Venom: Let There Be Carnage

Let me say this... It isn't a bad movie to watch at all. Felt more like an after thought of the previous film than it's own film. It becomes messy trying to hear Venom cause he talks so fast. Carnage was bad ass... His love interest felt tacked on and cliche. Did we need Michelle Williams back? Not really. The ending... It set up a huge potential for a film I am sure fans would LOVE to see.

I was really looking forward to this. I enjoyed the first one and the trails for this sequel looked fun... What happened? It is all over the place. It starts off promisingly enough with an enjoyable set piece with "Eddie" (Tom Hardy) and Michelle Williams ("Anne") - aided by some pithy one-liners from an unseen "Venom" but after we are introduced to "Cletus" (Woody Harrelson) the thing really hits the skids. The entertaining elements from the first film, the humour and - dare I say it, the symbiotic relationship/tolerance of man and amoeba are thrown under the bus for this angry CGI fest. Add to this pretty dry mix the rather pointless character of Harrelson's childhood sweetheart "Frances" (Naomie Harris) alias "the Scream" (remember the symbiotes don't like fire of sound), with her own agenda against copper "Mulligan" (Stephen Graham) and the whole thing just boils down to a very good looking film - but one with a plot that was almost non-existent, and that robbed the formidably sarcastic "Venom" of much of the charm that made the original work. Come to think on it - Hardy hardly features at all. I didn't hate it - it has a pace that passes 90 minutes effortlessly enough, but sorry, I was really disappointed.

I didn't get as much entertainment from this as I did with its predecessor. Still narrowly good enough, though. 'Venom: Let There Be Carnage' - great title, fwiw - does retain the fun performance from Tom Hardy, while the introductions of Stephen Graham, Woody Harrelson and Naomie Harris are welcomed ones in terms of the cast; even if I think their characters, particularly the latter two, are a little hit-and-miss throughout. The action and the fact that the film only lasts for around 90 minutes mean I didn't have a negative time watching this; it is sillier this time out, which also helps. Could be a 6/10 film, but for me it inches itself into 7/10 territory.