By emphasizing the humor aspects, the follow-up far outperforms the first.
Venom, which was released in 2018, did not particularly impress me. I thought the movie was too mired in its grimy, self-referential themes to fully benefit from its more absurd moments. Luckily, the follow-up, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, recognizes that the protagonist performs best when you just allow him to be a complete idiot. This results in the film, running for just 1 hour and 30 minutes, being actually more of a buddy comedy decorated with some superheroes’ action. It’s a bit of a comfort to watch Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock and his extraterrestrial symbiote Venom (also voiced by him) joking around about what the latter is and isn’t permitted to consume. It isn’t much of a movie, but it’s a fun enough diversion making you hope that Sony would just forgo the superhero thing completely and recreate the Odd Couple with Eddie and Venom as the leads.
Venom and Eddie continue to have a rocky relationship. While the former would love to consume humans, Eddie only lets the irate, wise-cracking extraterrestrial being feed on chickens and chocolate, thus they have developed a tense rapport. In the meantime, Michelle Williams’ Anne, Eddie’s former (and maybe still) love interest, is set to wed the petty Reid Scott’s Dan, Eddie is working hard to reorganize his life. Eddie believes that if he conducts an interview with spree murderer Woody Harrelson’s Cletus Kasady, he might be able to to restart his career as a journalist. However, just before Cletus is executed, the murderer bites Eddie and somehow absorbs his symbiote power, turning into a more threatening form known as “Carnage.” Cletus and Carnage come to an accord: the former will assist the latter in killing Venom in exchange for Carnage helping him reconnect with his childhood sweetheart Naomie Harris’s Frances, who possesses the ability to create supersonic shockwaves using her voice.
A number of other films, particularly superhero ones, would pause to clarify specific concepts, such as “What is the reason for a red symbiote to be more threatening?”, or “Why does Carnage long to destroy Venom?”, and this movie isn’t interested in providing any answers. Venom: Let There Be Carnage advances at breakneck pace and is determined to have fun no matter what, showing little enthusiasm in the reasoning of it all. This means that as Cletus and Carnage munch up random bystanders in one half of the movie, Eddie and Venom’s split-up and reconciliation is depicted in the remaining. The most memorable scene in the movie occurs when Venom departs and sees himself at a rave where he delivers an LGBTQ+ metaphor speech about the importance of coming out and being proud of his identity. This might be a plot point in a typical film because Venom no longer wants to be contained in Eddie and to have restricted access to the outer world. Still, Venom returns to unite with Eddie to face off Carnage.
The superhero scenes are the least intriguing since they are just 2 CGI objects colliding into one another, and the color scheme is astonishingly subdued for a film with such vibrant personalities among its cast. Carnage isn’t the stunning ruby red of the comics; rather than that, he’s a nearly flesh-colored shade that doesn’t stand out against the grayish background. Let There Be Carnage comes so close to living up to its complete potential, but it sometimes reverts to the drab grime of the first film. Instead, it thrives on the absurdity of Eddie and Venom’s interactions with each other and their surroundings. I’m shocked as well that the movie isn’t labeled R given its bizarre tone.
Let There Be Carnage may frustrate you if you prefer your comic book flicks to play things a little more direct. It’s neither a gloomy superhero film, similar to Batman nor a crude comedy such as Deadpool. It falls absurdly in the middle, but at least by leaning more toward humor, you get a fun, if quickly forgotten, picture where a powerful CGI extraterrestrial cracks jokes. I quickly lost enthusiasm when he had to battle the other CGI creations since this is not a character- or story-driven film, but rather one about vibes. You may argue that we should expect more from these films, but I’d argue that there are plenty of other superhero films out there with greater goals. Venom: Let There Be Carnage at least has the decency to be both entertaining and replaceable.
