Venom (2021) Review: Let There Be Carnage - And there was...

The arrival of Venom’s second installment has been awaited by fans with a bittersweet blend of scepticism and hope. Always willing to give the Hollywood counterparts of their favourite comic book characters a fighting chance, fans nevertheless flooded to UK theatres to see the approach Sony had taken on the continuation of Venom’s big-screen debut back in 2018, an event that received a lukewarm reception from fans and critics alike.

So, with Andy Serkis at the wheel as director, how did the second installment compare?

Pretty well, actually. In the sense that it left fans with much the same feelings as it did the first time around; underwhelmed and somewhat reproachful.

Casting & Character

Something that makes the misfire of this movie just that little bit more painful is its A* cast.

While Tom Hardy did a good job of embracing the comedic value in the appearance of arguing with nothing that inevitably comes during his interactions with Venom, a lot of the verbal comedy seemed like pretty low-hanging fruit. This made for a very forced feeling in much of the attempted comedy, which in turn grew quite tiresome quite quickly.

Woody Harrelson in his role as Cletus Kasady was a particular stand-out. He harboured so much great potential for a compelling performance, his interactions with Hardy providing something vaguely akin to the bloodthirsty Hannibal Lector vibe. Sadly though, the story, with its basic cause to effect layout, allowed little time for development, leaving what could have been a heavily layered performance to fizzle away into nothing.

Equally, Naomie Harris made the most of what she had in her role as Shriek. However, once again, the script allowed little room for a compelling character arc, leaving her character to fall by the wayside as the cliche “villains lover” archetype.

With the many moments in which the highly skilled cast grappled with the script, they certainly succeeded in peppering the movie with an agonising glimpse into what could have been.

Visuals

While the CGI was a vast improvement on that seen in the original, there were often times when the sheer amount of it could be extremely overpowering to the eye and didn’t make for an overall aesthetically pleasing look.

This was a prevalent issue in the majority of the movie’s action scenes. As a result of the PG 13 US rating, the majority of the carnage caused by Carnage was mostly glossed over with grandiose visual effects and the typical, fluffy orange explosions from which audiences have been desensitised for well over a decade now.

This provided the few violent moments that did occur with a decent degree of shock factor but sadly, the surprise of which was tainted by a general sense of these sudden, fleeting displays of brutality having come entirely out of nowhere.

Unfortunately, if the Venom movies continue on the PG 13 path, it is unlikely that the character’s live-action counterpart will ever truly embody the Venom that fans know and love from the comics.

All that said though, there was one stand-out scene in which animated add-ons were extremely well used, this being the stylised 2D sketch animation sequence used to bring to life Kasady’s heavily illustrated letter to Eddie Brock. This paired with Harrelson’s menacing voice-over work made for a visually compelling and intimate look into Kasady’s mind. It was a great moment of skilful exposition, adding both characterisation and visual beauty to the all-important delivery of plot-based context.

Story tools

As the movie progressed, it became clear that the script was 100% aware of its ultimate goal, this being an epic Venom Vs. Carnage throwdown. However, the more time went one, the more it felt as if they didn’t quite know how to get them there, making for a choppy and oddly paced cause to affect progression, involving some very surreal and haphazard filler in between (yes, I am partly referring to Venom storming off to do some motivational speaking while getting wasted at a rave).

Replacing the relentless, sloppy attempts at comedy with some more in-depth characterisation would have created a great deal more suspense and made for a wonderfully compelling way of upping the tension levels. As it is though, it felt more as if the characters were being shoved awkwardly towards an ultimate goal while being force-fed half-baked jokes in a slapdash attempt at making the process at least mildly entertaining.

Conclusion

The apparent plethora of cuts that occurred during the production of Vemon, whether it was for length or to keep the content within the PG13 threshold, has definitely left the movie feeling extremely trimmed. As a story arc, it does -for want of a better phrase- suffer from an overwhelming feeling of thinness.

It was almost as if the film were entirely reliant on the few-second post-credit tease in order to ensure fans left the cinema with a good feeling. And if that is the case, then it did work; it was during those few seconds that folks in the theatre finally looked up from their phones and as if by magic, the room was suddenly rife with that good old fashioned Marvel buzz!

The 90 minutes before that, however, while enjoyable in some moments, missed the mark on many others. It’s a shame to think that this may well be the last thing the live-action Marvel universe is planning to do with the much-loved character of Carnage.

That said though, I definitely wouldn’t write it off. There is still plenty of room to bring things back and it would be exciting to see how Marvel approach any possible future installments.

Only time will tell.

Rating: 4/10.

What did you think of the movie? Do you agree with our review or do you have a totally different take? Let us know in the comments!