Movie Review: 'Venom Let There Be Carnage' Starring Tom Hardy

Venom Let There Be Carnage is a very quirky comic book action movie. Directed by Andy Serkis, the man who gave physical life to Gollum in Lord of the Rings, Venom Let There Be Carnage appears far more interested in the relationship between between Venom, the alien symbiote being that eats human heads, and Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy), the reporter turned body host for Venom. But the question is: What does Andy Serkis have to say about the relationship between Venom and Eddie Brock?

The story of Venom Let There Be Carnage is inconsequential. Woody Harrelson plays a serial killer named Cletus Kasady who is on death row for a series of murders. The police, embodied by Detective Mulligan (Stephen Graham), need to know where Kletus hid the bodies of his many undiscovered victims. Cletus is prepared to give up this information but only if he can talk with Eddie Brock with whom he has a bizarre fascination with.

Eddie agrees to meet Cletus and Cletus states that he will reveal the locations of his many victims but only if Eddie prints a cryptic message in his column. The message is some poetic gibberish that Cletus hopes will reach his former lady love, Shriek (Naomie Harris), whom he hasn’t seen since they were teenagers together at a mental health facility. Shriek is a mutant whose howl can kill if she is able to fully harness it. She’s been locked away in a special facility for a couple decades now.

Cletus’ plan to reach Shriek however, takes a turn when Venom uses his prodigious alien memory to capture images of Cletus’ prison cell which contains visual clues to where his victims are buried. Why Cletus decided to leave an Easter Egg of his murder locations is unclear but it provides just enough narrative momentum to propel Cletus and Eddie into another more vicious confrontation, one that leads to Cletus biting Eddie’s hand and coming away with a little of Venom on his lips.

This little bit of Venom eventually turns into Carnage, a separate alien symbiote, essentially Venom’s son. Whether Cletus uses Carnage or vice versa, the two work together once Cletus is set for lethal injection. Carnage helps Cletus escape and Cletus uses Carnage’s destructive powers to lead him to Shriek and help her to escape from the mutant holding facility. Carnage goes along with this in order to get his hands on Venom while Cletus is eager for revenge on Eddie for betraying their ‘friendship.’

That is quite surprisingly a small fraction of the story of Venom Let There Be Carnage. It is intended to be the main plot, I think, but it is so perfunctory and half-assed that it plays like a distraction from what Andy Serkis is far more interested in, the relationship between Venom and Eddie. Numerous scenes of Venom Let There Be Carnage are dedicated to the sitcom bickering between Eddie and Venom.

The most alive and energetic that Venom Let There Be Carnage becomes only happens when Eddie and Venom are quarreling like a married couple on a sitcom. Whether it is Venom complaining about not getting to eat brains or Eddie annoyed by venom’s slovenly carelessness and his pet chickens, cluttering the apartment, the two can’t get on the same page and Serkis is convinced that this is the real heart of Venom, a comedy about squabbling roommates, where one of them just happens to be an all-powerful, brain eating Alien Symbiote.

The sitcom antics lead to Venom and Eddie ‘breaking up.’ Venom destroys Eddie’s stuff, including his TV, his clothes and his Ducati Motorcycle, and then leaves to find another body. This leads to a sitcom style misunderstanding where Venom goes to a Halloween party and everyone thinks Venom is an amazing costume. Venom is given love and acceptance by the crowd and when he decides to step on stage and give a speech, he announces that he is ‘coming out of the Eddie closet.’ This is met with cheers as Venom doesn’t know what the term ‘coming out of the closet’ means.

It’s the kind of low rent, fish out of water humor you get in movies and TV shows where foreigners or the elderly end up in a place they don’t understand and say wacky things that mean other things. It is surprising to find this kind of humor in a comic book action movie which is good for a smile, I guess. On the other hand, it does take away some of the menace of Venom. Venom Let There Be Carnage leans too heavily into this comic aspect of Venom and fails in the area of action and thrills, a sort of bait and switch that is likely to leave fans of action movies a little cold.

Venom Let There Be Carnage is just a little too cute. The Cletus Kasady plot, which was teased at the end of the 2018 Venom movie, feels undercooked and secondary to a series of sitcom shenanigans between Venom and Eddie. Woody Harrelson is making a lot of big choices as Cletus and often he comes of as desperately trying to pull focus back to his character and Carnage but that’s not the movie that appears to interest Andy Serkis and so the Cletus/Carnage scenes aren’t well developed, they’re rushed and, as action scenes, their mediocre at best.

So, what does Andy Serkis want to say about Venom and Eddie Brock? Not much, really. As much as he invests in scenes dedicated to the Venom-Eddie dynamic, he doesn't have any real insights. The relationship is played for laughs, and not particularly good ones. It's all very surface level, it's all 'isn't this funny that this is a dangerous alien symbiote is playing out these sitcom gags?

It's like a sketch comedy that thinks a funny idea is to take a character and place them into an incongruous setting. Superman at a bat mitzvah, Batman in full costume at a wedding, or some other such nonsense. I'm not sure how much there is to say about the Venom/Eddie Brock relationship but Andy Serkis should probably have had something to say about it before he centered this blockbuster sequel around it.

Venom Let There Be Carnage opened in theaters exclusively on October 1st.