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Thursday, Nov. 19, 2020 - Shelton-Mason County Journal Page A-29
THE DARK
Two takes on sharing your body with aliens
when two films are re-
leased within the same
window of time and offer dif-
ferent takes on the same idea,
like “Deep Impact” and “Ar-
mageddon” tackling
world-ending mete-
orites in 1998, “Antz”
and “A Bug’s Life”
offering CGI comedies
about insectsthat
same year, “Dark
City” pitting humans
against inhuman ma-
nipulators of reality
in 1998 before “The
Matrix” did the same
in 1999, or “Mission
to Mars” and “Red
Planet” sending astronauts
to our solar system’s fourth
planet in 2000.
Even within thiscategory
of “twin films,” a matched
pair that stands out for its . I
parallels is 2018’s “Upgrade”
and “Venom,” which is es-
pecially notable for how the
Blumhouse Productions film
actually outperforms the
Sony Pictures partnership
with Marvel Entertainment
in every way.
If you’re a Spider-Man fan,
you don’t need me to tell you
who Venom is, but if you’re
not, trying to summarize the
character’s comic book origins
is an exercise in futility.
Like Cable of the X-Men
franchise (also seen onscreen
in 2018, in “Deadpool 2”),
Venom was co-created during
It’s always interesting
the latter half of the 1980s by
one of the artists who would
go on to co-found Image Com-
ics in 1992, so it’s not sur-
prising that both characters
have an appeal that could be
described as “Peak I
Nineties,” as ab-
surdly muscular anti-
heroes comprised of
stylish graphic design
elements and aggres-
sive posturing.
That being said,
Marvel under Dis-
ney’s ownership
made me care about
BOXLEITNER a talking raccoon
and a walking tree
in outer space with
“Guardians of the Galaxy” in
2014, so I’d been waiting for a
while to see what the Marvel
Cinematic Universe could
do with Venom,‘a character
whom I loved when I was a
teenager with admittedly ter-
rible taste.
The 2018 “Venom” film
winds up being a decidedly
mixed bag, although it’s un-
questionably superior to the
character’s portrayal in Sam
Raimi’s “Spider-Man 3” in
2007. Tom Hardy, a fine ac-
tor, carries off the physical
heft required to play a con-
vincingly comics-accurate Ed-
die Brock, the man who even-
tually bonds with the black
alien symbiote tobecome
Venom, although he does
fall prey to Hardy’s frequent
tendency toward overdone
accents.
By contrast, Hardy’s voice
as Venom is exactly as I al-
ways imagined the character,
even if the film makes what I
can’t help but consider a mis-
take by completely divorcing
Venom’s origins from Spider-
Man, especially since Sony
Pictures has the film rights to
both Venom and Spider-Man.
That being said, since
Venom’s origins in the comics
were defined by his hatred of
Spider-Man, the film is forced
to come up with a new take
'on the character, redefining
Eddie Brock as a hapless
but well-meaning would-be
do-gooder who’s egged on to .
embrace his dark side by the
alien symbiote, who becomes
an amusingly sinister life
coach to the otherwise ordi-
nary human whom he rou-
tinely berates as “a loser.”
Hardy has just enough
skill as a physical comedian
to make it look like an alien
parasite inside of him is fling-
ing him around like a rag
doll, although he gets a big
assist from the film’s CGI,
since he falls well short of
Bruce Campbell fighting his
own character’s demon-pos-
sessed hand in 1987’s “Evil
Dead II” (which was also di-
rected by Sam Raimi).
In spite of its flaws,
“Venom” still manages to be
big dumb fun, with plenty of
Easter eggs for fans of the
comics, including Woody Har—
relson in a" mid-credits scene,
perfectly cast as a character
whom fans will recognize as
ideally suited for a “Venom”
sequel.
As for Blumhouse Produc-
tions, it not only released
“Upgrade” months earlier
than “Venom” in 2018, but
they also cast Tom Hardy loo-
kalike Logan Marshall—Green
in the lead role, and then
proceeded to make a much
smarter, more darkly comic
film, as a direct result of not
being tethered to any pre-ex-
isting characters or concepts.
The premise of “Upgrade”
is deceptively simple, an
updating of the Charles
Bronson “Death Wish” films
for the cyberpunk genre, in
which Grey Trace (played by
Marshall-Green), a relatively
uncomplicated guy with a lov-
ing wife, survives an attack
by criminals who leave his
wife dead, and him paralyzed
below the neck.
But when Grey receives
an implant of an artificial
intelligence called STEM, not
only does he regain his mobil-
ity, but he also acquires the
combat abilities to hunt down
the criminals who killed his
wife, so he can seek his re-
venge and discover what their
deeper motives were.
While Hardy elicits our
amused sympathy as Eddie
Brock, getting tossed around
by the Venom symbiote, Mar-
shall-Green is such an aston-
ishingly nuanced and precise
physical actor that he evokes
a chilling sense of body hor-
ror by conveying the dispas-
sionate, robotic movements
of STEM when it’s acting as
Grey’s autopilot.
Marshall-Green is ably
assisted by Simon Maiden’s
voice-acting as STEM, deliv-
, ering the most unnervingly
placid and low-key sarcastic
line readings this side of
Douglas Rain as HAL 9000
in Stanley Kubrick’s “2001:
A Space Odyssey” in 1968, as
well as by the striking cine-
matography of Stefan Duscio,
who makes sure the camera
remains rigidly oriented on
Marshall-Green whenever
STEM takes over Grey’s body
during the fight scenes.
Also notable’ are Betty
Gabriel from “Get Out” as
Detective Cortez, the mor-
ally upright cop who’s hot on
Grey’s tail as he murders his
way through his wife’s killers,
and Benedict Hardie as Fisk
Brantner, a killer-for-hire
whose own physical upgrades
rival those of STEM (in Mar-
vel terms, making him the
Carnage to Grey’s Venom).
All of this would already
serve to make “Upgrade” a
crackerjack little thriller,
even before it unleashes its
final sadistic twist on its
audience, one that will leave
you feeling unsettled long
after the closing credits have
rolled.
360-426-4707
- 182 S.E. Brewer Road 0 Shelton
. . PEN?!” .
’
Plays are free but
Space is limited; so”
www.SkyLineDrive-ln.com
Gates Open 6:00 pm.
Show at 7:00pm
Week of 11/20 -11/26
Friday Saturday 1 1/20-21
HONEST THIEF (PG-13) followed by
THE EMPTY MAN (R)
Sunday 11/22
THE EMPTY MAN (R)
fol/owed by HONEST THIEF (PG-13)
MONDAY TUE CLOSED
STARTING WEDNESDAY "/25
CROODS: NEW AGE followed by DR. SEUSS' GRINCH