Mark Reviews Movies: VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE

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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 30, 2021

Whatever Venom, the symbiotic alien with a bad attitude and a taste for human brains, is supposed to be as a character—hero, anti-hero, or villain—remains an open question in Venom: Let There Be Carnage. The sequel once again teases and takes some devious pleasure in the likelihood that the creature is a villain (never more so than in a teasing mid-credits scene, when the alien randomly decides to become a particular someone's foe). He likes the idea of biting off heads. He treats a series of other human hosts with apathetic disdain, as they slowly and painfully die from his parasitic ways. His plans for dominating Earth are apparently finished, so that's a notch in his favor, one supposes.

The idea of this character, who is this inherently vicious and only moderated by the morality of his human host, is far more intriguing than anything this movie and its predecessor have done with him. The first movie, of course, served as an origin story for Venom and Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy), the discredited and disreputable investigative journalist who ended up in a symbiotic relationship with the alien. It had a problem of both justifying and taming Venom's villainy, making him a hero, not in the traditional sense, but in the necessary one.

That was because there was a threat far more dangerous and malevolent in the immediate. Venom had to do the right thing, and the movie ultimately became the familiar and routine stuff of any old superhero tale, as the alien had fight foes that were minor variations of himself.

The sequel, directed by Andy Serkis and written by Kelly Marcel (returning from the team of screenwriters on the first movie), more or less gets into the familiar and routine stuff right away. It never looks back. This approach certainly avoids the tricky task of trying to find a reason to sympathize with and/or root for a monster that would rather chow down on human brains.

In the process, though, it also eliminates what makes the character so potentially intriguing. Here, Venom is just a hero—one with an attitude and the desire to eat people, yes, but a hero regardless.

He becomes kind of dull, which is bad for a hero and worse, perhaps, for a character with as many wicked tendencies as Venom. The questions of Venom, his nature, and what we're supposed to feel about him are basically put on hold. It's easier for this particular story, in which Venom once again has to battle a foe far worse than him, and once again, the antagonist is yet another minor variation on the hero himself.

Eddie has been interviewing the notorious serial killer Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson), whose victims are numerous but mostly undiscovered. Cletus agrees to give the reporter an exclusive account of his life, but with Venom's help, Eddie beats Cletus at his own game and finds out where the murderer's victims are buried. That discovery lands Cletus with a date for lethal injection. When Eddie visits the killer before his execution, Cletus bites the journalist, draws blood, and ends up infected with a "symbiote" named Carnage, who has no one to stop him from killing and decapitating people.

All of this, not to mention the rest of the plot, is told in such a rush that the movie offers little but plot details. The back-and-forth bickering between Eddie and the alien inside him, which was one of the more amusing elements of the first movie, is cut short. Venom decides he wants to try to have a life of his own (This leads to an embarrassingly dead-end sequence with Venom at a costume party, where the joke is that he makes a big speech about acceptance).

Hardy, whose physically unhinged performance was another bright spot in the previous outing, is left dangling with little to do, except to continue the uncomfortable relationship between Eddie and his ex Anne (Michelle Williams), who's now engaged to another guy (played by Reid Scott). The actor is in good company at least, as everyone here seems aware they're just pawns amidst computer-generated mayhem (In addition to the rest, Naomie Harris plays Cletus' long-lost love with a super-powered scream).

The story goes nowhere but toward an inevitable brawl between Venom and Carnage. Like the rest of the action, it's is hampered and rendered almost unintelligible by Serkis' devotion to close-ups and tight medium shots, as well as generally dim lighting to cover up the visual effects' shortcomings.

What is Venom? It's still unclear by the end of Venom: Let There Be Carnage, which remains indecisive about the character but is decidedly, safely, and tediously routine.

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