Welcome to this week’s edition of the Nerd Review!  Every week the Nerds give you their take on a different movie from the Nerd-o-sphere.  This week, Patrick and Dave the SONY blockbuster Venom: Let There Be Carnage.  As always with newly released films:

SPOILERS from here on out!

• The Flick:  Venom: Let There Be Carnage
• What’s it About: While attempting to balance life with the alien symbiote Venom, Eddie Brock is given the opportunity to interview serial killer Cletus Kasady prior to his execution. When the interview goes wrong and Kasady bites Eddie, a new symbiote named Carnage is born and attaches to Cledus. The pair begin to cause havoc on the streets of San Francisco and only Eddie/Venom can save the day.
• Metacritic Score: 47

The Nerds’ Take on Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021):

Dave:  Venom: Let There Be Carnage is one of those rarities: A sequel that is better than the original. It is a very unique movie on several fronts. Perhaps more so than any other Marvel-based property, the Venom franchise now straddles the line between a MCU based property and something else entirely. More on that near the end.

In Venom: Let There Be Carnage, we are reintroduced to Eddie Brock. Eddie has been adjusting to life living with the Venom symbiote inside of him. Eddie does his best to keep Venom’s unorthodox appetite in check. This leads to some very funny interchanges between the two, as well as a lot of friction. Meanwhile, we also learn the story of Cletus Kasady. Cletus is in love with Frances Barrison. Frances has a super-power in the form of a sonic shriek that can debilitate just about anyone susceptible to sound. Frances is removed from the St. Estes Home for Unwanted Children so she can be relocated to Ravencroft Institute. During the transfer, Barrison is shot in the eye and is believed to be dead by just about everyone. She actually survives. Kasady will go on to become a serial killer and is sitting on death row but he refuses to talk to anyone other than Eddie. With a big assist from Venom, Eddie figures out where Kasady has hidden the bodies of his victims. The discovery convinces the governor to reinstate the death penalty. Kasady invites Eddie to his execution. During this final conversation, Kasady insults Eddie to the point that Venom attacks him. Kasady is able to bite Eddie’s hand and ingest some of Eddie’s blood. Eddie’s blood, apparently, contains enough of the symbiote to grant Kasady the power to call upon one of the worst symbiotes there is: the malevolent Carnage. Carnage and Kasady escape and spring Barrison from her own prison. Meanwhile, Venom and Eddie have a falling out but are soon pulled back together out of necessity to try and combat Carnage. This leads to the much-anticipated battle between Venom and Carnage, with Barrison (Shriek) thrown into the battle royale as well.

I will leave it there so you can discover how things play out for yourself (unless, of course, you listened to BWN 99 this weekend). Instead, I want to look at what makes this sequel better than the original. Primarily, it is because the sequel flows better and has a more defined direction. The relationship between Eddie and Venom is really what moves the needle here. In many ways it is the perfect hybrid between best friends and most bitter of enemies. There is very little common ground early on. But as things progress, Eddie and Venom learn that they not only sort of like each other, they really need each other. This becomes evident during the final battle against Carnage. Speaking of Carnage, he is what gives the sequel some much needed direction. The original movie was literally all over the place, vacillating between Eddie’s personal demons, his failed relationship with Anne, Venom coming into his life, the early aspects of that relationship, and a plot that never felt like it was all together well thought out, although it sure was entertaining. Here though, Carnage serves as the perfect target for the movie to focus upon, as well as giving Eddie and Venom a clearly defined antagonist that they needed to overcome. And make no mistake, Carnage is bad ass. He is more than a Red, more maniacal version of Venom; he is every bit a projection of the out-of-control rage that lurks within Kasady. All of this combines to make the movie much easier to follow than the original and it also helps the movie flow in a way that just makes more sense and is more accessible to casual fans (dare I say, bandwagoners) while at the same time having enough nerdy homages to the comics to keep the hard-core fans satisfied, such as Carnage perhaps infecting Detective Mulligan, opening the door for the appearance of Toxin at some point in the future.

But, of course, it is not perfect. I am a huge Woody Harrelson fan. And his portrayal of Cletus Kasady was fine….it just was not exactly true to the character from the comics. Harrelson’s portrayal of Kasady added a sort of playfulness to Kasady when, in reality, his sadism knew no bounds. Harreslon makes him almost likeable, which is nothing short of inexcusable when we consider that Kasady killed his grandmother, tried to kill his mother, had a history of torturing animals, and felt that killing people was actually freeing them. This really does not come across in Harreslon’s portrayal of Kasady. For the casual fans out there, they will never notice the difference. For us hardcore fans though, it detracted from the acceptance of the Carnage character. Not a lot, but enough to be noticed.

The other big qualm I have is what I said on BWN this past week and that is the portrayal of Shriek by Naomie Harris. If you listened to BWN 99, you will recall that I said that her performance seemed a lot like the same actor who portrayed Calypso in the third Pirates of the Caribbean film. As we would discover, that is because it was the exact same actor. It is never good when the same actor portrays two very different characters nearly identically. It weakened the Shriek character greatly and she becomes more of a hindrance to the plot moving forward than a help. Again, it is nothing massively bad, but it is distracting. Still, Tom Hardy’s portrayal of Eddie Brock is splendid. He really has the character down to a tee and in this sequel, he gets across his own internal conflict to maximum effectiveness. In the original Venom, Eddie just seemed crazy and bouncing off the wheels most of the time. Here, Eddie seems more like someone who is just doing the best he can to manage this thing living inside of him. Some days he does this better than others and Hardy’s portrayal of Eddie Brock really brings the character to life in a new, fresh, and entertaining way.

Now, we cannot do a review of Venom: Let There Be Carnage and not talk about the post-credit scene. It is a proverbial game-changer as it is a complete meeting point between the MCU and Sony’s Spider-Verse. What does it all mean? No one can know for sure. The only thing we know for sure is that Venom and Tom Holland’s MCU version of Spider-Man now exist in the same Universe and that opens up all sorts of possibilities. Wandavision & Loki really introduced the concept of the Multiverse to us. There is no question that Spider-Man: No Way Home will open the multiverse flood gates. Doctor Strange 2 has the potential to rewrite everything. What the post-credit scene here did was open that Forbidden Door to enable properties from completely separate entities and studios to cross-over. It is unheard of and yet, here we are. Will Venom show up in the MCU? Will Tom Holland’s Spider-Man cross over to Sony’s side of the fence and, if he does, could other MCU characters make the journey? What does all this mean, if anything, to characters and teams we know are going to be introduced, such as The Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Deadpool, Daredevil, Blade, and many others. The possibilities are really endless and I would agree with Patrick O’Dowd that it is a seismic shift of a post-credits scene.

All in all, Venom: Let There Be Carnage is a very good sequel. It is more focused than the original and actually feels like a more polished product. The movie itself will keep you entertained and it comes in at a very digestible 97 minutes of run time. The post-credit scene will likely have your head swimming with possibilities. Most of the new characters are very entertaining, albeit not without a few issues here and there. It is not quite on the same level as say Black Widow or Shang-Chi, but it is a very fun, entertaining, and story-driven comics-based movie that I think you will enjoy.

Dave’s Rating:  4.0/5.0

Patrick:  I am pleased to report that Venom: Let There Be Carnage is a superior film to last week’s Nerd Review film Vacation. Now, that’s not to say this latest installment in the SONY Spiderverse is going to change comic book films as we know it. In fact, as a superhero film, Venom is pretty paint-by-numbers. Eddie Brock/Venom has to defeat the evil Carnage/Cletus Kasady, the symbiote “child” of Venom.  What makes this movie entertaining is the performance of one Tom Hardy in his dual portrayal of Eddie Brock and Venom and a post credit scene for the ages.

Before getting to Hardy, let’s do a quick plot summary, shall we? The film finds Eddie Brock living in a rundown apartment, attempting to coexist with his alien symbiote Venom. Eddie struggles keep Venom’s desire to eat human heads at bay and Venom berates Eddie over his failed personal life. With Eddie’s career in a downturn, he takes advantage of the opportunity to interview serial killer Cletus Kasady. The FBI asks Eddie to attempt to use the interview as a way to discover the location of Kasady’s victims. Eddie reluctantly agrees, and with the information from his interview (and Venom’s memory) Kasady’s victims are found and Kasady is sentenced to death.  Prior to his execution, Cletus asks to see Eddie again. During their final conversation, Cletus angers Venom to the point of attacking and during the scuffle Kasady bites Eddie.  Little do they know that this results in the creation of a new symbiote that immediately attaches itself to Cletus and breaks him out of the execution.  We learn that their name is Carnage, and the two agree to destroy Eddie and Venom, and oh yeah, break out Cletus’s insane, superpowered girlfriend Shriek. As the couple cause mayhem across San Francisco, Eddie/Venom are the only ones who can stop them.

Pretty basic stuff, right? The main plot is not what moves the needle from average to good in my opinion.  What does move the needle is Tom Hardy and his dual portrayal of Eddie/Venom. Venom is at its best when we are watching Eddie and Venom bickering and trying to come to a place where they can mutually coexist. The two interact the same way some couples do when making the big decision to move in together.  Eddie and Venom can’t seem to agree on how to maintain a space, how Venom should eat, or even what relationships/friendships to cultivate with the outside world. It isn’t until the two separate that they realize that they desperately need, dare I say love, one another.  And Tom Hardy plays this dynamic out beautifully, playing Eddie as the straight man to Venom’s impetuous desires and biting humor. Their relationship really pushes the film beyond a typical superhero story and that is all thanks to Tom Hardy’s great work.

I do have to say I was disappointed in the villains of Venom.  Woody Harrelson is fine as Cletus Kasady/Carnage, but the character is one-dimensional. Now, this was often true in the comics as well, but I was really hoping the writers would do more. Harrelson manages to inject his brand of crazy into the character as best as he could, but there just wasn’t enough meat on the bone for the audience to see Carnage as a serious threat. This was doubly true for the character Shirek played by Naomie Harriss.  There is very little depth to this character beyond the idea she is Cletus’s psychotic girlfriend with superpowers. To me, Shriek was a waste of Harris’ talents as the character really didn’t do much before ultimately facing her demise.

In the end though, shallow, one-dimensional movies aren’t the focus of Venom: Let There be Carnage.  As I said previously, its Eddie and Venom’s relationship that is placed front and center for the audience to enjoy. Once I got past the formulaic superhero storyline and focused on that relationship, I was able to find this as a better than average film. Which normally would put my rating at about a 2.8 or so; slightly above average, but not the best movie ever by a longshot. And I was all set to sit on that sort of rating, until I watched the mid credits scene. As I said on this week’s episode of Bandwagon Nerds, I fell like this was the most significant Marvel credits scene since we say Thanos smile at the end of The Avengers. I’m not going to spoil that scene here as I don’t think that’s fair to you, dear reader.  What I will say is that it was enough to boost my rating of Venom: Let There be Carnage to a score above a 3.

Patrick’s Rating:  3.28/5.0

Overall Nerds’ Rating for Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021): 3.64/5.0