Venom 2 : Let There Be Carnage

Un film qui n’existe que pour sa scène titulaire et parce qu’on y a mis les sous. À Hollywood, on trouve des cinéastes talentueux et visionnaires, des étoiles montantes prometteuses et des artisans ordinaires, mais aussi des individus qui perpétuent une médiocrité monotone sans jamais arriver à rien, mais qui font partie des meubles. Eh bien, Andy Serkis fait désormais partie de cette dernière catégorie. Ce deuxième Venom est un film de BD totalement formaté qui, à cause de son scénario réchauffé, des prestations barbantes de ses acteurs et de son montage chaotique, manquera de vous enthousiasmer. Dû aux restrictions du classement PG-13 auquel le film est visiblement soumis, il arrive à de nombreuses reprises que l’on ne sache pas exactement ce qu’il advient de tel ou tel personnage, la visibilité étant appauvrie par le montage « sécuritaire ». Et ne parlons même pas du côté complètement infantile de cette comédie. J’ai du mal à imaginer une motivation autre que financière pour laquelle les créateurs impliqués se soient lancés dans ce projet. (19/10/2021)

Ce deuxième volet repose davantage sur les monstres digitaux que sur Hardy. Deux monstres digitaux qui seraient les mêmes dans un film en noir et blanc. D'un autre côté, Venom est amusant « sur ses deux jambes » et sa visite à la fête est l'un des meilleurs moments. Il n'y a pas grand-chose à craindre de la part des méchants, leur motivation est bâclée et leur interaction avec l'environnement semble frivole. Comme beaucoup d'autres choses dans le film. Dans le digifest final sombre et surpayé, on se fiche de savoir qui jette qui, qui tombe où et ce qui leur tombe dessus. Sinon, Hardy est génial en moto, et Michelle Williams… Michelle Williams ! Elle y ajoute le seul élément esthétique indispensable. Sans elle, j'aurais mis deux. (13/10/2021)

If I were to write that the Venom 2 was as uninteresting and unimaginative as the first one, I'd be bullshitting, because I don't remember anything from the first. But it's certainly uninteresting and uninspired. Tom Hardy's cool, so is Woody Harrelson. Michelle Williams and Naomie Harris are solid actresses, but they're given little space. In fact, everything has a little space. Venom isn't even a hundred minutes long, and unfortunately a good third of the running time is taken up by weird sitcom outtakes about Eddie Brock and Venom's cohabitation, where the film tries to pretend it's a variation on The Odd Couple, only with an alien. Occasionally, the film remembers that it has a serial killer and his symbiotic friend in there, so it skips to a random action scene and try to pretend to be horror. For an hour, nothing interesting actually happens except for Venom and Brock's arguments mixed with Harrelson's overacting (you can’t play a deranged serial killer in such a small space in any other way), only to end with a final clash with a lot of pretty solid visual effects and an unexpectedly solid length. And then the end. I won't remember any of it in a week. Again. (13/10/2021)

Venom 2 is such a disappointment that I feel like giving it 2 stars, but that would be biased, so a neutral 3 with a bitter taste in my mouth and an exclamation point for next time. Venom was a pleasant surprise, maybe because Ruben Fleischer was in charge of it, and he was able to handle the humour (Zombieland) and the action (Gangster Squad). Unfortunately, the sequel is directed by Andy Serkis (who has only done Mowgli) and suddenly the humour and action stops working. Tom Hardy is surprisingly unlikeable in this film and I didn’t enjoy his role at all, he's not funny or interesting, he doesn't show anything in action, in short a useless, uninteresting and boring character, and Woody Harrelson, whom I generally like, also didn't show much of anything – their dialogue exchanges are uninteresting and I didn't enjoy listening to them at all, I silently remembered the dialogue from Bond, yes, a strange comparison, but when they give dialogue clashes between two great actors, let me feel the intense darkness in the air, not these childish exchanges. Humour could have been a strong point, but I only laughed once in the whole film and that was with Venom at the disco, the rest is infantile and you don’t even smile. Nobody laughed at all in the cinema, so it's not just me. The Gore is missing of course, but I counted on it. The visuals and the effects are inoffensive, but definitely not breathtaking. Shortening the film to 90 minutes hurts the the film because it practically has no story and everything is rushed. On the other hand, if ti was two hours long, I probably wouldn’t last, because Venom 2 is not very entertaining. And now about the action. There are two short action scenes that end before they even start and then a half hour finale that I won't tell you anything about because I was asleep with boredom, so I'll have to recap that sometime. Anyway, going into Venom thinking it was a comic book action flick and leaving as bored and frazzled as a two-hour Drama, I didn't expect that in the slightest. Ironically, the post-credit scene is better than the movie itself. Story 2/5, Action 3/5, Humor 2/5, Violence 0/5, Fun 3/5 Music 3/5, Visuals 4/5, Atmosphere 3/5, Suspense 2/5, Emotion 1/5, Actors 3/5. 5/10. (16/10/2021)

Venom as a pro-migrant agitator and declared bisexual is the surprising revelation of this sequel. Nevertheless, Let There Be Carnage is a tiny bit better than part one. It passes by nicely and is funny in its silly way and its running time is short. As if Serkis simply cut the boring and unfunny bits out. Some of the twists and revelations appear very farfetched and all-of-a-sudden. Stress is on the marital quarrels of the continuously weirdly acting Hardy along with Venom, and all the other things surrounding this just happen to happen, god knows how. It lacks any logic. And it would just be a waste of time to go into analysis of degradation when compared to the source material. P.S.: Harrelson spends his time strangely overacting; this role is acutely uncomfortable for him. (27/11/2021)