I was thoroughly disappointed with "Venom: Let There be Carnage". It was such a botched job from the beginning I wonder what was the thought process behind it.
The movie begins with a scene from 1996 at an orphanage or some such place. A girl named Frances Barrison was removed from there because her powers had become too dangerous. In short order we find that she has powers similar to Banshee in that her scream is loud enough to cause damage. Her forcible removal from the institution drove her soulmate, Cletus Kasady, mad.
We fast-forward to present day and Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is single again. Apparently, things didn't work out between him and Anne (Michelle Williams). That part was fine, but what wasn't was the new Chatty Cathy Venom we had to endure. Here is this sinister, brain-eating, alien symbiote that wants to be a comedian ALL THE TIME. It was flat out amazing how much Venom talked, and not in a good way. He doesn't have the voice for comic relief, yet that's what he was attempting to be and he was failing miserably. But Venom's attempts at stand-up paled in comparison to the fat-fingered manner in which they brought about Venom's antagonist Carnage.
Present day Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson) was a condemned man.
And if I could just sidebar for a second: casting sixty-year-old Woody Harrelson as the antagonist in this movie was such a terrible choice. He was supposed to be fifty at the absolute oldest and he looked terrible in the hairpiece and flashy clothing.
OK, back to the story. Cletus was such a prolific killer, the governor reversed the moratorium on the death penalty especially for him. Before his execution date, Cletus wanted to get a message to Frances (Naomie Harris) who was serving time in a cell specially made for her and her powers. Cletus promised Eddie a full story if he would print one simple message on the front page of his paper. Eddie agreed because a full story from an infamous serial killer is career-making. When Eddie visited with Cletus, Venom was able to gather a few visual clues to help Eddie find all of Cletus's buried victims without a word from Cletus. This propelled Eddie to newspaper stardom and sealed Cletus's fate. In this very elementary way Eddie became Cletus's nemesis.
Cletus wanted to see Eddie one last time before his execution to antagonize him for unearthing his secrets. Somehow, through knowledge Cletus divined from thin air, Cletus began ridiculing Eddie on a personal level that would require a fairly intimate knowledge of Eddie's past. This level of ridicule triggered Venom and he attacked Cletus. Cletus then grabbed Eddie's hand and bit him hard enough to draw blood. That blood, now on Cletus's lips, had enough alien matter in it to be the key ingredient for what happened next.
When Cletus was pumped full of the lethal injection cocktail it mixed with his small bit of alien essence and created Carnage; an alien symbiote even more powerful than Venom. Carnage then made a grand exit from San Quentin Prison and we now had a CGI battle between two aliens that could not have been more forced.
Let me recap: Frances aka Screech separated from Cletus. Cletus becomes a homicidal maniac. Cletus bites Eddie because he's that crazy. Eddie's blood with a small amount of alien matter is now in Cletus. Cletus gets injected with lethal cocktail and becomes Carnage. Venom fights Carnage to the death.
This is a story that maybe gets a fifth grader an A, but a high-schooler an F. This is not the sort of shoddy movie-making I expect from Marvel, even if this isn't part of the MCU.
The movie begins with a scene from 1996 at an orphanage or some such place. A girl named Frances Barrison was removed from there because her powers had become too dangerous. In short order we find that she has powers similar to Banshee in that her scream is loud enough to cause damage. Her forcible removal from the institution drove her soulmate, Cletus Kasady, mad.
We fast-forward to present day and Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is single again. Apparently, things didn't work out between him and Anne (Michelle Williams). That part was fine, but what wasn't was the new Chatty Cathy Venom we had to endure. Here is this sinister, brain-eating, alien symbiote that wants to be a comedian ALL THE TIME. It was flat out amazing how much Venom talked, and not in a good way. He doesn't have the voice for comic relief, yet that's what he was attempting to be and he was failing miserably. But Venom's attempts at stand-up paled in comparison to the fat-fingered manner in which they brought about Venom's antagonist Carnage.
Present day Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson) was a condemned man.
And if I could just sidebar for a second: casting sixty-year-old Woody Harrelson as the antagonist in this movie was such a terrible choice. He was supposed to be fifty at the absolute oldest and he looked terrible in the hairpiece and flashy clothing.
OK, back to the story. Cletus was such a prolific killer, the governor reversed the moratorium on the death penalty especially for him. Before his execution date, Cletus wanted to get a message to Frances (Naomie Harris) who was serving time in a cell specially made for her and her powers. Cletus promised Eddie a full story if he would print one simple message on the front page of his paper. Eddie agreed because a full story from an infamous serial killer is career-making. When Eddie visited with Cletus, Venom was able to gather a few visual clues to help Eddie find all of Cletus's buried victims without a word from Cletus. This propelled Eddie to newspaper stardom and sealed Cletus's fate. In this very elementary way Eddie became Cletus's nemesis.
Cletus wanted to see Eddie one last time before his execution to antagonize him for unearthing his secrets. Somehow, through knowledge Cletus divined from thin air, Cletus began ridiculing Eddie on a personal level that would require a fairly intimate knowledge of Eddie's past. This level of ridicule triggered Venom and he attacked Cletus. Cletus then grabbed Eddie's hand and bit him hard enough to draw blood. That blood, now on Cletus's lips, had enough alien matter in it to be the key ingredient for what happened next.
When Cletus was pumped full of the lethal injection cocktail it mixed with his small bit of alien essence and created Carnage; an alien symbiote even more powerful than Venom. Carnage then made a grand exit from San Quentin Prison and we now had a CGI battle between two aliens that could not have been more forced.
Let me recap: Frances aka Screech separated from Cletus. Cletus becomes a homicidal maniac. Cletus bites Eddie because he's that crazy. Eddie's blood with a small amount of alien matter is now in Cletus. Cletus gets injected with lethal cocktail and becomes Carnage. Venom fights Carnage to the death.
This is a story that maybe gets a fifth grader an A, but a high-schooler an F. This is not the sort of shoddy movie-making I expect from Marvel, even if this isn't part of the MCU.