Hey, remember when everybody was mad about not being able to see what Venom looked like in the first teaser for his solo film? Well, you get to see him in this new Venom preview, but we’ll leave it up to you whether or not he actually looks good. This new trailer dropped late Monday night, timed to coincide with the end of Sony’s Cinemacon presentation, but it actually leaked a few hours earlier on social media, where you might have seen it if you haven’t already shut off all of your social media since it’s Infinity War week. Anyways, enough about the specifics of the dang trailer release and on to the goods.
Take a look:
Well, before we get into that final seven seconds, we’re kind of shocked at how much this resembles another film hitting theaters this summer, namely Leigh Whannell’s Upgrade, which follows a similarly justice-focused Tom Hardy lookalike (in Venom‘s case, the real thing) and the voice in his head as they go about kicking ass and taking names. We highly doubt that Ruben Fleischer is willing to go as dark or as gory as Whannell does in that film, but we’re kind of hopeful! Otherwise, this cast is stupidly stacked, and we finally get a good look at everyone — Hardy, Jenny Slate, Michelle Williams, and evil businessman Riz Ahmed — though they’re kind of swimming in the sort of CGI-flooded action that typically screams “paycheck.”
Finally, it was always going to be a ridiculous proposition to have a comic book character as ridiculous-looking as Venom on the screen, and we’re actually kind of excited with, well, how absolutely goofy this looks. That transformation animation at the end is surprisingly well done, even if the talking character doesn’t look that great (it’s a design that looks excellent on the page, but perhaps not so much in motion). At least this isn’t an anemic Topher Grace, so we have that to be thankful for.
Venom hits theaters on October 5.
Featured image via screen grab.