I saw the movie opening weekend and it was terrible. They can't have a Venom movie without Spider-Man. This movie is literally a turd in the wind.Spoiler for Hidden:
I agree. Venom is so linked to Spider-Man it makes little sense to have him on is own.
They were able to link the two in Spider-Man 3 and still had the symbiote as an alien entity.
That would be the difference between someone coming at this from the viewpoint of a moviegoer vs. a comic book reader, I suppose.
If you're a big fan of the movies but haven't really spent much time digging into comic books, Venom probably stands pretty well as a character all on his own.
If your first introduction to the character was in the comics, though, you're probably going to have a really hard time separating the symbiote from the spider.
I'm not so sure the Spider-Man thing even applies anymore. Marvel has spent the greater part of the past decade turning Venom, in the comics, into his own thing apart from Spider-Man. He's been government agent, space adventurer, Avenger, etc.