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Archive for November 2018
Hey guys, kanna here. And let's wish the cafe a happy four-year anniversary!
I know it's been FOREVER since I last posted. There's really no excuse. Not a good one, at any rate. The short version is that I had hit a block and was going through some personal stuff (everything is fine now).
I know I've been talking a lot about Mental Health Month, and I think I can say this with ALMOST absolute certainty: it will be in November. One anime or anime-movie about mental health per week in November (except for Thanksgiving week; that might be a little difficult).
I know it's been FOREVER since I last posted. There's really no excuse. Not a good one, at any rate. The short version is that I had hit a block and was going through some personal stuff (everything is fine now).
I know I've been talking a lot about Mental Health Month, and I think I can say this with ALMOST absolute certainty: it will be in November. One anime or anime-movie about mental health per week in November (except for Thanksgiving week; that might be a little difficult).
You know what I think? I think the world has had enough superheroes. Let's look at the individuals who believe they're superheroes, but--wait, no!
Sorry, wrong movie. As much as I want to see Glass because it has JAMES FREAKING MCAVOY (most of my friends don't get what I see in him), this doesn't have anything to do with today's Anime Monday. I will admit, though, that I did not see Split, which is supposed to be the sequel to 2000's Unbreakable. And...wow, all this talk about Shyamalan movies has made me realize I'm going on a tangent. Let's get back to Anime Monday #55. I might continue my tangent later. We shall see.
Anyway, the world has had enough superheroes. For now, anyway. Between Deadpool 2, Ant-Man and the Wasp and Infinity War, I think it's time for a break with our favorite anti-hero/villain/whatever you want to call him, Venom.
In this Anime Monday, I'll be comparing and contrasting Venom (now that I've seen it) with Parasyte -the maxim-. Because, believe it or not, Venom actually has its fair share of similarities with Parasyte -the maxim-. I'll try to get through this without referencing the Spider-Man comics too much, but keep in mind that all the research I've done on the symbiotes is pretty limited. So if I make mistakes, I apologize in advance, and you are more than welcome to correct me.
Also, this is more going to be a review of Venom with bits referencing Parasyte -the maxim-. Sorry if this is a little different from my compare/contrast with Tokyo Ghoul, but I feel that with this movie having so many similarities to Parasyte -the maxim-, it only makes sense.
It's time to face your inner anti-hero! Let's take a look at Venom.
So this movie already starts off pretty similarly to the middle and end of Parasyte -the maxim-. Well, almost. Through Carlton Drake (played by Riz Ahmed), the CEO of a bioengineering corporation called the Life Foundation, we learn about how the symbiotes cannot survive without oxygen-breathing hosts, which often reject the symbiosis.
Moving on.
We meet the popular investigative journalist, Eddie Brock (played by Tom Hardy), who quickly goes from hero to zero because he confronted Drake about Drake experimenting on humans. Real smart guy (sarcasm). Although, in Eddie's defense...nope, there's really no defense for Eddie here. That was a pretty stupid move on his part. He loses his job and his relationship with his fiancee, Anne Weying (played by Michelle Williams).
Anyway, six months go by, and Drake is getting closer to achieving successful symbiosis. And speaking of symbiosis, let's tie this to Parasyte -the maxim-. Wait, no, not yet. We have to meet Venom before we tie this into Parasyte -the maxim-.
One of Drake's scientists, Dora Skirth (played by Jenny Slate), disagrees with his methods and wants to help Eddie expose Drake for the human-experimenting-psycho he is. So Eddie breaks into the research facility with Dora's help. He gets in and learns that an acquaintance of his has been taken in as a test subject for Drake's experiments. Eddie tries to rescue her, but the symbiote possessing his acquaintance jumps from her body to his when she attacks him. His acquaintance is dead and Eddie escapes with his life.
Um...Eddie, buddy...did you not see any horror movies? I'm pretty sure rule number...five (just go with it) is that you NEVER go back to rescue the rest of the hostages, no matter how tempting it is! You should count yourself lucky you escaped with your life! Now you have a symbiote inside your body! I hate to use this gif again, but Captain Picard really says it all with his face-palm.
Anyway, let's tie this into Parasyte -the maxim-. In Parasyte -the maxim-, the parasites typically possess an individual through entering an ear or the nose and taking over the individual's brain. This wasn't the case with our lead in Parasyte -the maxim-, Shinichi (his parasite entered through his arm and couldn't make it to his brain), because both he and Migi (the parasite) retained their separate intellect and personality.
In Venom, the symbiote takes over an individual's whole body and can also affect the host's mind. Eddie starts to experience strange symptoms, such as hearing a voice in his head. We'll get back to this later. Anyway, Eddie reaches out to Anne, whose new doctor boyfriend discovers the symbiote in Eddie.
Carlton Drake discovers Dr. Skirth's betrayal when she reveals who broke into the Life Foundation and exposes her to the remaining symbiote, killing her and the symbiote. This leaves the symbiote inside Eddie as the only living specimen.
Wait.
Either it's just me and I wasn't paying close attention to the movie or I missed something entirely. If the symbiotes need oxygen-breathing hosts (i.e. humans), why did Dr. Skirth die? If anything, she should have been possessed by the symbiote! Her mind should have been completely taken over! Like with the parasites in Parasyte -the maxim-! I...I don't get it. At all. It would have been awesome if she got possessed! Then she could fight Drake! But no, they killed her off, because...reasons.
I want to say let's have a moment of silence for this minor character, but in my opinion, she didn't really contribute anything to the plot and was kinda annoying. So, no moment of silence.
Soon after Dr. Skirth's death, Drake sends mercenaries to retrieve the symbiote from Eddie, and we get a pretty cool (and kinda funny in my opinion) fight scene where the symbiote takes over Eddie and he transforms into this monstrous creature and kicks some major ass. I think the fight scenes here are better than those in Parasyte -the maxim-, because these are easier to follow. Now, it could be because Venom is live action, while Parasyte -the maxim- is an anime, but I'm not sure if that's the reason why.
After the fight, Eddie takes shelter outside the city and is in shock over what happened. He hears the voice in his head again before the symbiote appears out of Eddie's arm. It introduces itself as Venom (voiced by Tom Hardy) and explains how Drake is getting symbiotes from a comet with many more symbiotes on it. According to Venom, the comet is an invasion force with symbiotes on the lookout for worlds where they can possess and devour the inhabitants.
He...it...Venom (I'm honestly not sure what pronoun I should be using for Venom) offers to spare Eddie if he helps the symbiotes achieve their goal. Eddie is initially against this, but he soon comes to enjoy the superhuman abilities Venom gives him. So much so that he decides to break into his old workplace to turn over evidence of Drake's experiments. Um...why? Eddie, buddy, I don't know how to put this lightly, but...are you for real?
Ok. Enough of questioning Eddie's sanity (for now).
Anyway, instead of doing the more badass (and probably smarter) thing of climbing back out of the window and hopping from building to building, Eddie decides to take the elevator to go to the ground. For. The. Love. Of. G-d!!!!! Even VENOM didn't like this idea! FREAKING VENOM! What, you don't want to listen to the voice in your head for a change?
Anyway, that pretty stupid move on Eddie's part leads him to encounter the FREAKING SWAT TEAM. He transforms into Venom to escape, kills pretty much all the members of the SWAT team (RIP), only to find out that Anne Weying witnessed the whole thing. She takes him to her new doctor boyfriend, where Venom explains to Eddie that the symbiotes have two main weaknesses: high-pitched noises and fire. Anne and her doctor boyfriend discover that the symbiote is rotting Eddie's internal organs, and...wait, what?
In a symbiotic relationship, both parties benefit. In Parasyte -the maxim-, both parties benefited from each other. And that wasn't even supposed to be a symbiotic relationship! But...this makes no sense! THIS. MAKES. NO. SENSE!
Ok kanna. Deep breaths. In and out. In and out.
Moving on.
So Venom explains the organ damage is fixable as part of the symbiotic relationship. Despite this, Anne decides to use an MRI machine to separate Eddie from Venom. So...it's basically Anne's fault that in the next scene, Eddie is captured by Drake. Is it me, or did everyone's brains get taken over by silly parasites? Um...Picard, please take over for a sec. I think I need a break. There's only so much messed up stuff I can take.
Ok, I'm back. Where were we...oh, right. So Drake interrogates Eddie and tortures him to find out where Venom is. Ok, great! Finally...not so ridiculous...until we find out that Drake also has a symbiote.
Yeah.
If you've seen the movie (or at least part of it up to this point), you might remember a symbiote that had been body-hopping from FREAKING MALAYSIA TO SAN FRANCISCO! Look, no offense to my Malaysian readers, but no matter how many bodies this symbiote...parasite...whatever (honestly, the two terms could be used interchangeably at this point) hops from body to body, you'd think it would have died! Malaysia and San Francisco are pretty far apart!
I'm sorry I keep using that gif, but there's honestly so much here that it applies to.
We learn that this symbiote is Riot, and that Riot has bonded with Drake. We also learn that Drake has agreed to take Riot in a Life Foundation space probe to get the other symbiotes and take them to Earth. Anne, who has (reluctantly) bonded with Venom, frees Eddie and Venom is once again back with Eddie.
Venom tells Eddie that he...it...Venom (honestly whatever pronoun works for you for Venom works for me) tells Eddie that Venom has been convinced to help protect the Earth from the other symbiotes through Venom's interactions with Eddie (G-d these grammar mistakes I'm forced to make are driving me NUTS). Ok, so he's becoming a superhero? How did he become the villain in the Spider-Man franchise, then?
Well, according to Spider-Man 3...eh, we're not going to go into that.
Anyway, where were we...well, let's just skip to the pre-credits scene, which was one of my favorite parts of the movie. It's safe to assume the "good guys" (Venom and Eddie) won.
This scene was both funny and very well-written.
And now, we'll go to the mid-credits scene. Which is pretty intense. In this scene, we discover that Eddie has returned to his career in journalism. Eddie is invited to interview a prisoner named Cletus Kassady, who says that if and when he gets out of prison, "there will be carnage." Which led every comic book nerd in the theater to be like, "HOLY CRAP WTF THEY'RE BRINGING IN CARNAGE!!!"
And my reaction was...well, almost the same. I was with a friend who didn't quite understand my excitement, but she did recognize Woody Harrelson as Cletus Kassady/Carnage (or was this before Kassady became Carnage?), so she was somewhat excited? I guess because they're bringing Woody Harrelson in for the inevitable sequel, but who knows.
Sigh...rating: wow, this is a hard one. Um...5/10?
Why: Believe it or not, I actually kind of liked this movie. I think it's going to be more of a guilty pleasure for me, if anything. I know I used the Picard gif a lot and that the characters didn't always make the best moves, but the best character in the movie wasn't Eddie. It was Venom.
Tom Hardy did a great job in both roles, but Venom was the best character. Riot was pretty badass, but he didn't really get much development other than him being a bad guy. I think all he had going for him were the fight scenes.
Tom Hardy did a great job in both roles, but Venom was the best character. Riot was pretty badass, but he didn't really get much development other than him being a bad guy. I think all he had going for him were the fight scenes.
HOWEVER:
Eddie, the main character in this, didn't get a ton of development. We learned he's a journalist, and...that's about it. Venom got more development, was super intimidating, and even the voice sent shivers down my spine. Come to think about it, Venom was the only character who got ANY development whatsoever.
Aside from character development, the other thing I don't entirely get is Eddie's accent in this. The movie is set in San Francisco, California. Which is great, and I don't have a problem with it. However, Tom Hardy, a British actor, seems to be using a combination of a New York accent and a Boston accent. Granted, I haven't been to San Francisco (I have been to California, just not that part), so I'm not sure if people sound like that or not there.
From an anime perspective, there aren't really a ton of ways to tie this into Parasyte -the maxim-. I thought there would be more ways, but the two differ from each other so much. Now that I think about it, Venom differs a lot from Tokyo Ghoul, too. G-d, which anime can I tie this the most into? Anything?
I guess if I were to say anything about Venom and anime, it would be pretty cool if this movie got turned into an anime movie. I'm not sure who I'd cast for the original Japanese, but for the English dub...nope, not sure about that, either. I'll have to think on this for a bit.
Sorry for this being so short and late; there has been a lot going on in the world of kanna and I needed a break for my mental health. And speaking of mental health, stay tuned for Mental Health Month this month! I can't promise it will be up on time, but I plan on posting the first post at some point next week. And it's going to be...Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Rebellion!
Stay tuned!
Aside from character development, the other thing I don't entirely get is Eddie's accent in this. The movie is set in San Francisco, California. Which is great, and I don't have a problem with it. However, Tom Hardy, a British actor, seems to be using a combination of a New York accent and a Boston accent. Granted, I haven't been to San Francisco (I have been to California, just not that part), so I'm not sure if people sound like that or not there.
From an anime perspective, there aren't really a ton of ways to tie this into Parasyte -the maxim-. I thought there would be more ways, but the two differ from each other so much. Now that I think about it, Venom differs a lot from Tokyo Ghoul, too. G-d, which anime can I tie this the most into? Anything?
I guess if I were to say anything about Venom and anime, it would be pretty cool if this movie got turned into an anime movie. I'm not sure who I'd cast for the original Japanese, but for the English dub...nope, not sure about that, either. I'll have to think on this for a bit.
Sorry for this being so short and late; there has been a lot going on in the world of kanna and I needed a break for my mental health. And speaking of mental health, stay tuned for Mental Health Month this month! I can't promise it will be up on time, but I plan on posting the first post at some point next week. And it's going to be...Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Rebellion!
Stay tuned!
