‘Venom: Let There Be Carnage’ movie review: More symbiote shenanigans with Tom Hardy… and his buddy

At 97 minutes, this sequel to 2018’s Venom comprehensively proves you can have a lean, mean, fighting machine of a superhero film made of equal parts fun and a ton of subliminal messages. There is Darth Vader and Luke type father-and-son issues going on as well as that whole “other me” longing to come out scenario.

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The movie opens with a flashback to 1996, where a young boy and girl are separated from each other at the grim St. Estes Home for Unwanted Children. As an aside, how can there be a saint for unwanted children?

The boy grows up to be serial killer Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson) serving on death row in San Quentin State Prison, while the girl, Shriek/ Frances Barrison, (Naomie Harris), who can manipulate sound energy, is in another kind of prison: Ravencroft Institute where she is kept under lock and key.

Journalist Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is still having troubles with his loquacious house/body guest, Venom, the alien symbiote, who would rather bite off heads than eat chocolate, and a pair of hens called Sonny and Cher. Kasady will only speak to Eddie, and so the detective in charge of the case, Patrick Mulligan (Stephen Graham) contacts Eddie. With Venom’s help, Eddie is able to find where Kasady has buried the bodies and his journalistic career gets its much-needed boost. Kasady asks Eddie to witness his execution and all hell breaks loose as another alien symbiote, Carnage, in Kasady’s body, runs riot.

The bromance between Eddie and Venom is sweet and funny, the action set pieces are a 100 per cent awesome, and while the Ducati does not feature much — thanks to Venom trashing it after a particularly nasty break-up — there are other chases featuring a classic car to keep us amused.

There is an engaging literary tone to the second movie in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (everything is quantum and a multiverse now). Casady, like all serial killers in popular culture, seems well-read, quoting everything from Shakespeare to Ray Bradbury. Oh, and there is even a reference to Cervantes and Quixote too.

Apart from Hardy, Michelle Williams as Anne, Eddie’s ex-fiancée, Reid Scott as Dan Lewis, Anne’s doctor fiancé and Peggy Lu as convenience store owner Mrs Chen reprise their roles. The mid-credits sequence ties everything nicely and we can look forward to more alien carnage and mayhem in the future.

Venom: Let There be Carnage is currently running in theatres