Written by Tom Hardy And Kelly Marcel
Directed by Andy Serkis
Cletus: "Welcome back, Eddie Brock. It's been a long time. I miss you ... so much."
The biggest trick ever played on a studio was Sony gaining success with their Venom movies. It gave the false impression that audiences wanted movies adjacent to Spider-Man when in reality, I think they just like Tom Hardy in this role. Anyways, on to the review.
The end of the first movie had Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) meeting Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson) in prison. This was at the behest of Detective Patrick Mulligan (Stephen Graham) and it was a meeting that didn't exactly go all that well either. Not dissimilar to Eddie's life in general as this movie pointed out.
Yes, Eddie and Venom had this odd couple dynamic going well, until they didn't. There was only so much chocolate and chickens that Venom could consume and Eddie was tired of having to try and reign the symbiote in at times. Worse than that, another encounter with Cletus Kasady only resulted in the latter getting his own symbiote and Eddie and Venom going their separate ways.
Watching Venom trying to get new hosts while going to Mrs Chen (Peggy Lu) for comfort was amusing while Eddie was coping without being bonded to Venom as well as his ex-girlfriend Anne Weying (Michelle Williams) being engaged to nice doctor Dan Lewis (Reid Scott). Dan was also dealing with Venom being back on the scene again.
As for the main villain plot, Carnage bonded to Cletus. Cletus wanted to free his girlfriend Frances Barrison/Shriek (Naomie Harris) and Shriek wanted to kill Mulligan. Oh and Carnage didn't especially care for Shriek, creating conflict between him and Cletus. Not to mention the links between Venom and Carnage to boot.
Like the first movie, you've got a rushed third act that's a bit messy on the CGI battle between Venom and Carnage. Annie's got the thankless damsel in distress role, Shriek's poorly utilised and even Cletus got swiftly dealt with after being separated from Carnage. Oh and the movie totally rifled off the end of The Dark Knight and not in a good way.
- Tom Hardy got a story by credit for the movie as well as a producer credit too.
- Mid credit scene had Eddie and Venom see Spider-Man (Tom Holland) on the TV along with J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons).
- Andy Serkis agreed to make the movie if he got to film it in the UK. He was also in the MCU.
- This was originally scheduled for October 2020 but got pushed to 2021 due to COVID.
Standout music: Carl Cox's Carnage, Johnny Cash's San Quentin and Little Simz's Venom.
- Chronology: A few months from where the first movie left off as well as 1996 for the Cletus and Frances backstory.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage isn't the worst sequel you'll see but it's definitely not without its problems. The pacing was rough in parts, Carnage and Shriek are poorly developed and its got a very messy third act. Still the buddy duo between Eddie and Venom did a lot of heavy lifting.
Rating: 6 out of 10
No comments:
Post a Comment