By: Brandon Kennedy, Staff Writer
It’s not often you get a movie about one of the greatest characters in Marvel Comics, Venom. The 2018 Venom film was a really fun movie, including chase sequences, a good storyline, simple to understand, and it had great fight scenes. The second installment is no exception. Venom: Let There Be Carnage is the next film in the series, taking place sometime after the first film. Eddie Brock, played by Tom Hardy, is trying to avoid any unnecessary jail time because if people go missing, it’s on him. The roles of Venom and Brock are somewhat divergent in this film, they fight, get into trouble on their own, and realize that they need each other by the end of the film.
The other characters in the film include Woody Harrelson’s Cletus Kasady, who is seen as a merciless killer, but what I liked about this interpretation of the character is that Kasady isn’t a merciless killer. Kasady does kill, even as Carnage, but Kasady is more sentimental than Brock is. In a twist, most of Kasady’s actions are regarding a woman named Frances Barrison, who is played by Naomie Harris. You may remember Harris from Pirates of the Caribbean as Tia Dalma. Kasady is in love with Barrison, and makes every effort to be with her.
Other characters from the previous film return, such as Anne Weying played by Michelle Williams, Mrs. Chen played by Peggy Lu, and Dan Lewis played by Reid Scott. Each one is played as well as you’d expect, I don’t feel there’s any difference in terms of character from the first film to the second. Dan and Anne are engaged now, and the news of this leads to Venom and Brock’s first fight in the film. It is shown that both are in love with Anne and think both of them deserve her, together.
A new character named Patrick Mulligan is introduced in the film, played by Stephen Graham. He’s essentially the bad cop in a scenario of good cop, bad cop. He purposefully makes Brock’s life miserable for no reason other than to be a bad guy. One thing I will say about the film is that the origin of Carnage isn’t very well explained. Venom doesn’t explain how symbiotes are conceived and neither does Carnage. It’s just as simple as Venom has a piece of him taken, and that piece becomes Carnage.This lack of acknowledgement is a flaw in the story that makes it a little less enjoyable and interesting. On the one hand, while some of the flaws in the movie are present, such as the flaws in story development or the overuse of comedy in scenes that shouldn’t be comedic, such flaws are minor.
You really feel like the characters Eddie and Venom have such chemistry and that together they should be unstoppable, which is exactly the opposite you feel about Carnage. Carnage’s big problem is that he and Kasady aren’t a match, while Eddie and Venom are. They bring out the best in each other and that is why I think the movie being about their relationship is an important stepping stone in the franchise.
The last thing I’d like to talk about is the mid-credits scene, this scene was very important. Letting you know where the franchise is going and how big it’s about to get. Yes, it involves Spider-Man. It’s so good to see it. Venom as a film is about as good as the first one, but for a sequel you expect it to be better, but for this one it isn’t, it’s just about as good. Take that into consideration when you watch it for the first time or for the second.