Turn your brain off and you might love it, essentially…
The first Venom film in 2018 was a runaway success, making just over $856 million worldwide despite not having Spider-Man involved and not being very good at all.
Don’t get us wrong, we’re fans of Tom Hardy, too. And hey, he gives 110% in Venom. It’s just a really messy film, one that’s hurt by its age rating – Venom bites people’s heads off but you can barely see anything, for one – and a bizarre tone.
Venom should be more fun than it is, basically. But look, it made a ludicrous amount of money so it clearly found an audience, one that is likely excited to check out the upcoming sequel.
JOE’s own review will be live soon but for now, let’s check in on American critics, with the embargo officially lifted Stateside.
In short? It doesn’t look great.
At the time of writing, Venom: Let There Be Carnage has a 60% rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes and a score of 48 on the more reliable Metacritic.
Here’s a sample of some of the especially scathing takes:
ScreenCrush: “Sony managed to pull off the first Venom without Spider-Man, but his absence is really felt this time. The Carnage character works best as a dark mirror image of Spidey; he’s all power and zero responsibility. (In most storylines Venom tends to land somewhere in the middle between the two.)
“Without Spider-Man, Venom: Let There Be Carnage becomes two lunatics trying to out-crazy one another. That gets old pretty quickly.”
New York Post: “Watching it, unless you’re already a demented die-hard fan, is utter agony.”
San Francisco Chronicle: “To say Venom: Let There Be Carnage is not worth seeing is not enough. It’s not worth admitting into your life, even as an option. You’ve read a review of it. That’s enough. Now, never think of it again for the rest of your life.”
The Playlist: “In doubling down on would-be humour, the already poor, perspiring, flop-sweat CGI mess of Venom actually gets worse and arguably even more incoherent, thanks to the unbearable, overweening quarrelling between Brock and Venom and the vaudevillian crazy legs antics and presentation.”
Vulture: “Everyone’s in on the joke in Venom: Let There Be Carnage, and it’s more of a bummer than I could have imagined.”
Variety: “Venom: Let There Be Carnage has all the indications of a slapdash cash grab. The set-pieces look sloppy, the visual effects are all over the place, and the laughs come largely at the movie’s expense.”
The Guardian: “It’s at least a short film, clocking it at around 90 minutes, [Andy] Serkis chopping off any extraneous fat, but it floats by and floats on without ever causing us to sit up and pay attention. Let there be no more.”
Pretty brutal.
But it’s not all bad, it seems. Here, have a few positive reviews for the sake of balance:
The Wrap: “Venom: Let There Be Carnage is a bold and brisk superhero story, unlike any other mainstream Hollywood film in the genre.
“It crams a heck of a lot of movie into an hour and a half, but it doesn’t feel like it needed to be longer. It just feels like we need more movies like it.”
Los Angeles Times: “Whatever shortcomings the brawls have, it’s the human element, ironically in a film filled with parasitic space aliens, that captures the heart.”
The Washington Post: “This sequel inhabits the same comfortably dumb space as its predecessor. If you liked the first one, you’ll like this one.
“It’s fast, it’s fun, and buried within is a genuinely sweet story about friendship, self-acceptance and the importance of chocolate.”
Venom: Let There Be Carnage hits Irish cinemas on Friday, 15 October
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