Riot (2018 Film)

'''This article is about the adaptation of Riot from the 2018 film. For the original version, see here.'''

The Riot Symbiote is one of the two main antagonists (along with Carlton Drake) of the 2018 film Venom, based on the famous comic book of the same name. Different from Drake, who is a sociopathic human experimenting on other humans, Riot is an alien symbiote of the same race as Venom and has an agenda of his own. This incarnation of Riot is significantly stronger and more vicious than its original comics counterpart.

Much like his host Drake, he was voiced by Riz Ahmed in his first villainous role ever.

Personality
Riot represents the worst side of the Symbiotes; a sadistic maniac who seems to enjoy nothing but destroying and killing everything in sight, for hardly any reason at all. This is different from the protagonist Venom who, while vicious and not hesitating to murder people, still has standards and often doesn't hurt innocents, preferring to kill bad people after its interaction with Eddie Brock, making him more of an anti-hero / anti-villain. They also have different relationships to their hosts; Venom grows to genuinely care for Eddie and ultimately bonds with him, while Riot often switches between hosts and couldn't care less about Drake.

Much like Drake, Riot has a hatred for humanity, though unlike Drake who does it because he wants to evolve humanity, Riot seems to do it solely because of his own bigotry against them. Despite working together, they have quite different personalities; Drake is a cold, calculating, sophisticated and pragmatic genius whose corporate status is important to his publicity, occasionally compelling the man to put a nice facade and acts for publicity, while Riot is a rampaging brute who has no time for pragmatism and is solely interested in immediate consequence.

Trivia

 * The comic book version of Riot has some differences from the film one:
 * While the comic version has a backstory as a part of Venom that fell out and became an entity of its own, the film version skips this and makes it a civilian of Venom's planet and isn't related to Venom itself in any way.
 * In the comics Riot has an entirely different host as Trevor Cole, while in the film Riot's host is Drake, though interestingly enough both hosts are part of the Life Foundation.