“Venom: Let There Be Carnage” Review

Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) struggles to keep his symbiotic friend Venom under control in “Venom: Let There Be Carnage,” the sequel to 2018’s “Venom.”

With the Marvel CInematic Universe and the DC Extended Universe, among other franchises, consistently turning out mostly good films, it’s a great time to be a comic book fan and 2021 has left me thoroughly satisfied with my comic based media. I loved “Zack Snyder’s Justice League,” “Black Widow,” “The Suicide Squad” and “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” as well as the MCU shows that have premiered on Disney+. 

But Sony’s “Venom: Let There Be Carnage,” the second in a series of films based off of Spider-Man characters, was a massive disappointment that left me feeling empty by having a rushed pace, unfocused story and a lack of understanding about some truly awesome comic book characters.

Set a few years after 2018’s “Venom,” Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is an investigative journalist who, along with an alien symbiote named Venom that turns him into a behemoth, stops crime in San Francisco while trying to lie low to avoid any police altercations, which distress the symbiote. But when a deranged serial killer named Cletus Kassady (Woody Harrelson) gets a bit of Venom into his bloodstream, he becomes an unstoppable force called Carnage. To prevent Carnage from killing any more people, Venom and Eddie must come out of the shadows to end the terror.

While I enjoyed “Venom” fine, it was nothing to write home about. But, the film’s post credits scene that teased Carnage, I was excited to see two of my favorite terrifying Spider-Man villains duke it out. But the biggest problem the film has is a short runtime of 97 minutes. While you can make a good story in that time, most action films need at least 120 minutes to balance out the action with character development. With such a short time to tell the story, “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” has a story which feels all over the place with no flow. By the time the film reached its climax, it didn’t feel earned.

The film has a few merits like Tom Hardy who gives a distinct performance as Eddie Brock/Venom and Woody Harrelson who is the best part of the film. When Brock goes to interview Kassady, it’s very chilling, like a comic book version of “The Silence of the Lambs.” There’s a fair build up to the kind of person Kassady is and it seems like “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” will be just as good as its predecessor. 

But when Carnage comes out, that’s when the quality of the film drops. Not only does it become more unfocused, but Carnage, who has an exceptionally high body count in the comics, doesn’t have a whole lot of graphic scenes of violence which I think a lot of comic book fans are looking for. While I think the film would have benefited from an R-rating, there are plenty of PG-13 comic book films with graphic violence like “The Dark Knight.” Either way, the entire film feels neutered. 

When you imagine a serial killer getting superpowers, you’d think there’d be much more of a gore factor to it. 

Woody Harrelson’s performance as Carnage was easily the best part of “Venom: Let There Be Carnage.”

There’s a lot of interesting ideas in the film which are sadly not expanded upon and feel more like the storytellers throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. This includes Eddie’s relationship to his ex-girlfriend (Michelle Williams), a real rift between Eddie and Venom and a relationship between Kassady and his dreganged, superpowered girlfriend Shriek (Naomi Harris). All of these ideas could help flesh out the story but just don’t have enough screen time to bloom.

But the film’s ending is what actually got me angry because, not only was it so unremarkable, but the treatment of Carnage was unforgivable. While I could be more forgiving of a bad film featuring good characters if I knew there’d be a sequel to possibly redeem the series, this film makes it quite clear this is the only time we’ll see Carnage. 

I feel bad for director Andy Serkis because he’s talented as both an actor and filmmaker, but this isn’t an Andy Serkis film or a director’s film at all. This feels like a Sony film. Sony has repeatedly tried to make Marvel franchises, doing a good job with Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” trilogy, and had constantly put more emphasis on setting up sequels than making a good story. This caused them to destroy “The Amazing Spider-Man” series and might cause them to destroy this new series of films if they’re not careful. 

Just when I thought Sony knew to let creators create after the success of “Spider-Man: Into The Spiderverse” and their partnership with Disney to put Spider-Man in the MCU, this film proved that they still haven’t learned.With more films in this series, like “Morbius” in 2022 and “Kraven The Hunter” in 2023, on the way, hopefully they improve.