Venom: Let There Be Carnage Brings More Symbiotic Comedy in the Picture

By Mark Adams On Jan 22, 2022

Venom: Let there be Carnage is sequel to the 2018 venom movie and navigates through the bromance between Eddie Brock and Venom while also maintaining the seriousness of the chaos. The movie is a classic American Superhero film filled with romance, friendship, complicated villains and a weird symbiotic relationship which only Tom Hardy can bring to justice.

The film was produced by Columbia Pictures in association with Marvel. It was distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing. It is directed by Andy Serkis, who hasn’t disappointed the audience who follow Marvel comics and are waiting for Venom to become part of the multiverse.

Although, like all Marvel films,it ends up exaggerating the blatant comedy which is sometimes not required. It kills the element of seriousness. But contrary to that, Marvel has reached where it is by following a certain pattern which this movie doesn’t wanna break for the sake of experimenting.

The Plot of Venom: Let There Be Carnage

The movie starts with a flashback of 1996 where two children, a boy and a girl are separated at grim St. Estes Home for Unwanted Children. The boy grows up and becomes serial killer Cletus Kasady who is on death row and the girl, Frances Barrison is locked up at the Ravencroft Institute. The reason why she is locked up there is because of her ability to manipulate sound waves.

While she was being taken away as a child, she screamed loudly and ended up damaging police officer Mulligan’s ear. He shot her in the eye and thought she was dead but she survived. Patrick Mulligan is still a police officer who tells Eddie that Kasady would only speak with him which gives a boost to Eddie’s journalism career.

As Kasady is about to get executed, he wants Eddie to be there and witness his execution. Kasady somehow lashes out on Eddie, thus provoking Venom to attack him. This leads to Kasady ingesting a chunk of Eddie’s arm, thus leading to him becoming a version of venom that is called Carnage. Carnage wants to kill Venom and Eddie and makes a deal with it’s host Kasady. He helps Kasady in freeing his childhood love, Frances Barrison.

The movie then transits between a little hiccup in Eddie and Venom’s relationship when Venom wants to eat heads of criminals while Eddie wants him to eat chocolate and hen. Venom also has a certain obsession with Eddie’s ex-fiance Anne and is more of a representation of how Eddie feels.

The movie ends with a post credit scene with a peek into the Marvel multiverse which leaves the audience in anticipation for the next Venom movie and how it will finally connect with the multiverse just as it happened in Spiderman: No Way Home.

Reviews

With Tom Hardy’s exceptional acting, the movie performed well but one cannot ignore the movie’s incessant need to be too silly in order to make things funnier than they need to be. The Carnage’s evil wasn’t represented justly and Kased (Woodrow Tracy Harrelson) was seen having a repetitive form of acting as seen in his double role in Now You See Me 2.

The same sarcastic undertone to dialogs and the witty banter which somehow heightened because of the playfulness that these symbiotic aliens seem to have in spite of their murderous instincts. As for our other supposed villain, there is Shriek which is also a really regular bland villain character that we all have seen before.

This urge to give these villains a tragic story sometimes seems forced. Can’t a person just be evil for the sake of it? But the era of Anti-Villains and tragic villains with an emotional backstory has taken over the Hollywood mindset. But like every trend in this world, this trend will also have an end to it sooner or later. It is an inevitable cycle.

The entire story is tearing itself apart with the back and forth between comedy and carnage. For a film that has carnage in its name, it doesn’t create the same effect. Although, the CGI work was amazing and of the highest quality but that doesn’t make up for a rather underwhelming story.

Hopefully, the next part would have more story along with good special effects and abundant fun. But let’s just say that Venom has a long way to go in order to become everyone’s favorite. The only reason it is as famous as it is right now is because of Tom Hardy and without him, the movie wouldn’t have done so well at the box office.

Cast and Characters

Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock and Venom
Michelle Williams as Anne Weying: A defense attorney and Brock’s ex-fiancée.
Naomie Harris as Frances Barrison / Shriek: Kasady’s love interest who can create sonic screams. Serkis described her as a damaged soul who has been living in isolation and has a dark side to her. Olumide Olorunfemi portrays a young Frances Barrison.
Reid Scott as Dan Lewis: A doctor and Weying’s fiancé.
Stephen Graham as Patrick Mulligan: A detective hoping to use Brock to find the remains of Kasady’s murder victims. Sean Delaney portrays a young Patrick Mulligan.
Woody Harrelson as Cletus Kasady and Carnage

Conclusion

Venom: Let there be Carnage was another Marvel attempt at creating a wholesome superhero movie with a little twist and a lot of carelessness and fun. Although the fun is appreciated, the careless does create chaos and not the kind of chaos that Carnage is supposed to create. But the good thing is that the movie ends with the promise of delivering more and that does make the entire thing a bit more interesting.