Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock / Photo From @VenomMovie Twitter
Venom 2: Let There Be Carnage has roared into theatres. It is the sequel to Sony’s 2018 film Venom. Venom is a symbiote that links himself with a host and uses their bodies to survive. Venom is now living amongst us, connected with writer Eddie Brock who Tom Hardy plays. The pairing of Eddie Brock and Venom is problematic because although they do get along sometimes, Venom has caused a ton of trouble for Brock. This leads to their rocky relationship at the end of the first film, where the new film picks right up. The new villain in town is Carnage, an offspring of Venom that links himself with serial killer Cletus Kasady who Woody Harrelson plays. I was lucky enough to attend an early screening of the film, and this is what I thought about it.
The duo of Harrelson and Hardy work great as foes. There are genuinely some standout monologue moments in this film by Harrelson that show his actual skill and depth as an actor. Hardy adds to the movie with his overly sarcastic attitude that makes for many hilarious moments. As for the remainder of the cast, quite a few forgettable characters fail to make an impression. But when your best performers in the film are your two leads, that isn’t a bad problem to have. Venom 2 continues with the same beautiful CGI that created the disgustingly beautiful Venom in the first film. The fight scenes were well done, with the symbiote battle looking so terrifyingly real. You genuinely feel like you are front seat to two alien forces giving it their all in battle. At times, the camera angle and shot choice were a bit nauseating with how much the camera would jump from shot to shot. I could not imagine how it would feel in one of those 4D moving chairs. But overall, the cinematography was passable as it did not try to do anything groundbreaking and, at the same time, didn’t just plain suck.
As for the writing, though, this was a weak point for the film at times as the humor was corny. Don’t get me wrong, there are some great laughs in this movie, but there are also moments that would instead make you groan. The film was also much shorter than I expected. The runtime was only 90 minutes, while Marvel movies usually push past the 120-minute mark. This meant the film could either be very bare story-wise or incredibly fast-paced. The latter was confirmed as the pace of the movie never seemed to slow down. The story continued to hit you at a mile a minute and was a little overwhelming at times. The pace also caused some plot points to be loosely explained with little context. A bit more time for the character arcs and plotlines to develop would have given the film room to breathe it desperately needed. However, the movie still was your classic monster film with two goliaths going at it. So a fast pace made sense for the type of fan that they had in mind.
With it being a Marvel film, the movie is never truly over until the credits have rolled because there is always a bonus at the end. This film continues this trend, and all I will say is you will want to stay for the mid-credits scene. It is worth every second you spend sitting there anticipating what is next. So, to conclude, although Venom: Let There Be Carnage won’t be topping any all-time lists of films, it was a delightful film. It lacked in certain aspects but delivered on most of the ones that mattered.
RATING: 8/10
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