"Venom: Let There Be Carnage" Review
- Vega
- Oct 2, 2021
- 6 min read
Platform: In Theaters
Release Date: October 1, 2021
WARNING: FULL SPOILERS AHEAD
I did not love the first "Venom," but I was entertained enough to like it, even though it is still unfathomable that it made over $1 billion. Even if Sony was not trying to create their own Spider-Man character-centric universe, that is the kind of money that screams for a sequel. When it comes to sequel films, you will traditionally find a watered-down, money grab version of the previous installment, not always, but it is pretty common. With the first film already struggling to excite within a world dominated by comic book adaptations, I am unsure if even including a fresh villain like Carnage will be enough to push this series into relevancy.
The movie picks up where the last one left off regarding Eddie (Tom Hardy) and Venom attempting to coexist in a way that suits both of them, but Eddie's rules for not eating people starts to wear the symbiote thin. Eddie ends up accepting an assignment to interview famed serial killer Cletus Cassady (Woody Harrelson), which could propel his professional career while his personal life continues to spiral as Anne (Michelle Williams) ends up engaged to Dan (Reidd Scott; the doctor she begins dating in the first movie). A freak enter with Cassady ends with him trying to bite a chunk out of Eddie, resulting in his bonding with an offspring of the symbiote that saves him from being executed and gives the serial killer a power all the more dangerous in his hands. With his abilities as Carnage, Cassady breaks his childhood sweetheart, nicknamed Shriek (Naomie Harris), out of the power dampening prison where her ability to produce powerful vocal sound waves could be contained. Speeding towards a quick wedding, they set in motion a plan to gift each other the person on whom they most want revenge: for Shriek, the cop that shot her, and for Cassady, Eddie Brock, the man who got him sentenced to death. As their revenge plot draws Anne into the mix, Eddie and Venom converge on Cassady and Shriek's nuptials at a cathedral and battle Carnage in one hell of a CGI-tentacled showdown.
I will be absolutely straight with you, this movie is not good. Even more, it does not matter in multiple ways. First of all, the story leading up to the Venom and Carnage showdown is terrible and is only there in an attempt to lend some context to the final battle. Secondly, the mid-credit scene REALLY makes the entie movie not matter, but I will touch on that a little later. "Venom: LTBC" tries to act like a comic book, mixing a bunch of (supposedly) impactful scenes up with little to no context in between to tie them all together, just like the panels in a comic book. Except, with a motion picture, you are not alotted the time to fill in the blanks the way that comic books do and are, thus, left with a mess of storyboarding. The essential story elements themselves, the troubled dynamic between Eddie and Venom, Cletus and Shriek's love story and their bout for revenge, are all fine on their own, but none of them are strung together enough in a way that made them feel impactful on one another as a total story. Keeping this movie at around 90 minutes really limited how much this story could do and it spent a whole lot of that time playing with its weakest elements.
Tom Hardy and Woody Harrelson are really good actors and I think they did the best they could with the direction they were given, but that direction was part of the trend that killed any emotional tone or excitement. The characterizations for all of the key players just carries no weight and they all follow a similar note, specifically the main players of Eddie and Cletus. They are both caricatures of their comic origins, equipped with nothing but terrible one-liners and, what ends up being, similar internal struggles. The best characters in terms of being well-rounded and feeling like real people were those who carried a more serious demeanor, such as Anne and even Shriek. The movie tried to be a pure comedy, but instead, it came off as just silly and corny. The humor was quite cringe-worthy, especially the back and forth between Eddie and Venom, which bordered the type of exchanges I would expect in an Adam Sandler film. Speaking of, the first film already gave us the troubled relationship between the two and while it makes sense for there to still be growing pains, the "break-up" between the two is taken to the most ridiculous of places. I have never walked out of a movie before, however, once Venom separated from Eddie and was at the rave covered in glow necklaces on stage with a microphone...the temptations to walk out were strong. The only tolerable comedic sequences, which were actually really funny, were all of the interactions pertaining to Venom's disdain for Dan. Like all good comedy, it was kept sparce and well-timed so that it would impactful when used.
Not everything about the movie felt sub-par, starting with everything Carnage. Other than a ridiclous scene in the prison where Carnage creates his own tornado, the visuals and tone for the murderous symbiote shaped him into a real threat. That is, until they ended up neutering him in the final battle so that Venom could come out on top. Regardless, most everything done with Carnage was very deliberate to be as visceral in appearance as possible. This lead to some nice still shots and hammered home how much better the character as a whole could have been if Harrelson was could have been more sinister and less quippy. I do not know if it has to do with Venom being black or his glossiness, but there were a lot of times where the CGI did not seem as sharp as it was for Carnage. The final battle, as much of a CGI'ed mess as it was at times (similar to the metal on metal eye sores of Michael Bay's Transformers series), was fun to watch and easily served the best sequences in the film. Outside of the film, though, it was the mid-credit scene that offered more excitement than the hour and a half before it.
The mid-credit scene showed Eddie and Venom in the island paradise where they ended at the end of the film. Venom is having a conversation with Eddie about all the things that symbiotes have witnessed over the many years of their existence when a strange phenomenon occurs and the room slightly changes. As they try to figure out what is going on, J.K. Simmons' J. Jonah Jameson comes on the screen talking about, and showing an image of, Tom Hardy's MCU Spider-Man. The reaction in my theater really told the story of how mind-blowing it was to see a multiversal event occur and bring Tom Hardy's Venom into the MCU. As exciting as it was, there was a sense of it being bittersweet the more I thought about it. Yes, having Venom in the MCU is amazingand it helps flesh out a more Spider-Man focused universe, but it also means that this Venom will be the MCU's Venom for the time being. Maybe it would not be as bad had the movie better progressed Eddie and Venom past warring roommates, but this cartoon character Venom will not play well in the grounded nature of the MCU should he be kept based on the characterization this movie has continued. With Venom moving to the MCU, unless any other aspects of his world are transferred with him, the events of this film become null and void.
It is sad to say that this movie was a real mess, considering how much this year was shaping up to be a clean sweep for strong comic book films. Its one tone take on comedy and its characters, as well as the lack of a connective tissue leaves this sequel as little more than the money grab I worried it would become. My honest recommendation would be for you to find a leak of the end credits scene and be done with it until there becomes an easier (and cheaper) way to watch it.
RATING: 💉💉. 5 / 5
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