A big part of the marketing for Sony's Venom has emphasized that this is an anti-hero. Eddie Brock and his symbiote passenger aren't some squeaky-clean hero kissing babies and saving kittens. Venom is a dark character who isn't afraid of getting his hands dirty or causing a bit of collateral damage. We're only a little over a week now from Venom's release, and Sony has released a new clip that shows Venom living up to that anti-hero moniker. Check out Eddie Brock opting not to come quietly in the video below:
A friendly neighborhood Spider-Man this is not. These aren't some security guards or beat cops either, Venom takes out a fully equipped SWAT team that is prepared to engage. Little did they know what they would be engaging with this night. Venom tears through the SWAT team with relative ease, disarming several of the officers and bounding around the place with incredible speed for something so huge. And Venom does look huge here, exactly as fans of the character would hope. I'm not sure if he actually kills anybody, but one officer definitely takes an unpleasant fall and another gets the "puny god" treatment Hulk gave Loki in The Avengers by getting slammed all over the place. Visually this is a really cool scene too, with the blue and red colors lighting up the smoke and the great shot circling Venom as he fights.
In this clip, Eddie Brock is pleading with the officers not to do this, knowing the fate that awaits them if they do, but he is prepared and seemingly has built up some understanding with the symbiote at this point in the film, knowing he can call on it when needed. The SWAT team also seems to have at least some idea what they're dealing with, even though one guy sounds freaked out, because they come equipped with the right weapons, using flash grenades on Venom. You can see the symbiote disrupted, but this isn't enough to separate him from Eddie Brock. If only the SWAT team had brought a church bell with them, they might have stood a chance.
We've seen some of the humor that will be in this movie in the trailers, and not all of it has landed, but I liked what I saw here. When the SWAT team calls out for masks and they responded copy, Eddie Brock does the same and the symbiote responds 'copy' in kind. It's a fun touch that shows a bit of snarkiness to the character and lands a bit better than 'turd in the wind' for me personally.
Venom opens in theaters on October 5. Check out our guide for all of the upcoming Spider-Man spinoffs, and for Venom and all the biggest movies coming the rest of this year, take a look at our release schedule.
