Road to No Way Home: Venom: Let There Be Carnage

 "Venom: Let There Be Carnage" (2021)

We have reached the end of the road and I wish we were ending this little series with a better movie. This was the third movie I saw in theaters after being vaccinated so I guess that is something. 

Principal photography began on "Venom: Let There Be Carnage" in November 2019 and ended in February 2020. It was initially set to be released in October 2020 but that date was pushed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The film stars Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock/Venom, Michelle Williams as Annie Weyling, Naomie Harris as Frances Barrison/Shriek, Reid Scott as Dan Lewis, Stephen Graham as Patrick Mulligan and Woody Harrelson as Cletus Kasady/Carnage. The film was written by Kelly Marcel. It was directed by Andy Serkis. "Venom: Let There Be Carnage" premiered on October 1, 2021.

Carnage-tastic.

I think one of the things that "Venom: Let There Be Carnage" has going for it is the runtime. It is just a little over 90 minutes. The movie never gives you time to linger on it for too long which is good, because if you did, you would have to think about what you are watching. And what you are watching is pretty bad. If the first "Venom" film was a kind of controlled chaos than this movie is just chaos incarnate. The movie was directed by Andy Serkis aka Gollum from "The Lord of the Rings." I love him, but man, what were you thinking. Tom Hardy also contributed to the story for the movie and maybe we don't let actors do this anymore. If this is what we are going to get, then yikes.

Tom Hardy is back as Eddie Brock/Venom and he's still the best part of the movie, but he's lost a little bit of the shine that he had in the first film. Hardy's performance in the first "Venom" film really worked because what Hardy was doing felt very organic. It almost felt like he didn't know what he was doing and it helped really elevate a pretty mediocre movie. That is definitely not the case here. It gives off a kind of desperate vibe. Like, "Oh you loved the Venom/Eddie Brock relationship in the first one, well you haven't seen anything yet!" The vibe that Eddie and Venom relationship is like a romantic one doesn't really work. There is this idea that Brock is a moron. This seems widely accepted. Everyone seems to think that Brock is just dumb. Annie, Mulligan, Kasady everyone. That doesn't really work because Eddie's also getting these scoops (with Venom's help) but like, how is he a respected reporter and also a well known idiot? Another thing that irritates me is that screenwriters clearly don't know how much reporters make. Eddie breaking one big story would not give him the cash to afford a Ducati motorcycle.

After a brief appearance in the mid-credits scene of "Venom," Woody Harrelson is back as Cletus Kasady. The big plus here is that the awful wig that they saddled him with in the first movie is gone and the new one is... marginally better. We find the silver linings here, folks. Woody Harrelson is Woody Harrelson. He's the kind of actor that reminds me of Jason Momoa. It doesn't matter what role he is playing, he's basically playing himself. There was a time when he actually acted but that time has passed. So, if you're looking for Carnage Harrelson, then this movie is for you. I just never found Harrelson truly menacing. Cletus Kasady is terrifying, unhinged psychopath and we don't really get that here. We are continuously told how evil Cletus is, but we aren't really shown it.

Roar.

You know, it's pretty typical for the women in these kinds of movies to get the shaft, but "Venom: Let There Be Carnage" changes the game by giving the minor male characters who aren't Cletus and Eddie nothing to do as well. This is progress, people. This is what equality looks like. Detective Patrick Mulligan and Dan Lewis are about as two-dimensional as characters can get. They could have been replaced as cardboard cutouts and you would have gotten the same effect. Dan was a joke in the original film, and he's even more of a joke in this one. He's routinely emasculated by Venom and Eddie and kind of by Anne. Who cares about this guy? Why is Anne into him? Is it only because he's a doctor? And what does he do at the end that makes Venom think he's actually a good guy. Mulligan has an encounter with Shriek as a young officer and thinks she's dead. He spends most of the movie yelling at Eddie. It's like the writer of this movie watched some '70's cop movies and thought no, this guy could be even more of a stereotype. And it looks like he'll be in the third one, so something to look forward to. Sigh.

The women don't fare much better. Their characterization is as flimsy as a sheet of looseleaf paper. We've got Michelle Williams back as Annie and I can only assume that she is here for that blockbuster paycheck so she can continue to do the awards bait that she really enjoys. The best thing that I can say is that her wig is better. Naomie Harris makes her debut as Frances Barrison aka Shriek, Cletus Kasady's love. She's nothing. She has zero agency of her own. And she ends up getting killed for literally no reason. It's a mess. I mean, Mrs. Chen has more characterization than the female leads of this movie.

Bosom buddies.

The plot of this movie is a mess. It feels like one of those social media posts where you have an AI write a movie. It's that non-sensical. Like I mentioned earlier, the relationship between Venom and Eddie, which was the highlight of the first film, falls completely flat here. The characterization of the Venom symbiote is kind of bananas to me as well. The entire movie he's going on and on about how he wants to eat humans. That Eddie isn't letting him do what they had agreed upon at the end of the first movie: To eat the brains of criminals. He keeps talking about how they are lethal protectors. Lethal protectors this, lethal protectors that. Honestly, they say "lethal protector" so much in this movie that it feels like a joke. And maybe it is? But the movie doesn't seem self aware enough to make this joke. So after an hour of being super aggressive when Venom and Eddie decide to confront Carnage, Venom won't come out because he's scared of Carnage. After an entire film of Venom going off and calling Dan a pussy, it turns out that Venom is the pussy? Again, maybe this is meant to be a big joke, but there is literally no pay off.

The movie makes a lot of odd choices. If we listed all of them, we would be here all day and I don't think any of us wants that. The opening of the movie is a young Cletus and Frances communicating in the home for abandoned children that they are staying in. There are of course younger actors playing them but they dub Naomie Harris and Woody Harrelson's voices in rather than just have the younger actors use their own voices. Why would you do that? It makes no senses and it is extremely off putting. I don't get it. 

I would like to say that the action in the movie is good, but it's very mediocre. It is all CGI and it's difficult to follow. It's chaotic, but not in a good way. You don't know where you're supposed to be looking or what is happening. Having the climactic final cathedral showdown take place in the pouring rain was a choice. It makes things really difficult to see. I could forgive a lot of this movies faults if the action was good, but it's just real, real bad.

Rave-nom

I want to end this on a positive note. There are a couple of things that I really enjoyed about this movie, so let's focus on things to wrap it up. There is a moment where Cletus is re-telling his origin in a letter to Eddie and it is shown to us using animation. The animation is really rough and violent and it's the perfect way to convey this information. These aren't things that we want to see a child actor doing, but it would be extremely boring if there wasn't some sort of engaging visual while Cletus is narrating. This is the perfect medium for that and it kind of shows that maybe this movie could have been... not good... but not horrendous if there were more moments like this.

The other moment that I really enjoyed was Venom at the rave. After his fight with Eddie, Venom hops from incompatible body to incompatible body until he arrives at an underground San Francisco rave. This is a really fun, joyful scene. Venom covered in the glow stick necklaces. He takes the mic. It's really great and I wish there had been more of this in the movie because again, it would have made it a lot more fun and that would have made this movie a lot more enjoyable. And I could forgive a lot of the other sins of the movie if it was fun, at least.

The mid credits scene shows Eddie and Venom on an island but things shift and it looks like they are in the MCU as JJJ shows up outing Peter Parker. 

Next up, it's back to the MCU proper with "Spider-Man: No Way Home."

I'd love to hear others thoughts about this movie. I'm sure people are out there who will defend it. So, do that in the comments. Or continue to rip it to shreds.