My son’s in his first year of college. Dorm life, a completely unstructured lifestyle, girls, an occasional class to attend, lots of cafeteria food (fortunately Pitzer College has an excellent dining hall) and all the socializing a young man could desire. Underlying all of it, however, is a subtle current of loneliness; it’s fun to live away from home but I can tell from our conversations and other communications that he’s a bit homesick and find that this “adulting” thing is a bit of a two-edged sword.
In a remarkably similar way, Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) in the movie “Venom” (2018) finds himself caught in a similar dilemma after an alien life force takes over his body in the hit superhero film of the same name. What’s cool is that we hear his inner dialog with the Venom identity. While in some sense it’s like Brock has multiple personality disorder, in fact a lot of the film is an exploration of different facets of our own identities. Do we give in to the raw animal nature of our own “venom” identity and rage furiously at the world, or do we have a more rational, more adult approach where we identify problems, come up with solutions and implement them without breaking the law or injuring anyone?
Of course, it could end up that I’m watching on the TV and he’s watching on his computer, since a digital copy is included with the Blu-Ray release of Venom at Walmart. Then we’d end up with a situation like this:
My son and I have already seen Venom in the theater – we’re big fans and I’m particularly a fan of splendid actor Tom Hardy – but that was in the vein of “let’s watch a superhero beat up the bad guys and enjoy all the cool special effects”. When he’s back from his first semester at college for Christmas break, we’re going to watch Venom again, but this time it’s my intention to use it as a launching pad to talk about how we, as adults, must fight against our animal impulses and approach life in a rational and mature fashion.
Indeed, it’s timely that one of the extras on the Venom release is a short “The World Has Enough Superheroes” among its over 60-minutes of extended content and special features. Seems like the decision of whether to do the right thing is very relevant at this moment in our culture, don’t you think?
But with my son, well, he might get caught up watching Equalizer 2 on Blu-Ray. I think that’s a film that deserves a big screen – Denzel’s a solid actor – but my boy? He’s of the generation where watching something on his phone is just fine:
Still, if he’s not careful, Venom might still come bursting out of his holiday present stack! And, for that matter, you can too if you just click on the image below! It’ll take you right to the current best deal at Walmart.com:
In any case, I’ll be giving my son a Blu-Ray copy of Venom to take back to the dorms with him. Knowing how modern kids have their tech set up, it’ll end up where a half-dozen kids will be jammed on a bed or the floor, watching the movie on a huge computer screen. And that’ll be a great experience for them too.
Want to pick up a copy of Venom Blu-ray (available 12/18/18) or Equalizer 2 Blu-ray (available today), another, less super-hero-y film with a similar storyline about doing the right thing versus just focusing on yourself? They’re both available at your friendly local neighborhood Walmart!