Venom : Let there be Carnage Review – Slightly better

Venom: Let there be Carnage was released in theatres a couple of weeks back. While it managed to earn profits, it didn’t offer much in terms of action and adventure.

If you’ve read my previous post, then you know that at least 90% of what I posted took place in the movie.

So, here’s my review of Venom: Let there be Carnage:

Venom: Let There be Carnage

Director:  Andy Serkis

Producers: Avi Arad, Jonathan Cavendish, Howard Chen, Edward Cheng, Ruben Fleischer, Tom Hardy, Barrie Hemsley, Caroline Levy, Kelly Marcel, Angus More Gordon, Hutch Parker, Amy Pascal, Matt Tolmach, Barry H. Waldman

Cast:  Tom Hardy, Woody Harrelson, Michelle Williams, Naomie Harris, Reid Scott, Stephen Graham, Peggy Lu

Music: Marco Beltrami

Writers:  Tom Hardy, Kelly Marcel

Budget:  $110 Million USD

Genre: Action, Adventure, Science Fiction, Superhero, Thriller 

Synopsis: Eddie Brock is leading his life as a journalist when he gets called to prison by Kletus Kasady. With the help of Venom, Brock finds all the bodies of people that Kasady has killed. Just a day before being electrocuted, Kasady calls Eddie to see him one last time and bites his finger. This spawns Carnage.

Review: 

The movie beings with a brief history of Shriek and Kletus Kasady. The plot then takes it time before Kasady finally bites Brock’s finger. It’s quite a wait before we see Carnage is spawn, given the length of the movie.

There are a couple of scenes in which there are brief instances of how powerful Carnage is.

Then, there’s a bit of adrenaline built up until the big climax scene. There’s even references to Sam Raimi’s Venom in Spiderman 3 in the climax. The climax could have been better, but given Sony’s reputation of lousy writing, it’s fairly accurate.

Overall, the plot is quite straight without any twists and turns but still strengthens Venom and Eddie Brock as characters.

Character Development 

Just as I mentioned above, despite the movie being short, it nicely achieves the objective of developing Venom and Eddie Brock as characters. The story develops both the characters through emotions which ultimately strengthens their unique relationships.

But apart from Venom and Brock the plot hardly focuses on any other character. I think if Venom: Let There be Carnage was 40 minutes longer, they could have used it develop Carnage, Kasady and Shriek. But again, Sony works very differently.

Music 

The background music in this movie is on point. I’m happy that it was. Also, the overall sound effects throughout the movie were on point.

Cinematography

Now, this is where things start to get a little bit here and there. The point of this type of movie is to look appealing to the eye. All the scenes with Carnage, aren’t on point. At many points there’s just blurring which is very irritating to watch. The filter for colors in all the action scenes is not proper.

Also, the contrast throughout the movie is on the darker side. This works in favor for all the scenes where there’s Venom but for Carnage it just does the opposite.

In addition to this, just like the first Venom movie, for this movie too all the action scenes take place at night. I think Sony isn’t making use of its resources to film good action sequences in light.

Direction 

Andy Serkis did what he could with the script he was provided but according to me it was not enough. This movie too suffered from the same problem as Shang Chi and The Legend of Ten Rings.

I’ve already mentioned that problem in my previous post. A lot of the scenes were already there in the trailer and hence, there was nothing new apart from a few scenes.

Screenplay 

The script for Venom: Let there be Carnage is very weak. The script does nothing apart from developing Venom and Eddie Brock. Despite Carnage being so strong, it was very predictable that how he would lose.

Another flaw with the script was that Carnage gets spawned into Kasady whose girlfriend is Shriek. The irony is that her superpower is Supersonic Sound which is one of the weaknesses of symbiotes.

Action/Effects 

As already mentioned, this movie doesn’t do good in this department. This movie could have been a lot better if Sony improved its effect.

But all of the above discussed points aren’t the main takeaway of this movie; it’s the post credit scene. It’s the same way as I had already discussed in my previous post.

The post credit scene sets up the stage for a Tom Holland Spiderman and Venom cross over movie. There’s also going to be a post credit scene in Spiderman: No Way Home which will include Venom and further confirm the crossover.

All in all, Venom: Let there be Carnage is just slightly better than it’s prequel but gets pretty exciting after the credits roll.