Caught Venom yesterday...glad the tickets were free.
Venom was one of my favorite characters when I read a lot of Spider-Man comics 20-odd years ago, so part of this had the Justice League factor, where I was just happy to see him on screen looking the part (especially after that Spider-Man 3 iteration). I'd expect the 13-year old, comic book nerd version of me would've been stoked the whole time but adult me, especially after the quality of movies Marvel put out across the MCU and seeing Tom Hardy in other great roles, was underwhelmed. Then again, this is probably meant for the 13 year old crowd more than mid-thirties anyways. Overly cheesy for what could be a dark, complicated character. I was surprised how much I didn't miss the Spider-Man connection and I thought the Eddie/Venom stuff was pretty good...so there's a couple of wins, I suppose.
Hopefully the inevitable second one will make better use of the talent on-deck with Hardy and Harrelson (lose that godawful wig, though) and a better script/story.