Character work tops carnage in kooky “Venom” sequel

If the unhinged earnestness of Tom Hardy’s central performance was the hook that necessitated a sequel to the 2018 “Venom”, it’s a bit surprising that the recently released sequel – titled “Let There Be Carnage” begins with someone other than Eddie Brock and his faithful symbiote friend.

This new sequel runs just over 90-minutes, a solid length for a film but unusually brief in the recent years of two-hour-long fantasy films. Andy Serkis directs the sequel with a focus on intentionally jarring visual set-pieces from a script by Kelly Marcel (the only writer returning from the original script, which had two additional screenwriters). The plot is set into motion when Eddie has a misguided tussle with a death-row inmate (Woody Harrelson, unhinged and engaging as Cletus Kasady), who ingests some of the symbiote in Eddie’s blood. And from there the carnage – both in the form of a new symbiote, and the propulsion running through much of the film – is unleashed.

Long before that fated tussle, though, “Carnage” is considering others beyond Eddie. We open in 1996 at St. Estes Home for Unwanted Children. A teenaged Kasady watches on powerless as his great teen romance is dashed when his beloved (Frances Barrison, who has sonic abilities) is removed and taken to a maximum-security asylum. The separation launches origins of vengeance for the two, but also for the police officer (Patrick Mulligan) who shoots Frances during the journey to the asylum. The relationship between the three sets the stakes for the film and when the new symbiote appears, the two strands – historical vengeance and new extra-terrestrial foe – clash.

The official word on the sequel seems to be it is either marginally, or significantly, an improvement over the first. Shorter, more to the point and inherently intentional about its own craziness and lunacy. I’ve been intrigued by what seems like a critical shift from the current “Venom” to the original. When the first film was released in 2018, Hardy’s lunatic inhabitation of Eddie Brock and his symbiote was odd and bizarre for many; it was a loose carelessness that felt incongruous with our expectations of “dark” superhero worlds. I’m on record as being a fan of the original from the get-go. In my review, I even said it was the loosest and most natural that Hardy had felt on screen. And, yet, in in some minor ways “Carnage” feels less organic than the original.

Without a need to set-up the relationship between Eddie and Venom, we meet them at odds over how to coexist. Venom wants literal “human” food; Eddie is adamantly against this. The two bicker like mismatched partners as the world goes on around them. Their relationship is built like a relationship comedy of sorts. They separate in the middle after a big fight, and the film’s coda depends on them beginning a tentative rapprochement. It’s engaging, but a major takeaway from the initial film was the way the chaos of the central relationship was at odds with the normalcy around them. In “Carnage”, though, everything is dialled up to the same level of ridiculousness so the contrast that should mark the “them vs us” dynamic of Eddie and Venom against the rest of the world feels lost.

Serkis creates an off-kilter world but not in a way that makes “Carnage” visually significant. It looks fine, but its typical approach to CGI-blockbusters that ends in a showdown between two-CGI figures makes it difficult for it to establish anything significantly innovative. But it looks fine enough. And despite the necessary blockbuster showdowns at the end, “Carnage” like “Venom”, appears to know that it works best when its focus is on characters than the showdowns. Even the decision to ground so much of its time in Kassady and Barrison’s relationship feels thoughtfully humanistic even when things are slightly off-kilter.

Harrelson is so good that he almost satiates the incredulity that he (at 60 years-old) was meant to be the same age as Naomie Harris (at a young looking

45) playing two characters that were teenagers in 1996 and years younger than Stephen Graham, who plays the older version of Detective Mulligan. But, movie-magic. If that vengeance vendetta is painted in much too broad strokes, it’s lucky that Harris and Harrelson are invested enough in giving their all to these broad stroke characters to make them feel real enough to command our attention. But, the film is best when it looks elsewhere.

There’s room for something interesting in pitting Eddie and Venom’s relationship against the relationship with Anne (his ex-fiancée) and her new-fiancé. Michelle Williams and Reid Scott return, and they’re as game as they were in the original. There are brief moments, when the four characters share the screen, that the four-way bickering feels like an inspired parallel of varying approaches to relationship. In those moments, the film is freed of the compulsion of following the rules of villains and battle showdowns. Serkis knows this, and so does Hardy (who gets a story credit) who is clearly relishing the human-to-symbiote dynamic, playing Brock and voicing Venom. So that the film’s highpoint is not the end-of-film battle, but a midfilm argument that sees Eddie and Venom temporarily calling quits on their union. It is very much like a screwball comedy where our central pair must work out their relationship issues with the help of another romantic pair.

There’s a much-vaunted mid-credits scene where what seems to be a rupture in a timeline propels a pre-existing character into the world of “Venom”. If you’re even tangentially aware of “Venom” lore, you probably already know. There were cheers around me at the reveal, but I ended up wincing. If Serkis remains on board, it’s likely “Venom” will retain its outlier nature, but it feels counterintuitive to the world of “Venom” to hitch it to properties beyond. Even if the new “Venom” still feels enough like its own thing to be interesting, the entries feel less engaging when they retain aspects of larger superhero worlds. “Let There Be Carnage” ups the ante and the chaos is engaging, but I’d be happy for a “Venom” film that just lets Hardy, Williams and Scott traipse around the city dealing with the fall-out of their respective relationships.

“Venom: Let There Be Carnage” is now playing in theatres.