solicitorfrommars:

Seeing venom is an interesting experience. For a person who has been studying filmmaking for awhile but knows how to not be a stick in the mud and just enjoy a film, the the best summary I can give is this: 

From a pure entertainment perspective, it’s fun. 

From a pure filmmaking perspective, its not that great and in some areas, awful. 

This is why we got reviews like this from critics:

and reviews like this from fans:

So the viewership responds like this: 

From a bigger perspective, this is why people have been upset by the movie industry, that it’s out of touch, that reviews don’t reflect the viewers, and the oscars don’t actually include films everyone watched:

When you listen to songs, you listen based on what you enjoy hearing. Even if there are critics that pan the album or music specialists with PhDs that say it was poorly made, if a song makes you feel good you like it. 

But with films there is a sort of elitism that in order to be seen as having good taste you need to like certain important films, and agree with the critics and those with PhDs in films on what is good and bad. You watch a film based on what the critics say, but you might not do that with a song. In reality, what should matter is knowing what you’re interested in and enjoying it because it makes you feel good. 

So, that is why I said Venom is fun yet not great at the same time: because for someone (like film enthusiasts, filmmakers, etc.) who knows about the technical side of a film, that can see and cares about the shots, lighting, editing, writing, and more, Venom was not very well made, especially to the caliber of some of the more recent superhero films of the same genre. 

But did you walk out of the theater happy? Did you laugh? Did you like the story? Maybe it didn’t change you or have a hugely important message (and those sorts of films are v important too), but if you had fun, that’s what matters. 

I have more nuanced opinions on this film and the movie industry in general, but I’m keeping it simple here. For a movie critic, they have to balance the fun and take into account the cringe-ness in terms of filmmaking. So you get a review like this:

Tl;dr: you liked it because it was fun, they might have hated it because it wasn’t so great from the technical side, but you can do both and still enjoy a film, because in the end a good film is what makes you happy.