Venom: Let There Be Carnage Review

Venom: Let There Be Carnage

Dir: Andy Serkis

Starring: Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams, Naomie Harris, and Woody Harrelson

1h 37m

 

What happens when that little voice inside your head, the one that helps you reason good versus bad decisions, tells you to eat people? That's the strange dilemma between an odd couple journalist named Eddie Brock, played by a committed Tom Hardy, and an alien symbiote named Venom, voiced with grumbly enthusiasm by Tom Hardy. 

 

"Venom: Let There Be Carnage" is the continuation of the relationship between Eddie and Venom, this time moving from a conflicted new friendship into something more akin to an old married couple. Director Andy Serkis crafts a lean and mean comic book oddity that feels just outside the norm of the Marvel cinematic formula. That's a good thing, even if the final result struggles to excel beyond the limitations of an average script. 

 

Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) finds balance in his chaotic life, living with an alien inhabiting him and consistently providing a manic internal dialogue and a craving for brains. They co-exist in a messy apartment, with holes in the ceiling made by outbursts from Venom and two chickens lovingly saved from a dinner plate and renamed Sonny and Cher. Their relationship is on rocky ground. Venom craves freedom and urges Eddie to embrace a role as protector of the city - while also allowing him to eat the heads of the bad guys they defeat. Eddie fears exposing the truth of his sudden abilities to solve cases the police can't and hopes to resolve his broken relationship with his former girlfriend Anne (Michelle Williams). 

 

Eddie finds attention from a serial killer named Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson). After Eddie writes, with Venom's help, a story that solves a slew of cases, Cletus is fast-tracked to the front of the death row line. As a final request before the execution, Cletus asks to see Eddie one last time. Cletus bites Eddie during an altercation, and a piece of the symbiote attaches to Cletus, unleashing a monster born for carnage. Eddie and Venom set their differences aside to save the world. 

 

Director Andy Serkis takes a breakneck approach to storytelling in "Venom: Let There Be Carnage." The film, without credits, is under 90 minutes. That's unheard of for superhero films these days. But what Serkis does in limited time is focus on the highlights for fans of the Venom character. 

 

Tom Hardy composes an unusual Eddie Brock, providing the mostly unlikeable journalist with enough charm and awkwardness to sympathize with the character. Hardy's nervous and timid performance is an essential quality for Eddie's composition because the story doesn't leave much time for character development. At the same time, the film quickly introduces the film's key villains, a lovelorn couple played by Woody Harrelson and Naomie Harris. Harrelson, whose performance feels just a few steps away from his character in "Natural Born Killers," goes for broke. While the wild-eyed Naomie Harris, whose superpower is a ferocious scream, isn't offered much to do besides looking unhinged. A side story following Eddie's love interest Anne, a completely underutilized Michelle Williams, feels like an afterthought from the narrative.

 

"Venom: Let There Be Carnage" leans on its oddball vibes and harmless humor, along with an oddly captivating performance from Tom Hardy, to keep this sequel centered on simplistic entertainment value objectives. For the most part, it succeeds in honoring the path set by the original film. If you enjoyed the first "Venom," you will find reason enough to smile with this sequel.

 

Monte's Rating

2.50 out of 5.00

Zombieland: Double Tap Review

Zombieland: Double Tap

Dir: Ruben Fleischer

Starring: Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, Jesse Eisenberg, Abigail Breslin, and Zooey Deutch

It’s been a decade since “Zombieland” brought a humorous and horror-filled spin to the living dead mythology, crafting a film that would become a shining moment for the overabundant zombie subgenre of horror.

The film introduced a group of rag-tag survivors living in an apocalyptic world who form a makeshift family while battling hordes of zombies roaming throughout the U.S. Led by Tallahassee, a fantastic Woody Harrelson hamming it up with glee, and assisted by Emma Stone, Jesse Eisenberg, and Abigail Breslin, each with a city-specific name, “Zombieland” had enough gore, enough good laughs, and more than enough fun to execute a horror-comedy effectively.

It’s amazing that in today’s oversaturated, sequel-ready film world that “Zombieland: Double Tap” would take a decade to come to life. While it’s been 10 years in real life, with an Oscar win for Ms. Stone and some performance nominations for Harrelson and Eisenberg, the film doesn’t skip a beat in stepping right back into the zombie world with all the major players returning including some new friends tagging along for the fun.

Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), Wichita (Emma Stone), and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) are looking for a place to call home, after battling a group of zombies with all manner of weaponry they lay claim to an abandoned White House. While Columbus and Wichita work on their blossoming romantic relationship and Tallahassee seems content making modifications on his vehicle, Little Rock is having growing pains coming to terms with life in Zombieland.

“Zombieland: Double Tap” is trying to check all the boxes that helped turn the first film into a cult classic. While trying to bring the fun horror moments, which it does with slow-motion living dead carnage and improved super zombies with a particularly clever name, along with heaping amounts of humor, mostly bragging banter from Woody Harrelson and the scene-stealing role of Zooey Deutch playing a dimwitted survivor named Madison, this sequel does a good job of focusing on having as much fun as it possibly can.

While it does a good job of distracting for a quick 99-minute run time, the film lacks any cohesive sense of narrative direction; where the first film focused on the group dynamic and how one would survive in a world filled with flesh-eating zombies, this film becomes a road trip film that never really knows where it’s going. Even when it arrives at its eventual destination in the final act, the film doesn’t know how it got there or what to do to wrap everything up. Part of this is because of the lack of chemistry written for the characters and also because the film never seems to aim for these specific narrative results, this sequel feels wholly content trying to recreate everything that made fans love the original. While it entertains just enough, it doesn’t have the same memorable quality of the original film.

“Zombieland: Double Tap” may not have much direction but it brings back all the familiar humor and horror that made the original film such a hit. It also makes sure to add some welcome characters, like Rosario Dawson playing an Elvis loving fangirl named Nevada, and fresh gags, like a funny look at zombie deaths from around the world, to make it feel new even though it doesn’t really do anything new at all. 

Monte’s Rating

2.75 out of 5.00