Harry Situation Reviews: Venom: Let There Be Carnage
“When I get out, and I will, there’s gonna be carnage.”
-Cletus Kasady, Venom
Venom: Let There Be Carnage is the new Marvel/Sony sequel featuring everyone’s favorite brain-eating alien symbiote, starring Tom Hardy, Woody Harrelson, Michelle Williams, and Naomi Harris, and was this time directed by Andy Serkis.
Tom Hardy reprises his role as Eddie Brock and Venom as they go up against their greatest foe, the serial killer Cletus Kasady (played by Woody Harrelson), who has now bonded with a symbiote to become Carnage. That’s really all the info you need about this movie, honestly. It’s Venom versus Carnage. It’s Carnage finally on the big screen. I’ve been waiting for this moment since I was a kid. Aside from Venom and Doctor Octopus, Carnage is next favorite villain on the Spider-Man rogues totem pole.
While I enjoyed the first film as a fun-dumb superhero movie there were areas that could use some improvement in order to be a good superhero movie. Enter Let There Be Carnage!
First positive obviously goes to Tom Hardy for his portray as Eddie Brock and Venom. It does a great job portraying both of these characters that you forget that it’s all one guy. It makes you feel like there are actually two individuals onscreen talking and bickering. Their relationship in this movie certainly has taken in The Odd Couple direction, which works in its favor. The two characters had great chemistry and some funny lines that got me laughing a lot. Personally I still prefer Venom to be a villain but he’s winning me over as an anti-hero.
In my review of the first Venom I said that the villain in that movie was generic and forgettable as fuck. Not Cletus Kasady. Aside from Eddie and Venom, Cletus Kasady/Carnage, along with Woody Harrelson’s amazing portrayal, was a show stealer. He was great. He was everything from the comics. In the comics he was a sadistic serial killer who becomes a dangerous sociopathic alien menace, and all of that is brought to the big screen in beautiful red and black. The guy is murdering people and trashing cop cars. It’s all you can ask for from Carnage, except for one little thing that I will bring up when I talk about the negatives.
This whole film has been building up to the third act where Venom and Carnage finally duke it out and it was awesome. Like I said it’s something I’ve been waiting to see for a long time. Now if they can get Spider-Man involved it will be a dream come true.
Now for the major issue of this movie: it really should have been R-rated. Seriously, I know I’ve made a few complaints in past reviews of comic book movies having an unnecessary R-rating like Birds of Prey and a couple DC animated movies but the thing is I felt those stories really didn’t need to be R-rated. However some certain comic book characters should be R-rated like Deadpool and The Suicide Squad. This movie definitely should have had an R-rating. The reason being if you’re gonna have Carnage be in this movie you have to go all out on the violence. He’s way more violent and destructive in the comics. Take my word for it. There’s a story where Carnage decapitates someone on an airplane and tosses the head down the aisle like it was a bowling ball. Plus these two characters eat people’s brains. Imagine a Venom movie where you see either Venom or Carnage just chomp some poor sucker’s head off and we see it in such graphic detail. Without the R-rating we’re not exactly seeing these two at what they’re really capable of.
Overall I didn’t have much expectations going into this movie. I just wanted another fun-dumb comic book movie. However I got something more. It was a great improvement over the last film and Andy Serkis did a damn good job in the director’s chair. So did I enjoy Let There Be Carnage? Yes, we did!
Positives:
-Tom Hardy as Venom
-Woody Harrelson as Carnage
-Eddie/Venom dynamic
-Venom vs Carnage
Negatives:
-Should have been R-rated
Final Grade: B
So those are my thoughts on Venom: Let There Be Carnage. Have you seen it? What were your thoughts on it? Please be kind, leave a like and comment, and check out more reviews here on Prose!
Best Quote:
Eddie Brock: “She didn’t want our help.”
Venom: “She didn’t know that she wanted our help. There’s a difference.”
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