A Reel Review: VENOM - LET THERE BE CARNAGE

In 2018, Sony Pictures adapted Spider-Man’s greatest villain Venom to the big screen (without Spidey, but that’s another story). The film was slammed for its silliness and bizarre shifts in tone from comedy to horror, but it made enough bank that was good enough for a sequel. 

 

Free-lance journalist Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy), while still adjusting to living with his flesh-eating alien symbiote Venom, is summoned by imprisoned serial killer Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson), to conduct a series of interviews which are actually code phrases for his imprisoned love, Frances (Naomie Harris). When Cletus manages to bite Eddie, he becomes infected with a spawn of Venom, which calls itself Carnage. 

 

Directed by Andy Serkis (yes, that Andy Serkis, precious), VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE does not have much by way of plot…and what there is of a story doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Cletus’ plan to use Eddie’s articles as a one-way street of communicating with Frances (who happens to have super-powers of her own), doesn’t have any sort of plan or endgame…and Cletus becomes Carnage only out of dumb luck. Overall CARNAGE is anemic in story; there is a setup, a slight complication, a big fight at the end…and that’s it. There’s barely enough to fill the measly running time of 90 minutes. 

 

With so little story the time is filled with attempts at humor between Eddie and Venom. It’s set up like a buddy comedy but every joke and one-liner falls flat and falls hard, and the cookie-monster-on-drugs voice that comes out of nowhere is still silly. The film tries to live up to its name by making carnage; every two minutes the script is smashing up Eddie’s apartment, a vehicle, or a bunch of buildings. There’s certainly carnage to be seen, but eventually it gets repetitive, boring, and lazy. And despite all the destruction, everything that Venom and Carnage does never seems to affect another person in the city; it’s like they’re in their own bubble. Another issue is lazy editing; even though the transformation scenes are very well done, the film too often skips them. We cut away from Venom to another shot, and when we cut back its suddenly Eddie. It’s a cheap and lazy way to scale back on visual effects, and on-screen it is jarring and awkward. 

 

Acting is ridiculous as everyone just acts like a bumbling muppet. The biggest travesty is the lovely and most-excellent actress Michelle Williams…who is given nothing of significance to do. 

 

Counting the un-related 2007 SPIDER-MAN 3, this is Sony Pictures’ third attempt at doing Venom justice on the big screen, and it is their worst swing-and-miss. The mid-credits scene offers a glimmer of hope for the character as Venom and fans finally  get a glimpse of what’s been missing since 2018. It’s just a shame we had to sit through two of these dung-heaps to get there. 

 

BOTTOM LINE: Fuck it