Eddie Brock is still struggling to coexist with the shape-shifting extraterrestrial Venom. When deranged serial killer Cletus Kasady also becomes host to an alien symbiote, Brock and Venom must put aside their differences to stop his reign of terror.
Venom is one of my guilty pleasures, the great sense of humour between him and Eddie Brock is fantastic and has a unique feeling to it - similarly to that of Deadpool, and this is one of my favourite parts about the first film (released in 2018) and was eager to see how the creators of the film developed and built upon this. One of the key talking points is how Venom isn't the only Symbiote present here, with an enemy - 'Carnage' being introduced, with a fierce buildup and promise of destruction (and yes, carnage!). The film left me with a variety of emotions and thoughts, this leads me onto whether you should check this film out or not. Here are my thoughts.
As mentioned, one of my favourite aspects of a Venom film is the great charisma that characters have between each other as this not only helps to evoke emotions of humour but it also helps to make the film much more enjoyable through character interactions. The great character interactions start from the very beginning, where we are immediately introduced to the creepy vibe of the film, however, more importantly, the film jumps straight into introducing us to the main characters of the film, Eddie, Cletus, Anne, Frances - and immediately gives a clear identity to who they are, their relationships and their role within the film.
This is especially useful because these four characters are prominent throughout the film due to the lack of side characters - and form a large part of the storyline. Whilst there is a good insight into the backgrounds of the characters that leads to an in-depth understanding of them, the character variety is arguably one of the films strongest points. From Stephen Graham's Detective Mulligan to shopkeeper Peggy Lu to Symbiote Venom - this film has a really good variety of different character types, each of which feels well represented and offer something from their respective backgrounds, for example, Mulligan isn't just a police officer, but one that shot the eye of Francis Barrison and Peggy Lu seems to run Venom's personal restaurant. Whilst this may seem unimportant at first - this is positive because it helps to support an ecosystem of characters in the film and whilst Eddie Brock and Venom have the highest screentime - small interactions between characters help to make them feel more multi-dimensional.
On the whole, the acting here was decent and provided a core foundation for the film - Woody Harrelson feels right at home here as a creepy and somewhat vengeful character, whilst adding a strong sense of bewilderment to the storyline. Tom Hardy and Stephen Graham are also great in their respective roles and help to keep the film going.
Similarly, the storyline of the film had a lot of excitement to it and was easy to follow - primarily due to the simplistic nature of the film's storyline. That's not to say that it was boring though, as you would imagine from a Venom film - the combination of fast-paced action and the immersive storyline is positive here and culminates to create an enjoyable yet well-told storyline.
I also really enjoyed how the story had a strong sense of meaning to it, as mentioned, one of the first sequences of the film showed us the separation of Cletus and Frances, and later on the separation (initially) of Venom and Eddie. Albeit different themes, they encapsulate how well the film was able to capture the emotions between the characters and relay this to us well. Despite the short running time, the focus between battles/normality gives a great insight into the emotions that the characters have, and the reasoning behind their choices and actions.
You may expect a Venom film to contain a large amount of action and fighting of a sadistic nature, and this film sure doesn't disappoint! The film contains a wide variety of action and fight scenes, each of which is themed around the current events in the film and these are great - they are fast-paced, enjoyable and exciting and don't feel too overdone as well which helps to give the film a feeling of authenticity.
The film certainly wasn't perfect though and had a wide variety of issues - primarily surrounding an identity crisis, a lack of organisation and a general lack of thought in the storyline. My main issue though relates to a lack of identity, throughout the film it had a noticeable direction that was missing - the storyline of the film was introduced fairly late and unfortunately, once it had been introduced, there wasn't much substance to the story. Additionally, for many parts during the first half of the film - there felt like a large piece of the identity of the film was missing, there wasn’t a real focus on character progression or a remote focus on the storyline and large parts of the film just felt like they were put together were extremely different tempos and themes and it left the film feeling like a somewhat lazy copy and paste job.
As I mentioned though, the humour was key throughout and during many parts of the film this felt like a redeemer for an otherwise boring and wasteful scene - whilst the levels of humour don’t necessarily challenge that of Deadpool (as an example) they did help with sluggish scenes. Potentially the harsh changes in tempo and scene changes are caused by the short running time of the film though, surprisingly in 2021 we are questioning a running time of just over 90 minutes - but this felt far too short and left scenes and dialogue feeling rushed and not thought out.
Alongside these issues, another key problem arose - one that can prove fatal for even the highest budget films. A somewhat boring and uninventive storyline - throughout the film, there wasn’t anything that happened that felt unique or risky, the film just seemed to flow and play out exactly as expected and whilst this worked for the first film due to its more complex nature, here it just felt so straightforward, a little too much. Especially considering the film can be essentially split into 2 halves with the first half being largely waisted and uninformative scenes, and the second half containing purely action and being so fast-paced that the jump between the two halves feels as though they are separate films! Seriously though, the film suffers from a lack of a real identity, it doesn’t know if it wants to be a comedy, an action or even a comedy, and I. In the end, all of the genres are mixed with a somewhat entertaining mess being the output.
Overall, I give this film a 6.5 out of 10. Whilst the trailers and plot may suggest that this is an action-packed, immersive thriller, what it actually is baffles me - primarily due to a lack of real identity and severe issues with its speed and tempo. it is a shame because I liked the first film - but after watching this, it seems the ‘sequel curse’ shows again why it can be such a cruel Industry. If you’re a massive Venom fan then sure you might enjoy this, it has the action-packed scenes you may enjoy and expect, but for general movie fans and normal audiences, I wouldn’t spend your money on this one.
Thank you for reading my review, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did watching the film and writing this review, I hope you have a lovely day! If you would like to check out my Official Facebook page where you can see sneak previous and more film insights then please consider checking out the link below!
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