Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is a hardline investigative journalist, who breaks into the famous Life Foundation lab and discovers that they are experimenting on the weak and poor, combining them with an alien ‘symbiote’ to cure them. Brock comes into contact with one such symbiote, Venom – turning him into a duel-personality, dark spaghetti monster with sharkish teeth and a snaky tongue.

Venom takes a bizarre tone, unfolding like a weird buddy-comedy instead of a villain’s climb to power (something Marvel did to excellent effect this year with Avengers: Infinity War). Even though Venom is a vicious beast that enjoys chewing people’s heads off, him and Eddie get on well. Jokes spit between them like they’ve known each other for years.

Subsequently, the alien monster is removed of all his potential fear-factor – if he was ever scary in the first place. His voice isn’t bone-chilling, it’s insurmountably hilarious. And judging by the writing credits and Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland) directing, this is probably intentional – but why? Why was this enticingly dark, psychological horror concept turned into something so… light-hearted?

There are times when the film is fun in its stupidity, and there are a few laughs here and there. But it’s not long before we’re struck with its clumsily cut action sequences, frustratingly underwhelming emotions (especially from Michelle Williams), and dishwater dialogue that’s enough to put any massive beast to sleep. It also takes a certain kind of directorial incompetence to make Tom Hardy look dull on-screen. As it stands, Venom has plenty to be embarrassed about.