True story: in the 2014 hack of Sony Pictures, a hack sprouted from Seth Rogen’s 2014 comedy The Interview, it was revealed that Sony Pictures was planning to share the rights of the Spider-Man characters with Marvel Studios after the poor response to The Amazing Spider-Man 2. What a miracle, right? Well, note the word “share.” Of course, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man made quite the bang within the MCU, and stars in the third MCU Spider-Man movie this December (his sixth MCU movie overall), however, Sony wanted to get a piece of the cash-pie. So what did they exactly do? Make The Amazing Spider-Man 3? Make Spider-Man 4? Nope. They made Venom. Starring Tom Hardy, this 2018 movie focused on our favorite super-villain Eddie Brock fighting Spi-wait, fighting another bad guy?? That’s right, a Venom movie without Spider-Man, something so unnecessary, yet it grossed over 800 million dollars at the box office even with negative reviews. So, of course, they made a sequel. But surprisingly enough, this one is decent.
The plot of Venom: Let There Be Carnage is the following: Eddie Brock is still struggling to coexist with the shape-shifting extraterrestrial Venom. When deranged serial killer Cletus Kasady also becomes host to an alien symbiote, Brock and Venom must put aside their differences to stop his reign of terror. This movie is a significant upgrade over its predecessor. For one, its runtime is just over 1 hour and 30 minutes, making it a tight, quick, and a movie that cuts to the chase; something I liked compared to the bloat its predecessor had, which is surprising given that it was only 20 minutes longer. What the sequel gets right is doubling down on the relationship between Brock and Venom, something that was a highlight of the first one. This movie also picks up on the action, adding fewer but crazier set pieces and action scenes. The acting, while mostly over-the-top, works and isn’t as dry and stale as the first one. The special effects are great, and given that the movie’s budget is $110 million it was apparent that they used a lot of the budget for the character design of Venom and Carnage which looked straight from the comics. Overall, this movie is entertaining, however, its story is weak. The character of Carnage is significant in the Spider-Man comics. Carnage to Venom is what Joker is to Batman. While Woody Harrelson conveys the psychopathic personality of Cletus Kasady well, his character development throughout this movie felt underwhelming and wasted. This was apparent as this movie was rated PG-13 when in the comics Carnage has some of his iconic moments doing some R-rated things. The story felt very rushed in that I left the theater not caring much about what happened in the movie. Unlike its predecessor, I felt that the sequel could’ve spent some more time developing Carnage and Venom while not dragging the pacing. This movie felt too fast and was essentially the 1st and 3rd act of a movie, skipping the 2nd act that most movies have to develop their characters. That being said, I had a much better experience this time around compared to watching the first one.
Overall, this movie is an enjoyable time to indulge in some mindless action and enjoy the better performances this time around. In the end, I am going to give Venom: Let There Be Carnage a B-. Thank you for reading my reviews, and as always, I hope you have a fantastic rest of your day!