Venom is NOT a film for Spider-man fans because it does NOT follow the origin story of this lethal protector.
The movie instead rewrites the back story of Venom (played by Tom Hardy) and distances it far from its Spider-man roots. In fact, during the whole movie there is no web-slinging, spider-climbing or any powers related at all to our friendly neighborhood webcrawler.
This is perhaps why alot of Spidey fans were upset with the movie. Venom is first and foremost a Spider-man villain. The symbiote first appeared in Secret Wars #8 as Spider-man’s new black costume. Later, when it traveled with Spidey back to earth, it (the symbiote) later tried to corrupt Peter Parker (unsuccessfully I might add). Afterwards, the entity bonded with Peter Parker’s rival Eddie Brock creating Venom. This is the origin story that fans of the anti-hero were accustomed to, which the movie did NOT link to in any way…
Now I’m NOT saying the movie was no good. On the contrary, the movie was quite enjoyable. The re-write of the symbiote origin and its link to Eddie Brock was well done. In some ways in reminded me of Venom’s first solo series Lethal Protector. The movie was like the comic wherein it had Venom facing off with other symbiotes.
In my opinion, Venom is a movie worth watching regardless of whether you are a Spider-man fan or not.