Venom - Let There Be Carnage Movie Review: I walked out of the theatre and I had a really hard time processing what I had just watched. I certainly felt a sense of enjoyment go through me, but there was still a lingering sense of me not being sure about it. Venom: Let There Be Carnage was certainly a weird movie that I saw in recent times that I am not sure I liked it very much. Or didn't. Tom Hardy Talks About How Much He Loves Playing the Marvel Characters of Venom and Eddie Brock!

Venom: Let There Be Carnage sees the return of Eddie Brock as he faces off against Cletus Kasady and his bloodthirsty symbiote, Carnage. You have your returning cast members from the first film and a bunch of new faces too. Talking about OG cast members, Tom Hardy again is a treat to watch in the film. I think it is his relationship with Venom being front and center of the film that immediately puts it above the first movie. Venom and Eddie are that dysfunctional couple in a movie that you love to watch. Helps that they gave in to the extremely cheesy tone, that made this a fun fest.

Venom is also a great interesting co-lead who embraces the anti-hero personality of his from the comics. I genuinely enjoyed watching him over here more than I did in the first film, because he actually had more screen-presence. He just wasn’t regulated to showing up during fights or acting as a voice, but you saw more of him as a character, and that just works in Venom: Let There Be Carnage’s way.

The fights in Venom: Let There Be Carnage are bigger and bolder. When Venom and Carnage clash, it doesn’t look like two slimes mashing with each other, they are actually punching and making up creative ways to fight. Also helps that the colours of both the characters were so distinct. Whereas in the first film, Riot just felt like a bigger version of Venom, which made the fight harder to follow, over here you could actually see what’s going on. This is weirdly exactly how I envisioned to see a Venom vs Carnage fight go down when I was a child.

Watch the Trailer:

Even the motion capture was better than the first film, which was to be expected considering they got Andy Serkis to direct. With the director change, the sequel is a much better film than the first, at least in a technical regard. Wish they really got better writers too though. Here are where the problems arise. The moment the film began and we saw a young Shriek and Cletus, the dialogue there alone at points gave me second hand embarrassment for being a comic book fan. I couldn’t help but let out a chuckle as I couldn’t take these characters seriously. There is something really weird watching these critically acclaimed actors say some of the dumbest lines of their career.

Most of Cletus’ story was also related to his relationship with Shriek, which I really didn’t care about. Naomie Harris is a great actress, but what is she exactly doing calling Woody Harrelson “Baby” for most of the second half of the film? That’s not what I want to watch in a Carnage story, I want to watch him unleash CARNAGE, which the subtitle of the film promised me.  It’s still weird though, I still did enjoy watching him fight Venom on screen, but I can’t help but admit that he felt like a waste of a character.

Also there are soooo many choppy scenes. The film clocks in somewhere around 97 minutes including credits, remove that and it's somewhere around 89 minutes, it just goes by. You see a character standing somewhere far from another character and then in the next scene they are extremely close to the same character. It just took me out of the moment, although luckily those moments are very few. Also there is an exquisite lack of brutality to the actions of these monsters. The film just seems scared to showcase brutality and it just feels like a cheap attempt to avoid an R rating so more butts can be put into seats.

Yay!

- Eddie and Venom’s relationship

- The action scenes

- Motion capture work is great

- Film gives into its cheesy tone

- Good Cinematography

Nay!

- Carnage and Shriek

-Carnage feels wasted

- Dialogue is dumb

- Film shies away from its own brutality

-Choppy editing

Final Thoughts

Venom: Let There Be Carnage definitely does have all the makings of a good film, but what holds it back is its incapability to capitalise on it. If they make a third Venom movie, I definitely hope that a bunch of these issues are rectified.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 14, 2021 10:01 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).