I have to start this by saying that since the early 90s Venom character has been a firm favorite of mine. I know that the first Venom movie grossed over 800 million at the box office, but I did not like it. How do you do Venom without Spider-Man was what I kept asking as the movie was in production and the end result was an Eddie Brock that did not feel like Eddie Brock to me and a movie that just was not for me.
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The Movie Review
But hey what the heck do I know? Venom made a ton of money and a sequel was inevitable which brings us to Venom: Let There Be Carnage. I have to say that I went into this movie with a bit of a meh kind of attitude. The Venom that Sony has created here is not the Venom I grew up with and I have tried my best to be ok with that.
Yet at the same time, part of me is like, man this would have been so much better if it were Spider-Man and Venom having to put their differences aside to take on Carnage! Ok, so enough of my unnecessarily long history with the character, let’s take a closer look at the Andy Serkis directed sequel.
I have to start by saying that this movie looks fantastic. Despite my feelings about the portrayal of Eddie Brock, Venom in the first movie looked awesome and he looks even better here. He and Carnage look fantastic and if 10 year old me could see this he would flip out big time!
Once again Tom Hardy is Eddie Brock/Venom, he is joined by Woody Harrelson reprising his role as Cletus Kasady from the credit scene of the first movie. You can tell that Harrelson is having a ball playing the deranged Kasady and he reminds me of his character from Natural Born Killers.
When Kasady bonds with his symbiote as cheesy as this sounds, it is pure Carnage. While Eddie Brock is at odds with his symbiote, Kasady completely embraces the “carnage” and the end result is a spree of violence and chaos. Now, while Carnage is getting all of the attention in the trailers and media, there is another villain in the movie, Shriek!
Shriek is his love interest and she is played by Naomie Harris. I thought that Shrike was actually done very well, but we do not get much information about her backstory, her powers, and how she got them so she is a bit one-dimensional. Still, the relationship she has with Kasady is pretty damn awesome and a highlight of the movie for me.
The best relationship in the movie is between Eddie Brock and Venom. I consider Eddie Brock and the symbiote to be Venom together, but this plays them as separate entities trying to coexist. Venom has some hilarious one-liners and seeing the two of them be at odds, but also try to make it work is a lot of fun.
Fun is probably the best way that I would describe this movie. It has a short runtime, but apart from the lack of a real backstory to Shriek, I think the runtime is perfect. It moves at a million miles per hour and the action scenes are great. We only get one major showdown with Venom and Carnage, but it is worth it and the special effects are fantastic.
I would not say that Venom: Let There Be Carnage is one of the best comic book movies I have seen, but I much preferred it to the first movie. Is this the Venom I wanted to see on the big screen? I would have to say no, but I think that Andy Serkis did a good job here and it was a fun watch. Oh, and the rumors are true, the credits scene is phenomenal!
