Ruben Fleischer’s Venom wasn’t a particularly great movie, featuring a raft of one-dimensional archetypal characters, a formulaic plot and some CGI right out of the middle drawer. Of course, it made a ton of money at the box office after bringing in $856 million at the box office, but it’s a fact that the movie was almost single-handedly elevated above tedium by Tom Hardy’s central performance as Eddie Brock.
Already regarded as one of the finest and most dedicated actors in the business, the leading man was given free rein to create Eddie from the ground up, and the result was a sweaty, nervous and neurotic mess who was always way out of his depth, not something we typically see from the title heroes in mega budget comic book adaptations.
The first trailer for sequel Let There Be Carnage promised that Eddie hadn’t changed, and with Hardy now producing and taking a story credit, things are destined to get a whole lot crazier. This time, he’ll face off against Woody Harrelson’s Carnage, an actor that’s no stranger to chewing on the scenery himself.
Andy Serkis is at the helm second time out, and the latest trailer looks to deliver a superior follow up, even if the lingering effects of the pandemic means it stands virtually no chance of matching the opener’s commercial performance. That being said, based on the footage we’ve seen so far, Let There Be Carnage promises to be a vastly superior effort.
The world-building and exposition is largely out of the way and accounted for, leaving the cast and creative team free to double down on the symbiotic insanity playing out against the backdrop of two powerhouse actors sinking their teeth into some heightened genre fun.