Remember back in the early 2000’s when there was not a huge, plentiful bounty of superhero movies for people to go see, so when things like Spiderman 2 came out or Fox’s X-Men movie franchise came out, there was really not a bar of quality set. Some were really good like the first 2 Spidermen or X-Men movies, others were really bad like Spiderman 3 or X-Men: Last Stand. There was not coherent vision to the characters and no universe building for bigger stories. The best superhero franchise of this time was the Nolan Batman trilogy, and they were so good because they did not feel like superhero movies and where more grounded to reality
In 2008, with the release of Iron Man, Marvel (and eventually Disney) changed all of this by having a vision of what it wanted its superhero movies to be. They brought in Kevin Feige to man the Marvel Cinematic Universe and brought a coherent vision to superhero franchises, which could be argued made superhero movies kinda of stale, but it brought a certain bar of quality to them. Even the worse MCU movie (looking at you Thor: Dark World) has some entertainment value to them and is not repulsive. This is all a long way of saying…do not go see Venom: Let There Be Carnage in a movie theater.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage is the follow up to the hugely financial success of Venom, which starred Tom Hardy (who returns for the new one) as Eddie Brock, a down on his luck reporter who has transitioned to be a investigative TV journalist for a San Francisco affiliate. He ends up getting the symbiote by investigating a lab where experiments are being done with human test subjects and the symbiotes. By the end of the movie they are somehow best pals and decided to be “good” guys. I watched the first Venom the night before going in seeing the sequel in theaters and thought it was fine but unimportant. Venom: Let There Be Carnage makes the first Venom look like a Best Picture nominee for an Academy Award.
This movie loses all of the seriousness that the first one had, and it barely had that much. Instead it tries to be a buddy cop movie, but both characters are extremely unlikeable and the banter dialogue between Eddie Brock and Venom is grating, overstaying its welcome within the first fifteen minutes. The few things that were actually funny get run into the ground so much (like Venom wanting to eat bad guys, or the arguing in each other’s thoughts) that you become tired of them when they try to call back to it later in the movie. The action scenes are few and far between, and while they are better than the witty dialogue that happens though most of the movie, it still pales in comparison to modern superhero or action movies that are out there
One of the most disappointing aspects of this movie is Michelle Williams, and it is not her fault. She really tries her best with the VERY limited screen time that she does have and that is the major issue. Her character is barely on screen at all, and when she is it always has something to do with her fiancé Dan or Brock. She is pretty much just used as a story-telling device for the men in this movie, which is extremely disappointing because of how talented she is.
Another talented actor who tries his best with the material he was given is Woody Harrelson. He plays the titular Carnage in this movie. He starts off as a serial killer that is put on death row with a vendetta against Eddie Brock and Venom for their help in finding the bodies of his victims resulting in his execution. Nothing exciting happens in this portrayal besides all of the cliches that come when playing someone with bad mental health (over the top mannerisms, manic speaking, etc). The only good thing to come from this is that Woody got to cash a check.
The best thing I can say about this movie is the run time is extremely short, only 1hr 38mins with credits, which also includes the best thing about this movie which is the after credit scene. I will not spoil it, but I would say just look it up online, watching the whole movie is not worth the 2 minutes that could be interesting to you.
As a whole, Venom: Let There Be Carnage is one of the worst, not only superhero, but just movies I have ever seen in a theater. If you really need to see it, I would just wait till it comes to some streaming service or digital platform. There is really nothing redeeming about this movie in anyway, the few laughs that are had are not worth the price of admission. With just really 90 minutes to work with, the movie feels rushed and does not make much sense from a story perspective. None of the events are giving much time to breathe, though even if it had more time I do not think it would have mattered.