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2021
15
director: Andy Serkis
starring: Tom Hardy, Woody Harrelson, Michelle Williams, Naomie Harris, Reid Scott, Stephan Graham, Peggy Lu etc
Eddie Brock attempts to reignite his career by interviewing serial killer Cletus Kasady, who becomes the host of the symbiote Carnage and escapes prison after a failed execution. What an absolute mess this was.
Let’s be nice and start with some positives as there was some. The character background and set up was solid. As well as great cinematography and humour. As well as the performances and chemistry the characters. I thought the background and set up involving Carnage (Woody Harrelson) and Shriek (Naomie Harris) despite being rushed was solid. It established clear motivations for carnage and set out a clear darker tone, whilst also serving as a good introduction to how unstable Cletus is as a character. I also thought the cinematography was strong for this film. Considering the film had essentially the same budget as the first film they paid a lot more attention to detail. The film was visually stunning, and visually creative with the great character designs especially for carnage. I also thought the humour for the most part landed well. The film had witty, fast paced jokes that kept you laughing a lot of the time. The film embraced its campiness with its characters and the humour, and I enjoyed it. This was largely helped by the fantastic on-screen chemistry between Eddie and Venom. They are just infectious and hilarious to watch as there back and forth interactions were always a highlight to watch. Plus, the performances from Tom Hardy, Woody Harrelson and Naomie Harris were fun. They delivered passionate and campy performances and just looked like they were enjoying playing the characters.
However, my first few negatives would be the terrible pacing. Lack of character depth or development. The poor script and over reliance on comedy. The film was all over the place in terms of pacing. It needed to be at least 20 minutes longer. Coming in at 97 minutes the film moved at such a frantic and messy pace, it never allowed anything to breathe or leave any room for any form of development. It felt like lazy writing as there was so many plot holes and it felt like the writers were cutting corners just for the sake of it. Because of this there was a complete lack or character depth. It was one dimensional and lazy. And any attempt at development or depth just felt like copy and paste from the first film and it bought nothing new to the table. The script itself for me just felt lazy, poorly structured and the humour especially became tedious. It became so over-relied on that it just got annoying after a while. The script fell into countless genre tropes that it didn’t even try to escape from.
My final few positives would be the action, strong horror elements. The fun villain and great end credit scene. I thought the action scenes that we did get were great. They were entertaining, thrilling and had great horror elements to them particularly with Carnages powers, I wish they had used more horror. As the moments of horror we did get were so strong with carnage. I thought Carnage as a villain was strong. The film found a good balance of campy and over the top, but also making Cletus very unstable. He was undoubtedly fun to watch whenever he was on screen and Woody Harrelson did a great job. And of course the end credit scene was great, setting up a lot of future implications for Venom as a character and it was an exciting set up.
My final few negatives would be the underused elements. The lack of connection with venom and carnage in the plot. As well as generic elements and a messy final act. The film lacked any form of focus or development of one particularly thing. The characters were underdeveloped. The use of horror which would have been so strong for a character like Carnage felt wasted. And the characters were underused especially Anne (Michelle Williams) she could have been used so much more and given some depth to Eddie, but it just felt repetitive. The film was also generic and fell into so many genre tropes in the final act. They made Anne a damsel in distress and an innocent needing to be saved. It was lazy, very poor in terms of representation and it really frustrated me. The final act despite its entertaining moments was a mess with the complete lack of motivation for Carnage to go against Venom there was a complete lack of anything really connecting either character to each other. Cletus’s goal was to reunite with Shriek, and it felt like that was it, so it was a waste of his character and the end credit scene only proved that.
Overall, Venom: Let there be carnage is for the most part entertaining. And boasts strong visuals, committed performances and the chemistry between Eddie and Venom is undeniably charming. But this film was lazy, rushed and frankly a complete mess. And tried to do too many things at once, therefore it lost itself.
Overall rating 46/100
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Title: Venom: Let There Be Carnage
Year: 2021
Directed By: Andy Serkis (Marvel/Sony)
Rating: 5/10
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I watched this movie on my flight to America, so I had an additional experience to the actual movie, which I'm not sure made it better or worse. But let's just say, my review on this movie isn't exactly pleasant...
I didn't like it! Now, that doesn't exactly mean I don't like the character of Venom (I love Venom, he's more advanced than the Tobey Maguire Venom, which I appreciate), and the symbiote is given much more personality than I expected prior to watching the first Venom movie. I also like the idea that Venom is a loser, and how petty and argumentative he can be. It's pretty clear that Eddie and Venom's relationship in the movie is vastly similar to a traditional husband-wife relationship, which is comical. I love the aspect of how they're both stubborn and think they don't need each other, when full well they need each other literally and metaphorically.
I like how Carnage was created, by the imprisoned serial-killer Cletus Kassady (played by much-loved actor Woody Harrison, and his portrayal was brilliant!). Carnage was created by a part of Venom and Eddie's blood being combined, and ate by Cletus, which is different than usual.
Tom Hardy's acting was also brilliant as usual.
So that's what I like about the movie. Now onto what I dislike...
Anne and Dan, seriously don't care. Boring. And that's the most in-depth analysis I can go into that, just stop including them in the movie.
The detective? And his backstory with Shriek? Don't care.
The idea that Carnage is more powerful than Venom was BARELY proven.
Marvels/Sony's continuous belief that Venom, or every Marvel movie, has to have loads (too much) comic relief is frustrating. It tries to hard to be funny. Me and many other fans love the more serious Marvel movies, such as Amazing Spider Man 2 (and by Marvel, I mean everything Marvel). I believe Venom 2 would be much better if its tone was more serious, maybe psychological, in a way, somewhat like Joker, but less serious, of course.
Actually, it turns out what I care about in the movie is literally only at the very end: the post-credit scene. It was shocking to see Venom and Tom Holland's Spider-Man in the same scene. I can't wait to see what that means (I have seen Spiderman: No Way Home, and there will be a review of that soon).
There's a theory out there that Andrew Garfield's Spiderman is highly likely in the same universe as Venom! So, maybe, possibly, Andrew Garfield will be in Venom 3 or Venom will be in Amazing Spider Man 3, which hasn't exactly been confirmed yet, but I'm sure it'll happen.
By @brofilmcriticwnie
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Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021) follows Eddie Brock trying to reignite his career by interviewing serial killer Cletus Kasady. Kasady becomes the host of a symbiote named Carnage after a failed execution. From the reviews I’ve seen, this is a film many disliked! However, I really enjoyed it and found it to be better than the original. I had a lot of fun with this one!
I really liked the characters and how they were portrayed! They all had a decent amount of backstory, but not too much to make it become confusing and crowded. The character of Cletus is incredibly interesting and I think they couldn’t have picked anyone better than Harrelson for the role! I also loved the humour, I often found myself laughing out loud which is a big change from my reaction to the first film.
The pacing was steady, but also fast. It had a perfect balance of fast intense scenes whilst also giving the audience time to breath and take in said scenes. The story and plot were quite simple, but I feel the film benefits from this. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and you can tell the filmmakers had a good time with it.
Visually, this movie was stunning. It was what grabbed my attention from the trailer too. I’ve always loved the design of movie Venom, but Carnage’s design was absolutely insane and I loved it. His first appearance on screen had me breathless, the CGI is genuinely very impressive in my opinion. This movie also had some nice colour palettes! For example, in the scene where Venom goes to the club.
Lastly, I’d like to discuss the post credits scene. To me, this was SUPER exciting. I’ve often felt like they are just cramming too much into the new Spider-man film, for example I would prefer Doctor Strange not to be a main character as such. But, the addition of Venom makes a lot of sense and I think this will be a very positive thing!
4/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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