The subtitle of Venom: Let There Be Carnage, the latest sci-fi blockbuster from Marvel Studios, makes a bold promise that there will be grisly, fast-paced action. While it eventually delivers on that promise, it takes an hour of inauthentic exposition to get there in this ho-hum superhero sequel.
If you don’t know who the Venom character is, that doesn’t bode well for your chances of enjoying this latest superhero flick. Truthfully, this is more an anti-hero story, and your tolerance for Venom’s goofy and creepy antics will depend on how much you enjoyed the 2018 original. Let There Be Carnage is a better film, but not by much.
For those who need a catch up, Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is a journalist in San Fransisco who, in the first movie, got fused to an alien amoebic symbiote who’s now attached to his body and soul. What was a violent, impulsive goo monster that lived in Eddie’s body is now the same goo monster, but restraining himself from murder.
In this sequel follow-up, Eddie is meeting serial killer Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson) just before he’s set to be executed in prison. But one mistake on death row gets a bit of Venom’s gooey soul into Cletus, turning him into the evil alien Carnage - and only Eddie and Venom can save the day.
The entire premise, frankly, is nonsense, and the pseudo-science needed to find any of this believable is a stretch. What’s much more painful is listening to Kelly Marcel’s terrible screenplay, devoid of any reality in how people talk in real life.
Harrelson, however, transcends the ludicrousness of the script and is the only person to elevate the material. We’ve seen his “air of madness” before (Seven Psycopaths, for example) but here he’s clearly having fun in the part. Cletus is truly deranged, but Harrelson grounds him in a curiosity of the world and others.
Strangely, the film is not without other merits. Some of the action sequences (especially the cathedral battle) are really exciting, and well shot to have us follow the fluidity of Venom’s crime fighting action. The CGI on the characters is also top notch.
Andy Serkis is best known as a motion-capture actor in series like Lord of the Rings and Planet of the Apes, but he’s also directed several films with great class. It’s too bad his class and composure can’t overcome the shallowness of Marcel’s script, making it near impossible to overlook how gross and dumb it sounds.
A word of advice for comic book and/or Marvel fans: you were likely sticking around during the credits for a bonus scene anyway, but Venom 2 has a mid-credits scene that’s an absolute doozy. It’s an exciting set up for (cough) something that may happen in another unmentionable Sony superhero movie set for this Christmas…
Venom’s big-screen prospects could only get better, and Let There Be Carnage is, reluctantly, better. But that’s not high praise; it succeeds as mindless entertainment and nothing more. The carnage comes too late to be the non-stop action thriller it wants to be.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage
5 out of 10
14A, 1hr 37mins. Sci-Fi Superhero Action.
Directed by Andy Serkis.
Starring Tom Hardy, Woody Harrelson, Michelle Williams, Stephen Graham and Naomie Harris.
Now Playing at Film.Ca Cinemas, the 5 Drive-In, Cineplex Winston Churchill and Cineplex Oakville & VIP.
