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Venom: Let There Be Carnage
(Columbia Pictures/Marvel Entertainment)
By Lucas Allen
In 2018’s “Venom,” one of Spider-Man’s arch-enemies, teeters a delicate balance between anti-hero and villain. It’s an unusual foray in the superhero genre, but audiences at that time ate it up making the film a surprise box office hit. Now we have the sequel “Venom: Let There Be Carnage,” which promises more of the offbeat humor and insane action, with a certain edge. The new movie is directed by Andy Serkis, who’s better known for creating the characters of Gollum, Caesar, and Snoke through the magic of digital performance capture.
Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is trying to reclaim his glory as one of San Francisco’s top journalists, while also trying to control the alien symbiote Venom living in his body. His latest assignment is interviewing San Quentin inmate Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson), whom the police were trying to get to locate dead bodies from previous cold cases. Once Brock figures out the location of the bodies with Venom’s help, Kasady quickly gets the death penalty. Upon his last arrival before the execution, Brock gets violently bitten by Kasady, who then tastes what was in the reporter’s blood. That bit of blood soon transforms Cletus into the terrifying Carnage before he makes his daring escape from prison.
Meanwhile, Eddie and Venom’s friendship turns sour after the revelation that his ex-girlfriend Anne (Michelle Williams) is engaged to a doctor (Reid Scott). A fight in their apartment ensues before the symbiote decides to roam the city on its own. But their separation becomes poor timing when news breaks that Cletus has escaped prison and frees his mutant girlfriend Shriek (Naomie Harris) from an asylum. Soon, the authorities including Detective Mulligan (Stephen Graham) are on a citywide manhunt, but it’s up to Eddie to try to stop the evil twosome before they’ll strike again. Of course, he’ll have to try to find his old buddy beforehand.
This is a real oddball of a sequel, especially when the original film was a straight-forward origin story. While the humor was certainly doubled down to meet audiences’ expectations, the tone is all over the place when it juggles between hilarious and awkward. It was more entertaining watching the love/hate relationship between Eddie and Venom unfold, but everything else in the story became more of an afterthought. It’s like watching a sitcom colliding with a sci-fi/action film.
Then you have the action scenes, which are well-shot, but sometimes get a little too CG-heavy. Seeing Venom and Carnage battle it out was like watching two globs of computerized goo bouncing off the walls. Because of the erratic tone, whatever kind of drama it was going for is completely lost in the comedy. Perhaps a good rewrite to the script would’ve helped find a better balance in the shifting tones.
Hardy once again throws himself into his dual role like a one-man, Jekyll & Hyde performance. He performs two different sides of his character, wonderfully bringing humor and action to a crowd-pleasing level. Harrelson steals the show in an over-the-top performance showing a level of menace not seen since “Natural Born Killers.” Unfortunately, Williams’ character is reduced to a damsel-in-distress trope despite being a good actress, while Harris doesn’t add anything interesting to her character other than reprising her Tia Dalma character from the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels for the wrong reasons.
“Venom: Let There Be Carnage” is not the worst superhero movie ever made, but it went through the same conveyor belt as the X-Men sequels and accidentally ended up in a recycling bin. The only worthwhile thing about it is its mid-credits scene that’s supposed to crucially set-up the character’s place in the expanded Marvel universe. Other than that, it could’ve used a little more meat in its diet.
THE MOVIE’S RATING: PG-13 (for intense sequences of violence and action, some strong language, disturbing material, and suggestive references)
THE CRITIC’S RATING: 2.25 Stars (Out of Four)
