Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021) review

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

Venom (2018) review

When it comes to classic comic book villains, many will agree that Batman boasts the greatest collection of what has since earned the affectionate fandom term of a ‘Rogues’ Gallery’. Foes like the Joker, Two-Face, and Harley Quinn are only just a select few of the Dark Knight’s legendary antagonists. As for the best rogues’ gallery from Marvel, many would give that honor to everyone’s favorite web-slinger, Spider-Man, and for the most part, his villains have gotten solid portrayals courtesy of the web-slinger’s many cinematic outings. One of his most famous foes, however, didn’t quite get that the first time out, and that character is the sentient alien creature known as Venom. The character first appeared in issue #252 of The Amazing Spider-Man as an alien symbiote who bonds with human hosts. Spider-Man himself is temporarily subjected into being the symbiote’s host, which ends up having a negative influence on his personality. But while he manages to reject the symbiote, it ends up latching onto a new host in issue #300, reporter Eddie Brock, turning him into the monstrous creature known as Venom. And this character proved to be quite popular with fans, later making notable appearances in other forms of media including the 90’s Spider-Man animated series and hit games like the PS1 Spider-Man in 2000 and 2005’s Ultimate Spider-Man. The character would end up making his first live-action appearance in the third installment of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy that was released in 2007. However, to call this move a ‘disaster’ would be a bit of an understatement…

Originally, Venom wasn’t even meant to be in Spider-Man 3. However, Raimi was, for lack of a better term, forced to put the character in by producer Avi Arad to please the fans. Raimi obliged… resulting in the character having a limited screen-time and Topher Grace (who played Eddie Brock) considered as one of the worst casting decisions in the history of the superhero genre. This proved to be one of the major contributors behind Spider-Man 3’s less-than-stellar reception and Raimi’s eventual departure from the series given his creative conflicts with the studio. With his departure, the original Spider-Man series concluded and plans for a Venom spin-off were canned. This spin-off was put into development again, however, when Sony rebooted the series with the Amazing Spider-Man films, with Star Trek/Transformers writer Alex Kurtzman slated to direct. But, like the Raimi trilogy, the Amazing Spider-Man series ended up getting canned as well following the mediocre reaction to Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Sony making a deal with Marvel Studios to let Spider-Man appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Thus, with another franchise reboot underway, the Venom spin-off was put to rest once more… until 2017, when it was revived yet again. And this time, despite conflicting reports over it having any connections with the MCU, the film has successfully managed to avoid another cancellation, with Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer behind the camera and Tom Hardy in the title role. But with a lot of hesitation surrounding its production, the biggest question, ultimately, is whether the film manages to live up to the expectations surrounding it. Well, while it doesn’t quite reach the exact heights that it wants to achieve, that doesn’t mean that it’s terrible.

In the city of San Francisco, Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is an investigative journalist with a habit for bringing down corrupt individuals through his titular TV show, The Eddie Brock Report. However, when he lands an interview with Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), the CEO of the bioengineering corporation known as the Life Foundation, he gets into serious trouble when he starts to question the company’s disreputable practices. This, in turn, causes him to get fired from his job while also destroying his relationship with his fiancé, lawyer Anne Weying (Michelle Williams), after he used some of her classified information in the interview, effectively leading to her being fired from her job as well. Six months later, Brock once again investigates into the company’s practices with the help of Dr. Dora Skirth (Jenny Slate), who has been against Drake’s plans for quite some time. Through Skirth, Eddie learns that Drake intends to use alien lifeforms known as symbiotes as a means of ensuring the survival of humanity by testing their ability to bond with a human host. While investigating the company’s headquarters, Eddie comes across one of the symbiotes, which immediately bonds with him. And unlike Drake’s various test subjects, Eddie manages to withstand all the weird tendencies of the symbiote, which refers to itself as ‘Venom’. Thus, with Drake and his subjugates now directly on his tail, Eddie is forced into an uneasy partnership with Venom to ensure that they will both survive.  

Let me just start by saying that if you’re going into this film expecting a serious/dramatic take on this classic comic book antagonist, then you might be a little disappointed because this is not that kind of film. Despite it not having any major connections to the MCU (to answer your biggest question, no, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man does not cameo in this film), tonally it is in line with those films. A lot of its action is undercut with MCU-style humor, primarily through Eddie’s relationship with the symbiote. And for me, this did ultimately help to make the film a decently entertaining entry in the superhero genre. That said, though, this doesn’t mean that the film is ‘perfect’. For starters, some of the action sequences suffer from some extremely choppy editing. And to be clear, this is regardless of rumors about how the film was originally intended to be rated R before it had to be toned down to a PG-13 rating to allow for crossovers with Spider-Man, while other reports say that it was always going to be PG-13. Whatever story ends up being true, the erratic editing ends up affecting quite a few, though not all, of the action sequences. And as for the plot, it’s your basic ‘stop the evil businessman’ plot that a lot of people have critiqued some of the MCU films for having only without the emotional gravitas that helped those MCU films’ plots be more than just that. But for what its worth, the film manages to overcome a rather slow start and truly shines once the symbiote bonds itself to Eddie.

Venom serves as Tom Hardy’s second major foray into the superhero genre after portraying Batman’s classic adversary Bane in 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises. And in the context of what this film ultimately is from a tonal perspective, he does do an excellent job in the title role. Along with playing the sympathetic, down-on-his-luck Eddie Brock, of course, Hardy also provides the voice of the Venom symbiote, whose comedic banter with Eddie is the primary source of the film’s comedy. Everyone else in the cast is fine as well, though admittedly they don’t necessarily have as much to work with compared to Hardy. One who does manage to overcome this, for the most part, is Michelle Williams who, between this and The Greatest Showman, is clearly starting to try some new things when it comes to the films that she’s been appearing in. She has nice chemistry with Hardy, even in the scenes after Anne and Eddie break up, and while she doesn’t necessarily get a lot to do in the film, she’s no damsel in distress, either. Plus, there’s one moment in the film that I’m sure will satisfy comics fans given its allusion to one notable aspect of her character from the comics. And as for Riz Ahmed as the main antagonist Carlton Drake, he at least manages to work decently with the material that he’s been given. To be clear, though, there isn’t that much to the role, even after they have him bond with another symbiote known as Riot who isn’t that different in design when compared to Venom. And yes, this does become a bit of a problem when the two start to fight, partially due to the previously mentioned editing issues. Thus, at the end of the day, Drake’s just your basic ‘corrupt businessman’ stereotype.  

Well, it seems like I’m going to be part of the minority on this one. Call me crazy, but I rather enjoyed Venom. To be clear, though, I’m not saying that it is the best superhero film to come out this year, nor is it one of the genre’s all-time best. It does suffer from having some frenetically-edited action sequences and the plot’s nothing to write home about. As such, I do understand why this film isn’t exactly getting a lot of good reviews from critics and how some have viewed it as one of the genre’s weakest outings in recent years. However, I’ve also seen some folks compare this to the last big superhero ‘disaster’, 2015’s Fan4stic… and that is rather unfair if you ask me because this film is not ‘that bad’. At least Venom remembers to have more than one major action sequence while also showing some genuine signs of brilliance along the way without being affected by blatantly obvious reshoots. Ultimately, though, the biggest question is if this film does justice to the title character… and that, I will admit, is rather debatable. Given this film’s status as an MCU-style comedy, this will probably be a major turn-off for those who were hoping for a darker R-rated take on the classic Spider-Man antagonist. And to put it quite simply, you’re not going to get that with this film. But for what its worth, I had a lot of fun with this film and it is worth seeing primarily for Tom Hardy’s excellent performance in the lead role.

Rating: 3.5/5