It’s been so great getting back into theaters to see some big-screen movies this year. Last night, I had the chance to watch Venom: Let There Be Carnage (Venom 2) in the theater. Below is our FULL SPOILERS review.
What’s it About?
A lot of the story of Venom 2 relies on the setup of the first film. In that movie, the main character, Eddie Brock, is a prize-winning journalist and TV personality, who is also self-destructive and basically sabotages all of his success professionally and personally, with his girlfriend. Honestly, I didn’t like him a lot as a character in the first film. I also couldn’t wrap my brain around how this guy was an award-winning journalist. Candidly, he just doesn’t seem that bright.
Eddie is exposed to an alien lifeform in a secret lab and that alien turns out to be a symbiote that bonds with him and more or less lives inside him. When it comes out, it can either shoot out tentacles made of black goo or cover Eddie’s body entirely, effectively becoming the character Venom. The alien has a voracious appetite for a chemical that occurs in mammal brains, particularly humans and chocolate. Venom is not exactly a ‘good guy.”
By the end of the first movie, Eddie and Venom have formed a kind of balance, allowing them to co-exist. Venom keeps Eddie incredibly healthy, heals injuries, etc. and Eddie provides the alien with plenty of chocolate and chicken brains to eat. In the new movie, we get a bit of an oddball buddy comedy to start things off before Eddie is invited to visit a deranged serial killer in prison, Cletus Kassidy. Venom, who exists as a voice in Eddie’s head when it isn’t manifesting itself physically, spots some clues on Cletus’ cell wall about where his victims might be buried. Eddie uses the info to locate the bodies and get back on top of his career again.
In a subsequent visit, Cletus is able to bite Eddie’s finger, drawing blood, which is filled with alien goo. That goo turns into an entirely separate alien, called Carnage. Carnage is red, to Venom’s black, to keep them separate. Carnage breaks Cletus out of prison as he is about to be executed, killing lots of people along the way.
There is also a story about Cletus finding his lost love from his days in a reform school, a deranged mutant, called Shriek. Carnage breaks her out of a research facility/insane asylum. He then steamrolls toward a showdown with Eddie/Venom, because two symbiotes can’t coexist apparently.
We get that big showdown, which is a fun CGI-powered battle in a church, where Cletus and Shriek are getting married. Venom is able to finally defeat Carnage and Cletus dies in the aftermath. Eddie/Venom then decide it’s time to get out of Dodge since the police are definitely on the lookout for both of them.
The movie ends with Eddie/Venom sitting on a beach in some tropical location, planning to find a place that needs a hyper-violent ‘hero’.
How Does Venom Fit in the MCU or Marvel in General?
So, a quick note here that the Venom character is not owned by Marvel and so isn’t technically part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Venom is a Spider-Man adjacent character (remember Spider-Man 3?), who is owned by Sony. That studio does have a deal with Marvel to allow Spider-Man to exist in both Sony and MCU movies. But no connection has been made to Peter Parker or anything else Marvel-related in the first two Venom films, until…
About that Post Credit Scene…
In a very quick post-credit scene, Eddie is having a mental convo with Venom about everything Venom knows about the universe, being a very old alien, who has been around the block. As he is about to share some of that info with Eddie, the hotel room they are in suddenly changes, along with the TV show they are watching. We see a story about how Peter Parker has been unmasked as Spider-Man.
It appears that Eddie/Venom may have existed in an alternate universe (hello MCU multiverse) and have somehow been transported to the current Spider-Man’s universe. So, does this mean Venom will make an appearance in Spider-Man: No Way Home? Seems very likely.
Watch it or Not?
This one is incredibly easy. If you liked the first Venom movie, you’ll probably like this one. If you didn’t, you can happily skip Venom: Let There Be Carnage. I do recommend watching the first Venom movie first, in case you haven’t seen it. You will have literally no idea what is going on otherwise.
