In VENOM, Tom Hardy delights, while director Ruben Fleischer gets the tone just right

Enough knocking from the critical establishment (32% on Rotten Tomatoes) and the anger of comic book fans who wanted something much darker: The movie of VENOM turns out to be a lot of fast, frisky fun. This is thanks to director Ruben Fleischer (shown below), the smart guy behind Zombieland and 30 Minutes or Less, who understands the importance of proper pacing and, above all, achieving the right tone. He manages both here, and the

result is enormously entertaining -- a great mash-up of not-quite-super-hero, some dark doings and a lot of delightful, off-the-cuff humor. The humor comes courtesy of that wonderfully versatile and uber-watchable actor, Tom Hardy, shown below, along with his alter-ego/alien embodiment that has somehow, via the oddball and not-quite-completely -thought-out plot machinations, embedded itself in his mind and body. Die-hard fans of the amazing Mr. Hardy (TrustMovies is one of these) will feel jealous indeed of that lucky alien!

Owing quite a debt to The Hidden, one of the first and certainly the best body-hopping alien movie ever made, this newer, bizarre and often clashing combo of predatory alien and smart, sexy, laid-back hero is responsible for much of the movie's near-constant chuckles and smiles. As is Mr. Fleischer's understanding of how to pace events and action so that much of the movie's necessary exposition easily goes hand in hand with action, laughs and some pretty nifty special effects.

Along for the wild ride are Michelle Williams (above, left), somewhat underused as Hardy's girlfriend, and villainous Riz Ahmed (below, center, with Jenny Slate, at left, who forsakes her comedic abilities to play Ahmed's assistant-with-a-conscience). After his fine work in Closed Circuit and now this film, Ahmed (of Nightcrawler and The Night Of) shows us how easily and gracefully he can move from good guy to bad.

How the Hardy character and his alien finally bond and make the best of things is great fun to see. After so many stupid-hero movies that beat us about the head with over-done and over-long CGI effects and stories that go on and on and on, how pleasant to view something relatively short (112 minutes), sweet and entertaining that gets so much so right.

From Sony/Columbia, the movie opens this weekend nationwide, and --despite the critical opprobrium and anger of comic book fans -- is going to be a huge success. I eagerly await the sequel which, if the scene inserted into the end credits can be believed, will feature a whacked-out Woody Harrelson as the villian! Playing all over the place, Venom can be found at theaters near you by simply clicking here.

Steven Knight and Tom Hardy turn LOCKE into an original and compelling "confined space" film

If LOCKE is a stunt -- and to some extent, it certainly is -- then it's a damned good one. This is one of those increasingly frequent "confined-space" movies  (with the exception of its initial scene, in which the title character, played by Tom Hardy leaves a construction site, gets into his car and drives away) where every-thing takes place inside an enclosed space -- that car -- from which no exit seems easily possible. The odd thing about Locke, however, is that it is not a thriller, the genre into which every other confined space film I can think of -- from ATM to Brake, Buried, Elevator, Freezer and Last Passenger (which also opens this week and takes place entirely on a train) -- neatly fits. And why not? With enough events front-loaded, that confined space just increases the thrills. But no: Locke is... well, it's a drama for adults. How's that from a movie-maker -- Steven Knight -- who clearly has quite the pair of balls.

Mr. Knight, shown at left, has been more prolific as screenwriter (Dirty Pretty Things, Amazing Grace and Eastern Promises are among his many efforts) than as a director (Redemption), but Locke may change all that. So compelling an actor is Mr. Hardy and so specific and alert is Knight's script to the life and problems of his character (whose name is Ivan Locke) that, together, they turn the movie into a tour de force of feeling, emotion, anger, surprise and even a little humor. How? Knight lets his audience slowly learn where Locke is going and why, while simultaneously allowing us understand what this means to the life this man had led up until now. Knight and Hardy manage all this via phone conversations -- which cannot be overly expository or we'd simply not buy them -- that fill in everything from situation to character.

Locke talks to his wife, his son, another woman who is important to him, his boss, an underling, and a couple of other people, all of whom come across marvelously, thanks to voice casting and talent. (Among the voices are those of Olivia Colman, Ruth Wilson and Tom Holland.)

There is a job at stake and a family life that may be shattered, and Mr. Hardy's fine performance captures all of it and more -- lots of tiny moments that add up to "character" -- his, and the folk to whom he is speaking. The plot -- and yes, there is one -- is derived from all these conversations, which build into something quite special.

Aurally, the movie is magnificent. I don't see how you could ask for much more, sound-wise. (If broadcast during the heyday of radio, Locke would have been an award-winning drama). Visually, there are times when I think more could have been done -- the camera remains on or near our man, occasionally glancing out the windshield or at the car phone by which these many calls are being made -- but thanks to Hardy's face and talent, Locke at least comes close enough for jazz.

Marriage, fidelity, parenting, employment: the themes here are big ones, and they are given their due. So wrapped up do we become in Ivan's situation that by the finale, when we hear a certain sound -- one, by the way, that we've heard countless times before -- such a flood of emotion/satisfaction/healing is released that we're likely to be caught by surprise at how very moved we suddenly are.

Locke, from A24 and running just 85 minutes, opens this Friday, April 25, in New York City at the AMC Lincoln Square 13 and the Angelika Film Center, and then on Friday, May 2, it will open in Berkeley, Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Raphael.  To see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters, click here and then click on THEATERS. (The movie's site could use some updating, however, as the Los Angeles entry seems to have the wrong theater and the wrong date....)

Lee Liberman's streaming tip -- Duff/Hardy in Milne/Giedroyc's ELIZABETH I: VIRGIN QUEEN

This emotionally absorbing version of the life of Elizabeth I (BBC/PBS Boston, 2005) begs attention to its lead, distinguished British actress Anne-Marie Duff. Among her many credits, Duff starred in Shameless (series streaming on Netflix); had a supporting role as a whiney social-climber in the BBC2/HBO mini-series, Parade's End; and she just ended a run at NYC's Lincoln Center as a glamorous Lady MacBeth opposite Ethan Hawke's MacBeth.

In Elizabeth I: the Virgin Queen, Duff (shown at left) dazzles and convinces compared to other Elizabeth's -- more so than Glenda Jackson, Cate Blanchett, or Helen Mirren, for instance. Although credit or debit goes to the actor, the writing is all important, Duff has said; her Queen is a brilliant living creation rather than a scripted historical figure. Some find Duff histrionic but her view of her job is to embrace the truth of each person she plays -- likeable or not. Here, she dazzles while being difficult and appearing plain.

This re-imagining of Elizabeth's gleaming tenure hangs on a love story -- that of her intense relationship with childhood friend and advisor, Robert Dudley -- rather than on an orderly chronology of events. Major events reveal her personality -- the shrewd, coy, jealous, manipulative, vain, and absolutely devoted head of state. One running theme is her advisors' dogged efforts to get her to marry. Elizabeth used those years to improve her domination over the male power structure by pitting suitors and courtiers against each other for her favor, gradually creating a cult of personality as "Virgin Queen" married to her people. This circumvented her privy council's marriage imperative while also providing a steady diet of the adoration she must have craved as Henry VIII's out-of-favor child. Above all she sabotaged any effort to interfere with her supremacy ("I will have no man rule over me").

One reviewer called the production "a hodge-podge treatise on sexual frustration", but Elizabeth had plenty of motive to avoid marriage, her father having decapitated her mother, Anne Boleyn, and set upon her many step-mothers. Her defensive armor against marriage "comes at the price of a cold bed', warned Dudley, who wanted to marry her and whom she dangled for years even though she loved him. Played by a seductive Tom Hardy (at right and further above), Dudley stayed at her side during his two marriages until his death, leaving Elizabeth bereft and miserable. (His role as Dudley was a star turn for Hardy, who lately fills his dance card in Hollywood blockbuster and B-list movie parts.)

But as attractive as Tom Hardy's Dudley, the production sells short the real Robert Dudley, writing him as a boy-toy whom Elizabeth promoted and enriched in order to keep close rather than as the statesman he was. The Dudley of history came from ruined nobility but used Elizabeth's patronage to foster the Renaissance. He was a patron of all the arts, scholarship, exploration, a modern business entrepreneur, and a master at foreign policy and war -- in short a fit advisor and companion for his brilliant Queen. The real Dudley's role in the Renaissance is worth knowing and there's no inkling of it here.

Whatever the flaws in this barreling narrative, all are outweighed by the sheer force of Duff's Elizabeth and the poignancy of her frustrated relationships. One admires how the girl outwits and bends the forces against her, how the woman triumphs, suffers loss, and endures the indignities of aging. At her death, we ourselves are bereaved. Her last advisor Robert Cecil tells us: "Then the flame was extinguished and she began to slip away from us. Too weak to walk, she has spent the last 15 hours standing in her chamber, refusing to sit, lest she never rise again..." (middle fingers drawn across her mouth like a child seeking comfort.) "Then after 40 years as sovereign, she quietly departed this life."

Paula Milne, writer (shown at right), and Coky Giedroyc, director, (shown below) score a triumph making Elizabeth's life and eccentricities imaginable and their plucking the extraordinary Anne-Marie Duff out of the firmament of fine actresses to get the job done. The pulsing, haunting score deserves special mention, a combination of medieval and Celtic songs and chants sung by The Mediaeval Baebes and The London Bulgarian Choir, among others.

Now that Elizabeth's story has been told over and over, it could be time to explore this period through the man who sat close to power and used his own to nurture the institutions that produced a Golden Age. That would be Sir Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, himself, a very original Renaissance man. Elizabeth I: Virgin Queen, running just under four hours, is available now on DVD and streaming from Netflix or via Amazon and Amazon Instant Video.

This post was written by TrustMovies' guest columnist, 

Lee Liberman, who will be joining us 

now and again to cover various films.

Early Tom Hardy in Martin Huberty's real-life, French Foreign Legion film DESERTER

If that versatile and talented actor, Tom Hardy, looks a mite young in the apparently straight-to-DVD release DESERTER (aka Simon: An English Legionnaire), that's because he was young when this movie was made -- a full decade ago. This was only his third outing before a camera, after Band of Brothers and Black Hawk Down, but Hardy, shown below, acquits himself quite well, pretty much stealing the acting thunder from the fellow who has the leading role, Paul Fox.

TrustMovies calls this film a straight-to-DVD release, even though the IMDB says that it had a theatrical opening in the U.S. back in May of 2002, and then played the Palm Springs Film Fest later that year. This must have been a very limited release. In any case, the film has not been heard of on these shores since then and is only getting a rather major DVD and Blu-ray release now -- from Inception Media Group LLC -- due to Hardy's continuing notoriety and abilities.

Though born British, Hardy has played a number of nationalities: British, American, French. He's the latter here, and his accent is quite good most of the time. So's his acting, which maintains the high level of energy, focus and commitment that makes this performer so riveting to watch. As the duplicitous Dupont, who befriends our hero, Simon (played by Mr. Fox, above), Hardy gives a full performance that grows larger (and uglier) as the film moves on, reaching its simultaneous apotheosis and nadir in his final scene.

The story, which is based on several years in the life of Britisher Simon Murray (shown at left), who, during the 1960s, when a love affair went south, impulsively signed a five-year contract to serve in the French Foreign Legion. The film recounts much of that service, which is full of incident, camaraderie, and a little love (the hetero sort: don't expect the barely-buried homo-eroticism of Claire Denis' Beau Travail). Because the French-Algerian war is raging during this time, and the legion's home is in Algiers, we also get a pretty good dose of allegiances formed and betrayed. Our hero tries to see both sides of each situation, and his superiors in the Legion often seem surprisingly understanding.

The climax, along with the film's strongest section, involves the shock that hits not just the Legion, but the pied-noir population in Algeria and much of la belle France herself, when de Gaulle decides to toss in the towel, war-wise. This makes for some surprising behavior, leading to the separation of former friends and the mean-ing of the film's title. From this movie, as well as from other sources I consulted after viewing it, I was surprised to learn how close France came to a right-wing military take-over during this time.

If only the movie-making were of a higher caliber, Deserter might have been quite a film. The direction -- from a fellow better known for producing (this was his first and evidently only foray into directing), Martin Huberty -- is adequate but little more. While nothing here is awful, most of the movie seems a bit amateurish in its direction and screenplay. Though it is not always predictable, many of the incidents, as shown us, seem a little too "standard," particularly in the ways that these incidents are fleshed-out. Still, the film is always watchable, and if it's somewhat sanitized, it is never stupid. I must also say that the Blu-ray transfer is the best I've seen so far from Inception Media Group. This is quality in every way, with rich colors, deep blacks and as images as sharply detailed as you could desire.

Deserter, with a running time of 93 minutes, will be available on both DVD and Blu-ray and hits the streets this Tuesday, July 17, for sale and/or rental. A must-see for any Hardy boys, it might also please French Foreign Legion aficionados and history buffs.