![]() While Kasady uses his powers to track down mutant girlfriend Frances Barrison, aka Shriek (Naomie Harris), Venom “breaks up” with Brock and hits the clubs, crashing a costume party as himself. Whereas the earlier “Venom” movie was relatively restrained with how the symbiote behaved, the sequel aims to show a broader range of tricks, leaning heavily on unconvincing computer-generated effects to showcase both characters’ potential. Relative to Marvel’s more humanoid heroes - most of whom are just bulging muscles in bright, skin-tight suits - Venom and Carnage were freaky-looking monsters by comparison. That scoop puts Kasady in line for the electric chair, until the symbiote (increasingly unhappy with Brock as host) fuses with Kasady, with much stronger and more destructive results. As promised over the “Venom” end credits, Brock has landed an exclusive interview with Harrelson’s Kasady, relying on Venom’s skills to solve a case that eluded police detective Mulligan (Stephen Graham). Instead, we observe Brock - a haggard tabloid reporter who looks like he hasn’t slept or shaved in weeks - trying to play house with this unruly organism. ![]() In theory, that could have been license to come up with another memorably over-the-top public embarrassment, building on what ex-girlfriend Anne (Michelle Williams) refers to as “that bizarre outburst at the lobster restaurant” from the earlier movie. in the far more entertaining Korean “Parasyte” movies) can’t hold back much longer. Brock has managed to keep Venom operating on a diet of chicken and chocolate, but the parasite (who, incidentally, behaves an awful lot like the E.T. The disjointed first act finds Brock (Hardy) still struggling to coexist with the shape-shifting space blob, which manifests as a tar-black, piranha-toothed Siamese twin/mutant tumor - the metaphorical monkey on Brock’s back - growling insults only its host can hear and demanding human brains to nourish its insatiable appetite. ![]() ![]() Where “Venom” took the fairly novel approach of treating a comic book origin story as an alien body-snatcher horror film, the follow-up plays like a cross between an ’80s mismatched-buddy movie (where the characters share the same body) and off-the-wall Jim Carrey comedy “The Mask.” Acting even more erratic than he did in the original, a not-well-looking Hardy shares story credit on the borderline incomprehensible script, which switches genres on Ruben Fleischer’s earlier entry. Kelly Marcel’s script feels like she was tasked with taking dictation on a square-one spitball session, where the attitude must have been “there’s no such thing as a bad idea,” so long as all ideas were in service of getting Venom to square off against his blood-red adversary, serial killer Cletus Kasady (a suitably deranged Woody Harrelson), who’s been possessed by the same extra-terrestrial symbiote that infected Eddie Brock. If only they had slowed things down and taken their time to hash out a better story. The irony, of course, is that in their haste to get a sequel into theaters, the execs couldn’t have known that a global pandemic would swoop in to delay the release by a year. But it does introduce Carnage, so in that respect, mission accomplished. The set-pieces look sloppy, the visual effects are all over the place, and the laughs come largely at the movie’s expense. Managed (more than directed) by motion-capture star-turned-aspiring blockbuster helmer Andy Serkis, “ Venom: Let There Be Carnage” has all the indications of a slapdash cash grab. No surprise then, that parent studio Sony (whose grip on the Marvel cash cow has been limited to Spider-Man and his spinoffs) rushed to greenlight a follow-up that would pit Venom against his most recognizable non-Spidey nemesis back in early 2019. Right out of the gate, “Venom” may have been one of the all-time worst-reviewed Marvel movies - the film has an abominable 30% rating on Rotten Tomatoes - but that didn’t stop audiences from flocking to see a bug-eyed Tom Hardy embody the character in the corny 2018 standalone, which racked up an astonishing $864 million plus worldwide.
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