Venom: Let There Be Carnage, the sequel to 2018’s Venom, hit theaters on October 1 with opening weekend earnings of $90.1 million at the box office, officially getting moviegoers back to the big screen and away from their confined homes. 

Venom: Let There Be Carnage was able to open up to the second-best October launch of all time behind 2019’s Joker, helping movie theatres across the country slowly recovering from the pandemic. Sadly, however, the numbers are one of the few things Venom: LTBC was able to successfully pull off. 

The movie picks up months after the events of the first film, honing in on Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and Venom’s relationship where they struggle to share a body and get along. Their relationship turmoil causes a threat in Cletus Cassidy (Woody Harrelson) to get out of hand as he obtains the Carnage symbiote allowing him to wreak havoc across the city of San Francisco. Leading Venom and Eddie to put their differences aside and fight for the safety of everyone.

The sequel bites its own head off right from the get-go, by the studio and writers making the movie an hour and a half and PG-13, leading to non-comic-accurate characters and forced humor. The run time also had a huge part to do with the poor pacing of the movie, as it felt very rushed, causing subpar character development and a plot that was rushed, sinking from its plot holes. 

The next big problem for me was the studio, Sony once again focuses on the future too much, injecting future plans and world-building into a movie that has no room for it, just as they did in their previous Spider-Man universe starring Andrew Garfield. 

Surprisingly though Venom was able to do some things to the high standards the fans set their hopes to. Hardy pulls off another great performance as both Brock and the voice of Venom. Hardy was able to sell the conflict scenes where he has arguments and alterations with Venom perfectly. While filming he wore an earpiece so he could hear his voice over and properly act out the scenes.

Another major thing the movie did right was the cinematography — motion capture, CGI, and fight scenes — mainly due to the director Andy Serkis who is a legend in motion capture as he is the actor behind Gollum in the Lord of The Rings series and Caesar in the Planet of The Apes trilogy. Serkis was able to work his magic on this movie and put together great fight scenes that don’t just look like piles of goop fighting each other like the first movie. 

The reviews for the movie from fans have been mixed, but the actual critics have gone for the neck. IMDB (International Movie Database) rated it 6.6/10, Rotten Tomatoes has it listed at rotten with a 59% on the Tomatometer, and finally, Metacritic has it set at a 47%. 

Although the movie was rushed and had many flaws, the best part of the movie was after the credits rolled so make sure to stay and enjoy a pleasant surprise.

Continue reading for spoilers on the movie

The post-credit scene was ultimately what felt like the main focus of this film. It did make the rough hour and a half completely worth the admission price for me, as Tom Holland’s Spider-Man made an appearance officially connecting Venom and his movies to the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe. Hopefully, the successful Marvel Studios can finally bring justice to the character of Venom on the big screen which has seemed like a grueling task so far. 

Ultimately it was a superhero movie with characters I have loved since I was a child but it could not lift up the pressure that comes from fan expectations and world-building in a cinematic universe.