Film Title: Venom: Let There Be Carnage
Director: Andy Serkis
Starring: Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams, Naomie Harris, Reid Scott, Stephen Graham, Woody Harrelson
Genre: Sci-Fi
Running Time: 97 min
Film Review by Franz Amussen
I TAKE a back seat to nobody in my admiration for Tom Hardy. The British actor has been so good in so many films playing such a wide range of characters that I couldn’t help but root for him in the latest chapter of the Venom franchise…but sadly it was all a bit toothless.
For the uninitiated, Hardy plays Eddie Brock, a chaotic, self-sabotaging journalist who functions as a host body for Venom, a sentient alien symbiote with an amorphous, liquid-like form, who survives by bonding with a host, usually human. First introduced as a Marvel character and villain battling Spiderman, Venom has evolved into an anti-hero archetype still trying to do good in the world. Thus we have to find a bigger villain, and in this case it is a San Quentin-based serial killer, Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson). Brock’s interaction with Cletus triggers a crisis that threatens to tear the odd couple (Brock and Venom) apart, as well as expose the world to the horrors of Venom’s “son”, a red beastie known as Carnage.
Essentially this movie is a camp character study, which deftly plays off of the tension between Eddie and his ex-girlfriend Anne (Michelle Williams) and Venom, who in the first Venom movie, was wild about her. But now Venom comes out of the closet (yes, you read that right) and later inhabits Anne’s body to demand an apology from Eddie, one of the best scenes which exploits Williams’s genius for screwball comedy. I would like to have seen a deeper excursion into Brock’s domestic squabbles but sadly (or perhaps not) the movie follows its sub-100 minute brief rigorously. Sadly the dialogue doesn’t match the skills of the movie’s leads: one example of it’s leaden approach is Eddie’s line, reflecting on his abysmal skills as a reporter, says, “The only scoop I’m getting today is double chocolate chip.”
Also a plus, Anne’s boyfriend, Dr. Dan (Reid Scott) who gets to be more than uptight, and Kasady’s paramour, Frances (Naomie Harris), whose super-power is a shrill scream, has a cool character arc.
Clocking in at a brisk 97 minutes, the movie has no time (thankfully) for epic but tedious CGI set pieces, and benefits hugely from the emergence of Carnage is a character to move the plot along and contribute to the inevitable climactic conflict.
At its core, Venom 2 is like a hickey from your teeanage crush, it might leave a slight mark, but it will fade and be forgotten and soono you’ll forget it was ever there.
