Venom 2 Movie Review

Sony’s Venom Let There Be Carnage (2021) is the sequel to Venom (2018). It is directed by award winning Andy Serkis instead of the director of the first one, Ruben Fleischer. The reviews are generally favorable.  It made $90 million opening weekend on October 15th and 16th.  The run time for the movie is an hour and thirty-seven minutes.  It is PG-13.

The story is about the continuation of the main character Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy), who has Venom, an alien symbiote with him at the start of the movie. He is a news reporter interviewing a serial killer Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson) in a prison in San Francisco. 

Compared to the first movie, the bromance between Eddie and Venom is stronger.  The first movie showed how Eddie met Venom.  It showed them working together.  The fans were excited to see what their relationship was going to be like in the sequel.

The dynamic duo from the beginning of Venom 2 was almost like an old married couple fighting constantly.  Eddie wants to stay under the radar because he does want to be put in jail or killed while Venom wants to be the ¨Lethal Protector” and protect San Francisco from gangsters.  Even though the symbiote does this in a slightly more violent manner I like it because its a different take on an anti-hero like Deadpool.

The story of Cletus Kasady and his girlfriend Frances Barrison (Naomie Harris) also known by Shriek is a subplot.  They grew up together but unfortunately Frances is taken away to a place with fellow mutated people.  Eventually Cletus finds the offspring of Venom, who is known as Carnage, and works side by side with the serial killer. 

The short run time packed a lot of story between the protagonists and the antagonists. Some story arcs seem a little rushed, but the director kept the story simple and easy to follow, making it a good story. If they had an extra ten minutes, I would like to have seen a little more story on the symbiotes, especially Carnage.

I really liked the action and effects in this movie.  The CGI in the first movie was average but in its sequel it is far superior.  Venom and Carnage do not feel like CGI monstrosities but instead feel like they have real substance.  

In the scenes where Venom and Eddie would be working together or watching tv in Eddie’s apartment the cgi looked very good.  Most of the time the actors would be in a green room where the editors can work their magic and put in the effects. 

I am very happy Sony did not go over the top with 20 characters but kept the movie simple.  At the end of the day, the fans came to see Venom and Carnage fight because they are popular spiderman villains.  If Sony did what Marvel Studios does in every Avengers movie that always has at least ten main characters in every movie, Venom 2 wouldn’t have done as well.

The cherry on top was the mid-credit scene that reveals something extremely exciting.  We might see venom in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but all we can do is wait and find out. Marvel Studios and Sony seem to show the shift into a multiversal universe. I would have liked to see the movie to be R rated because Venom and Carnage are R rated characters and the fight scenes were unique and fun making me want more of them. I would give Venom Let There Be Carnage a 4.5/5.