The first Venom appeared to have been released from a time capsule dated 2005. Here was a superhero film that outside of leads Tom Hardy and Michelle Williams had none of the pretense or associated quality that has developed around the genre in the past decade and a half. It had a titular single by Eminem! Ruben Fleischer is a workman like director with plenty of music video and TV credits, as well as a cult genre film (Zombieland) to his name, but nothing akin to the auteur or fanboy-auteur status of his contemporary directors. The film stuck to the broad strokes of the lethal protectors’ origins but also invented or reinterpreted major sections. Eddie Brock was transported San Francisco. There is no hint of that neighborhood menace, Spider-man, and thus no reason to have the slick and slimy symbiote Venom present a mocking giant white spider emblem on their chest. The latter appears more due to the complex licensing agreement between Sony and Marvel Entertainment, but also helps to give the first film its mid-00s charm as it didn’t feel necessary to be slavish to source material. That willingness to go in different directions is what allowed the film to be enjoyable, with a committed performance by Hardy and their reinterpretation of the Eddie-Venom relationship, even as everything else around it failed. Now for its sequel Let There Be Carnage features an interesting directorial choice in actor-director Andy Serkis in a film that goes bigger but now understands what it is that makes Venom work as a franchise.
That core of the franchise is the relationship between Eddie and Venom. Now rendered on film that relationship reads as incredibly queer and helped to turn the first film into one of the oddest and most successful romantic comedies in years. Let There Be Carnage goes into novel romantic comedy territory (only really tread by the pair of Neighbors films) by showing Eddie and Venom’s relationship after their meet cute and drive into the sunset. The pair are now fully into Odd Couple co-habitation with Venom continually wanting to eat brains and become the best lethal protector they can be. Eddie is focused more on not being caught and sent to Area 51. The slapstick, and abusive, elements to their relationship make up the emotional center of the film as they go on an adventure and realize the awful truth about one another. When they aren’t bickering, both parties work through the loss of a potential polycule with Anne, the criminally underutilized Michelle Williams. Venom more loudly than Eddie, and even to a degree Anne herself.
Much has been made about a comments director Andy Serkis made about a party sequence about a third of the way through the film.
“Tom and [co-writer] Kelly [Marcel] were always about Venom coming out and going to a party that was a very sort of an LGBTQIA kind of festival, really, I’d call it, and so this is his coming out party basically. This is Venom’s coming-out party.”
That sequence doesn’t quite live up to the hype the Internet made, although Venom does declare that he is coming out of the (Eddie Brock) closet. However, when taken with the fact the film ends with a direct quote of Some Like it Hot and declaration of love, Let there Be Carnage is one of the queerest superhero films since Joel Schumacher directed Batman Forever. The film never gets into monster fucking territory or the three-way kiss from the first film, but there is a maturity to its core relationship drama that is effective and worth watching.
Running at 97 minutes, Let There Be Carnage has the ability to never get too boring, though it becomes evident when the film isn’t working (when it isn’t centered on Eddie or Venom) and mechanically churning through plot. The plot, such as it exists, is the real point of weakness in the film as it feels extraneous instead of complimentary to the core relationship drama between Eddie and Venom. Seen in a miscredit sequence, serial killer Cletus Kasaday(Woody Harrielson) strikes up a one sided relationship with Eddie Brock. After Brock’s reportage earns Kasaday the death penalty, Cletus vows revenge with the newly found Carnage symbiote. In an origin story that is close to the comics, readers looking for the more recent additions to Symbiote lore will be disappointed but this is the right call to not get bogged down.
Continued belowWoody Harrielson as psychopathic Cletus Kasady-Carnage isn’t given much to do, not that the character in the comics had much raison d’etre beyond being an even eviler version of Venom. Charitably he is an effective B-movie villain, a static object that is more a device to reunite Eddie-Venom than be a realized character. Harrelson seems to be riffing on his own old material anyways. Cletus’ accomplice Shreik played by Naomie Harris is given even less to work with, forced into being the Bonnie to his Clyde. Other than Cletus and Shreik making a couple to mirror Eddie and Venom with, Harris character could have easily been cut with minimal changes. For her part Harris chews the scenery well enough.
As the film progresses into more violent sequences, I couldn’t help but wonder what this would look like if it was rated R. Let There Be Carnage has a gonzo, excessive, charm to it and yet it never gets to be that excessive in hindsight. For all the talk of eating brains and bad guys, we never really get to see this in action save for a triumphal moment at the end that is chopped to PG-13 respectability. Eddie seems correctly afraid of the damage Venom could unleash on the world around him, but outside of some typical city destruction the film never develops any sense of physical danger. The violence associated with Venom renders them more like a puppy who thinks they’re an apex predator.
If this lack was used to contrast with Carnage perhaps there would be something, but Carnage is similarly neutered. None of his victim’s bleed or appear to have lacerations on them, at least X-Men recognized Wolverine’s claws needed to have blood on them sometimes. While that level of gore is elided, the film is more than capable recognizing the subtext and violence of other moments like Cletus-Carnage walking away from an anonymous female victim (her face covered) as one of their penetrating tentacles slowly recoils into them over her body, covered in a semitranslucent white slime. Recent adaptations like The Suicide Squad or The Boys, or the history of horror film in general, have shown the power of letting things get wet can underline the point. At times Let There Be Carnage feels like a parody of juvenile edgelord posturing (or just 90s comics) but is never able to fully emulate to critique.
Overall Let there Be Carnage is a plainly better movie compared to its predecessor. Director Andy Serkis composes competent action, the final set piece evokes Daredevil and manages to be just bright enough. Tom Hardy continues to give a committed performance as Eddie Brock and Venom. So far neither film has figured out how to marry the engaging aspects of this movie (Eddie and Venom) with a plot that enhances their relationship as opposed to feeling extraneous.
