Venom: Let There Be Carnage
Year: 2021
Rating: PG-13
Length: 97 minutes / 1.61 hours
A lot of critics of the superhero genre say these movies contain no substance. They claim that there’s nothing in them other than quippy one-liners and hard-to-follow action. Most days, I might defend the superhero genre for its flashy set pieces or subtle character development. After seeing Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021), I cannot hold the same defense against the critics here. It is unfortunate that such a good villain from the Spider-man franchise would be in such an awful movie.
The first Venom (2018) movie was tolerable, if for the only reason that Spider-man 3 (2007) botched the casting of Eddie Brock so badly. Tom Hardy certainly has a better physique for the role, and the original Venom film had some fairly decent “buddy dialogue” between Brock and Venom that made it entertaining. Flash forward to the sequel, and these two characters need couples’ therapy like nothing else. The fact one of the in-movie characters mentions this proves how egregious their bickering is. It also didn’t help that the entire plot of the movie was avoidable because Brock didn’t need to be physically present (or at least not directly next to) Cletus (Woody Harrelson) to interview him.
Seeing as this movie is the first big-budget film directed by Andy Serkis, it shows how new he is to this role in moviemaking. At a scant 97 minutes, the movie felt rushed, like there wasn’t time to explain anything or develop any of the characters just so the audience could get to the “a-ha!” end-credit scene that ties everything together (which itself didn’t really pan out that much or in a way that felt satisfying). Additionally, anyone who has seen the first Venom or even Spider-man 3 could see how this movie was going to end before they even displayed the title of the film.
A predictable, rushed, and irritating superhero movie, I give Venom: Let There Be Carnage 2.0 stars out of 5.
