Venom: Let There Be Carnage – Film Review

After finding a host body in investigative reporter Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy), the alien symbiote must face a new enemy, Carnage (Woody Harrelson), the alter ego of unhinged serial killer Cletus Kasady.

I have always had an incredibly strong relationship with the Marvel universe as I’m sure many of you are well aware of at this point. Growing up as a kid, I often spend my spare time (which was a lot because I was a little kid) reading Marvel comic books, playing the video games, and watching the movies. One of my favorite characters ever created was that of Spider-Man, and I adored every second of the Sam Raimi trilogy of films.

But I also loved the video games focusing on the character, in particular, Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, which saw the titular web-head go head-to-head with Wolverine and Venom. Venom has always been one of my favorite comic book villains especially when I was younger. There was just something so indescribably awesome about the concept of a symbiote attaching itself to a human host and transforming into a gigantic, human-hungry creature that doesn’t let anybody or anything get in its way.

However, when I saw Ruben Fleischer‘s Venom back when it was released in theatres three years ago, I ended up being majorly disappointed in the final product. Tom Hardy was excellent in the title role and some of the action scenes were fun but the film lacked significantly in the writing, directing, and story departments. It felt like a weird 1990s superhero movie made by Marvel back during their Ben Affleck Daredevil days. It was actually kind of funny to see such an old-school superhero movie, but I just wish it were better.

The post-credits scene of the first Venom was the best part of the whole movie for me. Eddie Brock visits a mysterious criminal in prison to conduct an interview with him, and at the very end, we find out its none other than Cletus Kasady who turns into Carnage in the comic books, promising a much deadlier and chaotic sequel. Right…? Well, sadly, that’s not necessarily true. Andy Serkis‘ Venom: Let There Be Carnage is yet another film focusing on Venom that failed to impress me.

Just like the first movie, Let There Be Carnage is totally unforgiving in its style and I do appreciate that about it. It basically only exists for those who love every single aspect of the Venom character and is sure to please those who only head out to the theatre to see Venom and Eddie Brock talk to each other for a bit while occasionally killing some bad guys. It can be fun to hear the bizarre and oftentimes comedic conversations with Brock and Venom and it’s entertaining to see Venom absolutely obliterate enemies but there needs to be a great story here. There need to be a handful of characters involved in the story that we can genuinely care about. This film doesn’t have any of that whatsoever.

I mean really think about it – why do we care about Eddie Brock in this film? We aren’t given any good reason to care other than the fact that he’s the protagonist and so we are automatically supposed to care. It’s not like I was wanting him to lose or die in this movie or something but at the same time, why should I care if he gets in danger? Screenwriter Kelly Marcel doesn’t seem too interested in any way at crafting characters that have depth or flaws. Brock’s only flaw is that he’s kind of a bumbling journalist who desperately wants to get back together with Anne Weying (Michelle Williams) who is now dating Dr. Dan Lewis (Reid Scott). Other than what I just told you, we don’t learn too much more about Brock, unfortunately.

And the same thing can be said about Cletus Kasady who is a legitimate nightmare to deal with in the comic books. As a kid, Kasady always gave me the creeps because of just how brutal and unforgiving he is. He is a serial killer that truly shows no remorse and is beyond all sense of reasoning. In this film, Kasady doesn’t get much character development either. We learn in the first scene that he had a girlfriend when he was younger named Frances Barrison (Naomie Harris) who was eventually taken away to the Ravencroft Institute for her superhuman abilities.

Because Kasady is a serial killer, he, too, is in prison, and… that’s pretty much it in terms of his development. I understand that not a lot of people want to see Let There Be Carnage because they expect a great story with excellent, flawed characters and a strong sense of direction, but when it’s so glaringly bad, it’s hard to simply ignore it and say “But at least the film is entertaining”.

Yes, the action scenes are occasionally fun to watch and it’s amusing to see the interactions between Brock and Venom but after a while, these sort of things get old and I was sitting in the theatre crossing my fingers that the writing would improve, but, sadly, it didn’t. In what is perhaps the worst scene in the film, Venom attends a nightclub and gives a speech to a group of humans who he thinks are aliens just like him. It’s easily one of the worst scenes in a comic-book movie in years.

It actually kind of baffles me why the extremely talented Andy Serkis chose to direct this film because it feels so uninspired. The only reason why I can see him taking on the job is because of the money. Just like in the first film, Hardy gives it his all in the role of Eddie Brock / Venom and it’s clear that he is passionate about the character. But I actually think I had more fun watching Woody Harrelson’s Cletus Kasady / Carnage here. Although the character was horribly written, Harrelson delivers such an over-the-top, bizarre performance that I genuinely loved. Harrelson had a blast with this performance and it’s hard to not smile or laugh at least a few times while watching him here.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage suffers immensely from sloppy writing, poor direction, and dull characters even if some of the performances and action sequences are fun to watch. That plus, it doesn’t even feature a great Eminem song this time. Sorry, not sorry.