Let me just get straight to the point with this review, Venom: Let There Be Carnage is just as bad as the first film. Probably not a big surprise there but I’ll elaborate on why anyway. First off you may notice that it is yet again PG-13 and anyone who is even vaguely familiar with the character of Carnage knows how wonderfully violent and over the top he can be, so limiting this character’s potential before the film even starts is a bad sign. There is hardly a good justification for it either as we’ve seen multiple successes with R rated films in Logan and the Deadpool franchise, but there may be a reason that I’ll touch on later. The characters are about on par with the first film; Tom Hardy does his best with this quirky stuttering Eddie Brock, but it’s mildly amusing at best and quickly overstays its welcome. Venom as a character is exclusively comic relief throughout the film and it inevitably makes him pretty flat with no emotional impact or motivation to latch onto. Even when he’s angry or frustrated, it’s played for a cheap laugh and with the constant noise of the two bickering, it just makes the film feel hollow and directionless. Woody Harrelson does a decent job as Cletus Kasady, but this film doesn’t exactly give him any room to make an impression or do anything particularly memorable with the performance. The same can be said of Carnage who doesn’t really have a personality or even a distinct voice; he essentially just wants to kill and scream. Seemingly the highlight of this film is the confrontation between Venom and Carnage which is a pretty cool ten minutes or so with slightly better-looking CG than the previous film. The problem, however, was the movie had no idea how to bring the characters to that crucial moment in a way that was fun, interesting, or satisfying. The love interest side plots with Michelle Williams and Naomie Harris served very little purpose and those plotlines could have easily been trimmed or cut to better develop a sinister relationship between Eddie and Cletus and thus a more gripping battle between Venom and Carnage. Instead we got a superficial relationship between all of these characters with an increasingly frantic pace that doesn’t stop or care to ask questions.

Other than a few transitions and frames, I didn’t really see any vision from Andy Serkis as a director, although if matching the tone of the first film was his goal then he definitely succeeded. There’s not much else to be said about this film that won’t be thoroughly dissected already, but the really big problem (Spoiler) was that this whole film was really just a vehicle to push Venom into the MCU Spider-Man film, which may be yet another reason to maintain the PG-13 rating to make it more palatable for the MCU. Perhaps they can do the character justice but considering how convoluted that film is set to be, I doubt that will happen. Ultimately, Venom: Let There Be Carnage is a pretty big skip for me, you’re not really missing much by not seeing this film; the jokes didn’t land for me and only some of the action was serviceable. You might be better off watching some highlights or spoiler videos.