2018’s Venom is easily one of the most fascinating
films to come out of the superhero genre in recent years, mainly due to its
overall reception. The film was primarily intended to be a more faithful take
on the titular fan-favorite Spider-Man villain turned anti-hero after
his live-action debut in 2007’s Spider-Man 3 (where he was forced in by
executive meddling against director Sam Raimi’s wishes) left most fans underwhelmed.
It was also poised to be the start of a new superhero cinematic universe based
around characters from the Spider-Man mythos without having to solely
rely on Spider-Man himself, especially since the current incarnation of the
character as played by Tom Holland was primarily operating within the Marvel
Cinematic Universe. However, upon the original Venom’s release, it didn’t
do so hot with critics, many of whom found it to be a tonal mess that was
severely hindered by the lack of a proper connection to Spider-Man. And yet, it
managed to fare a lot better with audiences, who notably latched on to the
unique relationship between the film’s main characters; reporter Eddie Brock
and the alien symbiote that he becomes bonded to, Venom. As a result, the film
earned an impressive $856 million worldwide, allowing it to become the seventh
highest-grossing film of that year.
Thus, a sequel was promptly announced not long after, and
thanks to the first film’s mid-credit scene that introduced the character of
serial killer Cletus Kassidy (as played by Woody Harrelson), it was confirmed
that the sequel would focus on another fan-favorite Spider-Man antagonist,
Carnage. Created by writer David Michelinie and artist Mark Bagley, Carnage first
debuted in issue #361 of The Amazing Spider-Man in 1992 as the symbiotic
‘offspring’ of Venom. Like its parent, Carnage quickly became a popular new addition
to Spider-Man’s rogue gallery and proved to be such a dangerous threat for the
web-slinger that he was forced to team up with Venom to stop it on numerous
occasions, including the famous 1993 story arc Maximum Carnage. As for
the new film, subtitled Let There Be Carnage, a notable change in directors
had to occur since Ruben Fleischer was busy working on the long-awaited
follow-up to his 2009 film Zombieland, 2019’s Zombieland: Double Tap.
Thus, directorial duties were taken up by none other than the widely proclaimed
king of motion capture performance work, Andy Serkis. Yes, the man known for
his critically acclaimed roles such as Gollum in Peter Jackson’s Middle-Earth
films and Caesar in the Planet of the Apes reboot trilogy has
recently started to establish himself as a director, having previously helmed the
Robin Cavendish biopic Breathe and his decidedly non-Disney esque Jungle
Book adaptation, Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle. And under his solid direction,
Venom: Let There Be Carnage wholeheartedly embraces its predecessor’s
most popular elements to deliver an all-around wackier sequel that may not win
over the original’s biggest critics but, at the very least, is a lot more
consistent from a tonal and visual perspective.
It has been about a little over a year since investigative
journalist Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) became the [somewhat unwilling] host of
Venom (voiced by Hardy), an alien symbiote from a far-away planet. Since then,
Eddie has struggled to keep his ‘new friend’ hidden from the rest of the world,
especially given Venom’s unstoppable urge to eat people. As part of his efforts
to revive his journalism career, Eddie takes on the assignment of interviewing imprisoned
serial killer Cletus Kassidy (Woody Harrelson), who has mysteriously agreed to
talk to him and nobody else. Through their talks with each other, Eddie (with
the help of Venom) manages to figure out the location of the bodies of Kassidy’s
many victims, thus resulting in Kassidy being handed an immediate death
sentence. Before his execution, however, Kassidy ends up acquiring a sample of
Venom during a heated confrontation with Eddie that allows him to survive his destined
demise as he becomes the host of the red-colored symbiotic ‘offspring’ Carnage
(voiced by Harrelson). After escaping from prison, Kassidy and Carnage promptly
embark on a rampage across San Francisco as the former searches for the love of
his life, Frances Barrison AKA Shriek (Naomie Harris), whom he was separated
from at an early age when Frances was dragged off to the local mental asylum.
Thus, Eddie and Venom quickly find themselves having to work around their growing
differences so that they can stop their most dangerous adversary yet.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage is very much a sequel
that’s fully aware of what it was about its predecessor that made it so popular
and uses that information as the primary influence behind its overall direction.
In this instance, director Andy Serkis and his team clearly recognized that
fans of the first Venom primarily dug the delightfully twisted dark
humor that stemmed from the uniquely ‘odd couple’-style relationship between Eddie
Brock and Venom. Because of this, Let There Be Carnage opts to be much
more comedic-oriented than its predecessor which, by comparison, attempted to
find a greater balance between its humorous moments and its primarily dramatic
plot beats. And while your overall mileage may vary on how effective it is as a
comedy, especially given some of the incredibly ludicrous lengths that it goes
to when crafting the scenarios that Eddie and Venom end up in, this does
ultimately result in a far more tonally consistent sequel. It also manages to
one-up its predecessor from a visual perspective as Serkis goes all-in with some
incredibly eye-catching gothic imagery that improves upon the first film’s knack
for sterile laboratory environments. Despite all this, however, Let There Be
Carnage still has the same narrative shortcomings of the first film; in
other words, a very generic plot that trades out the previous film’s straight-forward
‘stop the evil businessman’ premise for an equally straight-forward ‘stop the murderous
psychopath’ plot. Part of this may be due to the film having a short 97-minute
runtime which, at this point, is practically an anomaly for the superhero genre.
To be clear, though, it’s not like there’s anything inherently wrong about this
film having a short run-time as it helps give it consistently smooth pacing
that prevents it from dragging at any point; it’s just that, narratively, it also
could’ve done a lot more with certain plot-threads.
Nevertheless, Let There Be Carnage’s biggest selling
point continues to be the humorous interactions between its two main
protagonists, and Tom Hardy truly deserves a lot of credit for how utterly committed
he is to the dual role that he plays in these films. He very much succeeds in
making Eddie Brock and Venom perfect foils for one another, with Eddie being the
good-natured but rather pathetic straight man who must consistently put up with
the antics of the incredibly overeager Venom who, let’s face it, gets all the
best lines (“NO ONE LIKES YOU, DAN!”). Their dynamic relationship is then
perfectly complemented by Woody Harrelson’s own dual role as Cletus Kassidy and
his alien symbiote partner, Carnage. Sure, the minimal plotting ends up making
Kassidy your routine psychopath (with Carnage itself nearly being a non-entity,
narratively speaking), but Harrelson’s appropriately creepy performance makes him
and Carnage a much stronger pair of antagonists than Carlton Drake and the
alien symbiote Riot from the previous film. Speaking of antagonists, there’s
also Naomie Harris in an equally standout role as Frances Barrison AKA Shriek,
whose sonic scream abilities provide a uniquely complicated layer to her
romantic relationship with Kassidy given that symbiotes like Venom and Carnage
are notoriously weak to loud noises. Unfortunately, Harris ends up being a bit
underused here, and the same can be said for a returning Michelle Williams and Reid
Scott as Eddie’s ex-fiancé Anne Weying and her new fiancé Dan Lewis. Granted,
they aren’t completely ignored here as they do help Eddie and Venom out like
they did in the first film, but in Williams’ case specifically, it does feel
like a noticeable step backward for these films’ main female lead.
Back in 2018, I gave the first Venom a decently positive
3.5/5 review, and overall, my thoughts on the film haven’t
changed that much since then. While I’ll fully concede that it’s far from being
one of the superhero genre’s best outings, the strong humor that spawned from the
interactions between Eddie Brock and Venom helped the film overcome some of its
biggest shortcomings such as a mediocre villain and its mixed attempts at balancing
its humor with its serious moments. And while I’m about to give its sequel, Venom:
Let There Be Carnage, the same exact rating, this is ultimately a case of a
superior sequel. Unlike the first film, Let There Be Carnage doesn’t try
to take itself too seriously and fully embraces all the wackiness that ensues
from what is arguably the superhero genre’s most notorious odd couple. And
thanks to solid direction from Andy Serkis, the film not only flows a lot
better than its predecessor but also looks a lot better as well with some delightfully
twisted gothic visuals that, speaking as someone who doesn’t read a lot of
comics, feel very much appropriate for a story based around its titular symbiotes.
All that said, though, this sequel does suffer from some of the same narrative
issues that plagued its predecessor, and while it never overstays its welcome
thanks to a shorter run-time, it still feels a bit rudimentary when compared to
some of the other films from this genre. In short, Let There Be Carnage is
just as much of an enjoyable popcorn flick as its predecessor was, and while
Sony’s plans to develop their own cinematic universe a la the MCU have arguably
yielded mixed results so far, I’ll admit that I’m still genuinely curious to
see what comes next, especially given this film’s post-credit scene which,
without spoiling anything, is a big one.
Rating: 3.5/5
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