Venom: Let There Be Carnage

Given how much I love the MCU and pretty much anything it has to offer, it should come as no surprise that I generally think of most other Marvel movies as "lesser" (unless their name is Logan...among a handful of others). 

This was true for the original Venom - a film I slightly overrated - where I can't remember liking much from it aside from the titular hero and Tom Hardy. Everything else was trashy, almost intentionally, creating an outcome with a lot of star power in a CGI-laden, poorly written, badly plotted super"hero" flick. 

Venom: Let There Be Carnage is simply more of the same with a slight helping of doubling down on the crazy Venom/Eddie antics of the first. 

So, without burying the lead, Venom: Let There Be Carnage is not a good film and being transparent, I think I may even like the first one a little more as parts of the schtick have worn off for me within this series (and it feels like it's biding time before it's inevitably introduced into the MCU). 

What carries over from the first film is a nonsensical and rather dumb story that jumps from plot point to plot point at a breakneck pace. Thankfully, the film is only 90 minutes long (it felt longer to me TBH) but there's hardly any room to breathe for our characters or any relationships between them. Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and Venom's relationship issues are the best part, adding some lighthearted comedic moments, while nearly everything else borders on worthless. Woody Harrelson as Cletus Kasady/Carnage gets to scene chew a bit, but devolves into a generic CGI-fest villain with paper-thin motives of love. The love interest of Naomie Harris' Shriek is probably the most uninteresting part of the film - as is her character - and in the end, she feels like absolute filler. 

Venom still looks great and he &
Eddie remain the best thing about these

I feel like the CGI looks
better in stills than in motion

While there's an amount of self-realization throughout everything, I didn't find it to be enough to overcome how uninterested I was in anything outside of Eddie/Venom and how poor the writing was in basically all regards. Conversations between characters typically feel (unintentionally) awkward and unnatural, almost as if the whole thing knows that people will just pay to see this again because of the success of the first one. 

This continues to the remainder of the film - shockingly sad because I had hope in Andy Serkis - where everything else is either decidedly mediocre or lazily bad. The CGI outside of Venom himself is not up to par with...well, anything, the cinematography and editing is just there, the original score, while having a few standout moments, is also just there. Unfortunately, the action is a bore as it's a lot of smash-punch-stab between the full-CGI characters that you're barely able to tell the difference between. While Shang-Chi is a totally unfair comparison, it's the action piece that annoys me the most outside the MCU because I feel like there is little inventiveness in the genre (TBF sometimes the MCU is pretty generic here too) and Let There Be Carnage is a prime example.

I wasn't expecting Venom: Let There Be Carnage to be a masterpiece, but I also didn't think it would be worse than its predecessor. As a film, it's probably not in a lot of ways, but with the newness of Venom's zany antics worn off, I'm finding that legitimately the only thing these films have to offer is Tom Hardy versus alien-Tom-Hardy. And while that can be a lot of fun, the surrounding bits are so lifeless that I struggle to enjoy the whole. 

CONS

• Plot isn't nonsense, just very dumb. The Cletus/Shriek relationship is lifeless
• Unnatural, bad writing
• Normal "behind the scenes" stuff is just there...without much effort to make any of it special. Somewhat shocking coming from Andy Serkis
• CGI is often not great and the action is even more generic
• Feels like we're just biding time until this character is inevitably introduced into the MCU

PROS

• Tom Hardy was still an insane grab for this franchise, and it's clear he's dedicated to the role
• The film is at its best when exploring Eddie and Venom's relationship and pitting them vs. one another
• Has a handful of funny moments
• Venom CGI is typically pretty great
• That end-credit stinger is *chef's kiss*

Rath's Review Score | 5/10