick’ action, ‘Venom’ plays to its own strengths to keep one close to the action and really feels like a comic book come to life. It’s great go see this as one of the biggest criticisms of Sony’s ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ in which that the action scenes were extremely lackluster, however, more than anything Sony has listened and delivered.

Sadly enough, this film was more ‘fun’ than anything else as it consistently was weakened by a poor, uninteresting antagonist and the latter-half of the felt completely separate from the first. In its first half,it was dramatic, didn’t take itself too serious at times, but ultimately gripping thanks to Tom Hardy’s excellent portrayal as Eddie Brock;it’s second half the only things that really made the film good were some great action sequences, and Hardy once again. As for the villain known as Riot, played by Riz Ahemd, he was a continuous bore to the entire experience who came off as a watered-down, Bond villain than an actual person. Tom Hardy made Eddie Brock feel real and easily connected with the audience, but in every great superhero story there’s a great villain to combat them, and ‘Venom’ is not succeeded in this regard.

Overall, ‘Venom’ was a rather enjoyable movie. It wasn’t fantastic, but it can be a  fun movie to watch with friends . Rarely these days a movie can just be “fun” and Venom does this. It’s not trying to be the next Guardians of the Galaxy, but Venom packs some punch and while it may not any Academy Awards, it’s a nice antidote to the winter blues if you are looking for entertainment.