Movie Review - Venom: Let There Be Carnage

Venom: Let There Be Carnage [2021]

I know, I know, a bit late to the party, but that's what happens when you can't really catch cinematic movies when they are aired because of pandemic restrictions and whatnot. 

I actually did really like the 2018 Venom movie. Well, I mostly really liked Tom Hardy's dual performance as both Eddie Brock and Venom, and how the movie ended up somehow working as a violent action comedy on a different spectrum from its also-violent brethren Deadpool. And... and Venom: Let There Be Carnage delivers more of the same thing as its predecessor, save for the fact that the antagonist is changed almost whole-cloth from the more epic alien invasion of Riot to the psychotic serial killer that is Cletus Kasady/Carnage, one of the most anticipated characters to be associated with Venom and Spider-Man in general. 

And I'm not going to lie, I'm enough of a comic book geek to know that the creepy CGI fight between Venom and Carnage is worth the price of admission into a superhero action flick. So I did enjoy myself watching this movie, if nothing else. 

It's just that... for its 90-minute runtime, Let There Be Carnage doesn't really deviate too much from its stated plotline. It's a Venom movie where we get introduced to Cletus Kasady, the utterly lunatic serial killer, who bonds with the Carnage symbiote, and they fight. The movie does have a couple of very basic side-plots -- Kasady gets his girlfriend, the sonic-shrieking mutant called Shriek, as his sidekick; Venom and Eddie play up their wacky relationship to its expected next step, which is a break-up; and there's also the rather underwhelming sub-plot of Detective Mulligan trying to figure out what's going on.

That said, the runtime of the movie is also very short, and the movie never really tries to pretend that it's anything but a thrilling, super-fast action movie. Sure, there's the ultimate realization that Eddie Brock and Venom are good partners and they learn to work together in the climax of the movie. And the movie does go through the motions of giving both Eddie and Venom a character arc as they realize that they need the other... but it's a journey that's a bit besmirched by the fact that Eddie has a a symbiote-powered serial killer gunning for him; while Venom can't keep any of his hosts alive (other than Chen and Ann). So there's a literal, physical need that the two have to reunite. 

Admittedly the movie does play up their ultimate reunion as more of a comedic moment, but still, I really did wish that there was more? Of course, playing up the 'we could see Venom and Eddie's relationship like a romantic couple on the outs' up to eleven is a pretty fun choice for the writers and filmmakers. 

Of course, the poster show off both Venom and Carnage, and the Carnage side of the equation is interesting. Played by the excellent Woody Harrelson, Cletus does really give the vibe of a complete nutjob who's going to either shank you or talk politely to you on a whim. I know enough comics to know that Cletus is a complete and total psychopath through and through, and any attempt for him to deflect and tell a sob-story is 100% bullshit. I'm not sure why he's obsessed with Eddie Brock being the one to tell his story in the beginning of the movie -- although after Eddie's little crime-solving bit aided with Venom, Cletus's obsession with him is definitely warranted.

Maybe in an attempt to humanize Cletus or to give him a secondary goal beyond revenge, Cletus's primary goal in this movie is to be reunited with Frances "Shriek" Barrison, the only person in the world he even remotely likes, and for what it's worth, the movie does a pretty good job at showing that Frances is as much of an unhinged lunatic like Cletus is. The crux of the problem is that Frances's Shriek powers absolutely pisses off the Carnage symbiote, and that's what drives a wedge between Cletus and Carnage's partnership in the climax.  It's just kind of a shame that for a movie where the climax hinges on the three-way disagreement between Frances, Cletus and Carnage, two of them are a pretty flat character -- Frances is well-acted for what little screentime she has, but she never really shows much personality beyond being crazy and being in love. And the Carnage symbiote is honestly more of an extension of Cletus... except when he's not. 

Ultimately the movie ends up going for a superhero classic -- the hostage climax. The Bonnie-and-Clyde pair kidnap Detective Mulligan and Ann Weying, leading Eddie, Venom and Dan the Doctor to go and fight them. Of course it happens in a church! Again, the Mulligan storyline is really something that does feel more like a distraction than anything. Sure, the movie seems to intend to set him up as another symbiote-superhero later on down the line, but neither his friction with Eddie nor his vendetta with Shriek really amounts to all that much. 

The actual Venom/Carnage fight, as I mentioned above, is something that I unabashedly enjoy. Sometimes you enter an action movie, and you just want an action movie, you know? It's full of one-liners, comedic drops, and unabashedly dramatically-appropriate lightning bolts to accentuate badass lines from the antagonist. And honestly, this is just such a fun movie to watch -- it's a great bonus that Venom and Carnage are so much easier to tell apart due to their differing colours, body-builds and even the texture of their 'skin'. It's a common complaint that Riot looked a bit too similar to Venom in the first movie's climax. 

It's a fun, short ride, I guess, is what I'm saying. Go in for the special effects and action scenes and comedy, and you really won't be disappointed -- it's not trying to be too different from the formula, and while most of the audience are either too used to the MCU formula or bored of superhero movies in general; I, for one, did enjoy my symbiote-fighty-fighty action movie. 

And, of course, there's that genuinely surprising mid-credits scene at the end, which promises for... bigger and greater things!

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Not really going to go over Carnage and Shriek's backstories in the comics because the movie does a decent job at going through it, but Patrick Mulligan is also known in the comics as the first Toxin -- which is what that random scene with his eyes glowing is all about.
  
• Notable, though, that while not called a 'mutant' outright, they did talk about Shriek's 'mutations'. 
• The recurring gag of "Lethal Protector" is the title of a six-issue Venom miniseries released in 1993, which solidifies Eddie Brock/Venom's transition from villain to antihero. 
• Shriek is kept in the Ravencroft Institute, a recurring location in the Spider-Man comics; which is actually most commonly associated with Carnage. 
• Mulligan reads a newspaper from the Daily Bugle.
• Cletus crushes a spider that runs around his desk when writing a letter for Venom, a wink-wink nod to how Venom and Carnage are technically Spider-Man enemies.
• And, of course, there's the post-credits scene, where Venom and Eddie found themselves tossed into the MCU universe, seeing J. Jonah Jameson's proclamation about Spider-Man and Peter Parker as seen in Spider-Man: Far From Home's final scene. I haven't watched that movie, but presumably this is caused by the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home.