ReviewVenom: Let There Be Carnage movie review – Tom Hardy, Woody Harrelson in Andy Serkis’ delightfully self-assured Marvel superhero sequel

Tom Hardy returns as Eddie Brock, host to extraterrestrial symbiote Venom, who comes up against Woody Harrelson’s Cletus Kasady – and his own symbiote, Carnage

At 98 minutes, Venom: Let There Be Carnage is a brisk, un-Marvel-like adventure, and a more simplified, focused and intimate film than 2018’s original Venom

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A still from Venom: Let There Be Carnage (category IIB), directed by Andy Serkis and starring Tom Hardy, Woody Harrelson and Michelle Williams.

Published: 3:20pm, 13 Oct 2021Updated: 3:22pm, 13 Oct 2021

4/5 stars

Superhero stories invariably focus on duality – how a mild-mannered reporter or reclusive billionaire navigates life with their crime-fighting alter ego. Venom: Let There Be Carnage, the sequel to the surprise 2018 hit Venom, approaches the concept a little differently.

Tom Hardy returns as Eddie Brock, intrepid journalist and reluctant host to a malevolent extraterrestrial symbiote; not two sides of the same coin, like Spider-Man or the Hulk, but rather two entirely independent entities wrestling for control of a single body.

As a result, the film is as much about relationships as it is about identity, and the quest to find that special someone motivates every character in Andy Serkis’ delightfully self-assured sequel.

Where Ruben Fleischer’s first film was bloated, unwieldy and incoherent, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, somewhat ironically, is simplified, more focused and even more intimate than its predecessor – employing only a handful of characters and a remarkably stripped down narrative.

Serkis resurrects the gothic theatricality of Tim Burton’s early Batman films or Sam Raimi’s contemporaneous cult classic, Darkman. Clocking in at a mercifully brisk 98 minutes, the film eschews the epic, too-earnest grandstanding of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for something altogether more mischievous.