Once again, we must delve further into the mundane realm of the never-ending superhero genre. I am not implying that all superhero films as of late are bland, but we’re certainly past the point of over-exhaustion. Back when Sony had announced that they would be building their own superhero universe consisting of many superbly iconic villains within the Spider-Man comics without the use of the familiar wall-crawler, an audible groan echoed throughout the pantheon of obsessive fans. Growing up, Marvel comics were a constant source of childhood entertainment, and Spider-Man sat atop many of my favorite heroes. To have as much exposure to the web-slinger as we’ve had over the years has been a mixture of pure elation and utter disappointment. 2018’s Venom was something that I wasn’t remotely excited about. I had a lot of care for the character, but I always enjoyed him within the wider Spider-Man stories. Self-contained, Venom is just not an interesting enough character. With the sequel on the horizon, I begrudgingly decided to give the original a watch, spurred on by the shockingly positive reaction; I hated it. Needless to say, this didn’t exactly help my expectations for this sequel. But, perhaps there was something more that this film could offer, with a different director and a genuinely terrifying villain in Carnage, I could see myself potentially shifting gears, but that isn’t quite how it would turn out. I’m thinkin’ it’s time to go get’em, it’s Andy Serkis’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage.
Naturally taking place not long after the events of the previous film, the sequel sees Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) living a symbiotic life with the titular Venom, who still inhabits Eddie’s body. Eddie is till working as a reporter, while Venom is desperate to survive, needing human brains to keep going, which Eddie doesn’t allow. Tensions begin to arise within this analogical relationship when Eddie is brought in to interview series killer, Cletus Kassidy (Woody Harrelson). Kassidy’s backstory is laden with countless murders, not the least of which includes his mother and grandmother, but is over-shadowed by his love for a mutated woman he knew from childhood named Frances (Naomie Harris), who has the ability to produce a sonar scream, earning her the name, Shriek. Eddie, through the help of Venom, manages to discover the location of the dead bodies that Cletus had amassed and has him sentenced to death. This isn’t before Cletus manages to bite Eddie’s hand, which leads to an offspring of the Venom Symbiote making its way into Cletus’s mouth. Just as he is about to be put down, the symbiote, dubbed Carnage, transforms Cletus, and the two begin looking for the imprisoned Shriek. All of this is unknown to the heroic duo, and the constant fighting causes them to finally split. As Eddie’s life begins to turn around, the news of Kassidy’s escape catch his attention, and Eddie must now rush to reunite with the bitter symbiote.
What Let There Be Carnage tries to do is surprisingly bold. While the film is certainly not packed with an incredible amount of deep subtext, there is a shocking, yet weirdly understandable, theme of homosexuality and general relationships as a whole. Eddie and Venom are very much written in the same vein as a gay couple, often trying to make compromises and going through various spats. The film doubles down on this in an incredibly on-the-nose scene in which Venom walks onto a stage and advocates for people being loved for who they are. As bizarre as this parallel felt, it made perfect sense and was the very thing I gravitated towards the most. The best parts of the film came from Hardy’s dynamic with his CGI counterpart, who is voiced by himself, giving it a charming sense of self-awareness. This film is at its best when we see the two characters clashing with one-another, and the more relevant message that is buried in the subtext makes the film feel more effortful in trying to contribute to the changing times. I can tell that the film is trying very hard to balance that goofy self-aware humor with the more serious and horror-like story centered around Carnage, but that’s where the film crumbles apart for me.
As a kid, Carnage was always a very fascinating villain for me. The character was already a serial killer before becoming bonded to the symbiote, so it made him feel far more threatening in comparison to every other villain that Spider-Man had faced. This movie butchers the character quite badly. Harrelson’s performance does absolutely nothing to convince me he’s genuinely psychotic. The character of Kassidy was clearly written in a way that would provide the movie with the opposite seriousness to the comical odd-couple relationship with Eddie and Venom. The problem comes from how generic and bland Carnage comes across. The relationship between him and Shriek is so baseless and both performances are laughably terrible, adding to the consistent tone of taking great actors and making them feel amateurish that was so prevalent in the first film. The creature, Carnage, looked rather indistinct from the more recognizable Venom and offered very little in terms of interest than the previous villain had. The lack of time spent between the two adversaries is also very disappointing,with little more than a final fight scene that wasn’t even all that entertaining.
Even when looking at this film simply from the perspective of an entertaining superhero romp, it really doesn’t deliver. While many of the effects, including the look of Venom himself, are quite impressive, there really isn’t any substance to the larger spectacle moments. Most of the time, I was left just trying to figure out what exactly I was looking at. If the action wasn’t enough, perhaps I could rely on the humor and specific lines of dialogue, but even that felt lackluster. I mentioned that the funnest moments came from the relationship between Eddie and Venom, but these moments are often bogged down by terrible writing, not the least of which is the dialogue, that tries far too hard to land a line that begs audiences to quote it. It becomes horribly apparent that the writers are desperately trying to match the more beloved tones of the MCU, but they lack the more comfortable formula that the Marvel writers have managed to perfect. Aside from all this, there are characters that feel pointless, only really serving to keep the plot going. Michelle Williams’ character of Anne, who was a major part of the first film, just serves the same purpose of giving Eddie and Venom a starting point in their waning tension. Stephen Graham plays a detective that consistently clashes with Eddie, but has no real reason to despise the protagonist outside of their comic connection. These side-characters add nothing to the grand scheme of the plot, so they end up feeling like bland bits of filler that take away from a more contained sub-plot.
I really wanted to go into this film with higher hopes, and in some ways, I got a better product. For all the complaining I had about the awful writing and bland villain execution, it’s at least miles better than the previous film. There’s much more self-awareness and the visual representation can be pretty impressive at times. I also reveled in much of the hammy deliveries from seasoned actors, something that I got a great kick out off from the previous film. I think what restrains this film from being more enjoyable is, in all honesty, the lower age rating. I’m not one to beg for that R rating that audiences think more superhero movies need, but this film would have more than benefited from a hogh level of gore, especially when Venom’s whole motivation is this desire to eat criminals. Carnage is the biggest victim to this more sanitized approach. He’s a serial killer with no remorse, there could’ve been so much more intensity from watching Carnage shred a person into pieces than simply watching them vanish. Even with all this, I can still picture a more competent family-friendly movie, it just lacks a clear-cut vision. While certainly not the worst superhero movie I’ve ever seen, it doesn’t really make itself stand apart from it contemporaries. It’s rather bland and, at times, entertainingly bad. It just feels hollow. Perhaps there’s a certain character missing from this story that could have elevated from it…save your money and skip this one.
Side note: That post-credits scene should have me excited, but I really, really, REALLY don’t want this to happen.
Written review by C. Johnson.