Tom Hardy

Review of “Venom: Let There Be Carnage”

In the gooey 1970 tragic romance “Love Story,” Ali MacGraw’s doomed Jenny Cavilleri tells her doe-eyed lover Oliver Berrett IV, played by Ryan O’Neal, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” Having been married 35 years, I can tell you this is a load of horse biscuits. Everyone, male, female and non-binary, act like selfish children on occasion. It is a basic instinct to act in one’s own self-interest. This thing my partner wants me to do seems boring or falls outside my comfort zone or will include others I’m not a big fan of, so I choose not to do it. It takes away from “me time.” I’d rather stay home and watch the sportsball, play a video game or treat myself like an amusement park. My partner really wants me to accompany them. I resist, make excuses or say I don’t want to. Feelings are hurt, relationship dynamics are thrown into disarray, and no one walks away happy. This is the time a well-placed “I’m sorry,” could go a long way to repair the damage and allow the relationship to move forward. This is the lesson learned by one of the occupants of Eddie Brock’s body in “Venom: Let There Be Carnage.” I know, it sounds strange to me also.

Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is having a hard time getting journalism jobs after his Life Foundation story became a disaster. He’s also being eyed by the police as several headless corpses show up in his vicinity due to the alien symbiote Venom (voiced by Hardy). San Francisco police detective Patrick Mulligan (Stephen Graham) contacts Brock and tells him convicted serial killer Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson) want to give Brock his life story exclusively. Mulligan hopes Kasady will give up the burial location of his suspected other victims. Brock visits Kasady in prison and is given a message to print. If he prints the message in the paper, aimed at Kasady’s childhood love Frances Barrison (Naomie Harris), then Kasady will tell him everything. Before he leaves, Brock investigates Kasady’s former cell with scratched artwork on the wall. Venom, remembering all the details, takes over Brock’s body and recreates the drawings, figuring out where Kasady’s victims are buried. The discovery of all the bodies makes California’s governor overturn a moratorium on the death penalty and Kasady is fast tracked for execution. Kasady is furious and demands to see Brock again. During the confrontation, Brock gets too close to the cell and Kasady grabs a hand and bites him. The transfer of blood contaminated with the symbiote causes a transformation of Kasady into a variation of Venom that calls himself Carnage. Kasady/Carnage escape the prison with a plan to grab the sonic mutant Barrison, aka Shriek, and begin exacting revenge on all they see as their enemies or the loved ones of their enemies.

While many loathe 2018’s “Venom,” I gladly admit I enjoyed the introduction of a race of violent, alien, bodysnatching, brain-eating symbiotes. It wasn’t perfect. I thought Michelle Williams character of Anne Weying was woefully underwritten with not a lot of thought given to her character and her reactions to the unusual events facing her then-fiancé. The movie was also very predictable and kept to the usual superhero tropes, but I still found it entertaining and looked forward to another installment. While it was delayed a year, “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” learned some lessons from the weaknesses of the first film while also repeating some mistakes from the past.

The most egregious mistake was with the character of Anne Weying. Michelle Williams is again reduced to an understanding, give-it-a-go, now-former fiancée tasked with saving Eddie and Venom from themselves. She acts as an intermediary and voice of reason when both lifeforms, alien and Eddie, are acting like children. Being the adult in the room, or the movie, is a thankless task and that goes to the only non-criminal female character in the film. Williams gives it her all, playing a role that would have gone to Katherine Hepburn in the 1940’s and 1950’s. She’s the plucky, never-say-die, fixit for the situation Eddie and Venom fall into. Of course, she’s also a damsel in distress in the film’s finale. In the comic books and briefly in both films, Weying gets to play She-Venom. I’d like to see Willliams get to be something other than Eddie’s fixer, perhaps his savior, in the next film.

Woody Harrelson seems to be having fun chewing the scenery as Cletus Kasady. The unhinged serial killer’s urge to reunite with his much-loved Frances is most of his motivation. Of course, the desire to kill and create more carnage plays a big role. Oddly, other than property damage, Kasady and the symbiote don’t kill that many people. Plenty are slung up against walls and impaled on projections from Carnage, but the symbiote and the serial killer don’t bite off that many heads or rack up many more notches on the tally sheet. Perhaps that’s due to the film’s PG-13 rating and the need to move the story along briskly. Still, I would have liked a bit more killing from the duo.

“Venom: Let There Be Carnage” runs a tight 97 minutes, including the credits, about 15 minutes shorter than the original. Superhero movie fans expect at least two hours in their films. We want spectacle, majesty, soaring sequences of flying and a bunch of stuff blowing up! Oh, and fights! LOTS OF FIGHTS! Except many of these CGI fights get boring after a minute of two. We mostly know the outcome (if it’s early in the film, the hero will lose and if it’s later, the hero wins), we just want to be surprised and amazed by the journey. There isn’t much wasted time in the film. Director Andy Serkis knows the story he wants to tell and doesn’t take too many deviations in telling it.

“Venom: Let There Be Carnage” manages to sneak in a bit of deviation from the standard superhero journey by borrowing from the rom-com playbook. I don’t want to give away a major plot point, but there is a breakup and a reuniting that is played both for laughs and as a truly personal moment between two characters. It works in a surprisingly emotional way.

Naturally, we get all the required destruction and mayhem. A former orphanage, the secret Ravenscroft facility and a cathedral are all either destroyed or severely damaged. Considering the level of surveillance of modern society, I don’t know how Eddie thinks Venom can remain a secret. Especially after his appearance at a rave where the symbiote makes a speech about acceptance and love in front of a crowd of 20-somethings all armed with smartphones. Still, Eddie and his toothy buddy are unknown to most of San Francisco, a town where you’re encouraged to let your freak flag fly. It doesn’t make any sense, much like the rest of the movie, but it is what it is.

“Venom: Let There Be Carnage” is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, some strong language, disturbing material and suggestive references. Venom and Carnage have a long climactic fight that shows them being impaled, set on fire, buried under debris and more. I don’t recall any suggestive references. There are at least two bodies where it is implied Venom or Carnage has bitten off the head. There are also animated murders of adults by a child shown. Foul language is mild except for one use of the F-bomb near the film’s end.

Make sure to stick around for the mid-credits scene. It implies a webby future for the symbiote, possibly caused by the events of “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” There is no post-credits scene.

“Venom: Let There Be Carnage” has many of the same issues as “Venom” but it flies by at such a pace you may not notice them. It is a fun, funny, daft superhero movie that’s searching for a place within the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe. That’s not easy to do since Spider-Man and all his associated characters’ movie rights are owned by Sony. Yes, they are working cooperatively with Disney and trying to have their cake and eat it too, but I wonder if a single creative team could do a better job of telling a story for this symbiote with a heart of gold. This effort isn’t bad but could have been better.

“Venom: Let There Be Carnage” get four stars out of five.

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Review of “Venom”

A privately-owned spaceship from the Life Foundation is bringing back samples from space when something goes wrong and it crashes in Malaysia. Life Foundation is owned by Dr. Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), a wunderkind and genius in the field of bioengineering and his ambition is to cure disease and prolong life no matter the consequences. Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is an investigative journalist focusing on exposing the powerful taking advantage of the poor. He works for a cable network out of San Francisco and is known for his hard-hitting and uncompromising reporting. His boss gives him an assignment to do a puff piece on Dr. Drake and, despite his reservations, he agrees. Eddie is engaged to Anne Weying (Michelle Williams), an attorney working for a law firm representing Drake and Life Foundation in a wrongful death lawsuit. One night, Eddie is up late to get a drink and notices Anne’s laptop is blinking from an incoming email about the lawsuit and he reads it. The next day during the interview, Eddie asks Drake about the lawsuit and Drake abruptly ends the interview. Because of Drake’s power and influence, Eddie and Anne are both fired from their jobs and Anne breaks off her engagement with Eddie. Dr. Dora Skirth (Jenny Slate) does research at Life Foundation. The spaceship that crashed was carrying intelligent alien lifeforms found on a comet. One of them escaped and caused the crash, but three others were still found in their containment chambers. Life Foundation has been bringing in homeless people and experimenting on merging the aliens, called symbiotes, with humans. Troubled by the lack of ethics Drake is showing, Skirth contacts Eddie. At first, he isn’t interested as Drake had already ruined his life, but he changes his mind when a street woman he knows disappears from her usual place. Skirth sneaks Eddie into the lab where he finds his friend and tries to get her out of a containment room. She gets out and attacks Eddie and the symbiote merged with her moves over to Eddie. Suddenly, Eddie has increased strength and agility and, the longer he is merged with the alien, the more control the symbiote that calls himself Venom exerts over Eddie. Drake sends his head of security, Roland Treece (Scott Haze), and his men after Eddie, but Venom doesn’t want to be captured as he has begun to like Eddie. Meanwhile, the symbiote that escaped the spaceship and caused the crash, is making his way to San Francisco by hijacking various people to get on planes and travel. That symbiote, called Riot, has plans for the next Life Foundation spaceship and for life on Earth.

“Venom” has been roasted by the real critics with 32% on Rotten Tomatoes and 35 on Metacritic. Consistent numbers like this usually mean a movie is awful and nearly unwatchable. I almost dreaded seeing Tom Hardy and the rest of the cast embarrass themselves in what was likely a poorly constructed and amateurish production. “Venom” has its problems, but it isn’t the two-hour catastrophe it has been made out to be.

“Venom” is actually pretty good. The strength of the film is in the performance of Tom Hardy. After Venom makes himself known, Hardy has to react to a voice that isn’t there (probably read off camera) and establish a relationship that hews close to the Odd Couple. Eddie is dealing with being blackballed by the journalism community and the loss of his relationship. He’d rather work a menial job and stay under the radar. Venom is an aggressive personality and comes into the partnership with a plan and Eddie has no choice but to come along. It is an uncomfortable arrangement at first that morphs into a friendship based on compromise (for now) and mutual respect. Each provides the other with something they need. It is both parasitic and cooperative and none of it would work without Tom Hardy’s ability to make us believe this impossible arrangement.

Riz Ahmed turns Carlton Drake into more than just your standard villain. Drake is looking to improve the quality of life for everyone on Earth. His methods of getting to that improvement are what make him a villain. Ahmed easily slips between the slick and likable philanthropist and the manipulative and power-hungry megalomaniac, sometimes within the same scene. Drake, while not the most deeply written character, clearly wants to make a difference in the world but doesn’t want to waste time on things like ethics or safe testing. He’s more of a “let’s see what happens” kind of guy and Riz Ahmed plays him in a way that is both likable and detestable.

If anyone is let down by the script it is Michelle Williams. Her Anne becomes willing to accept and believe just about anything she is told once the movie dives deep into the story. Her character sees Venom in action and understands the basics of what’s going on, but she also jumps in with both feet to an extent that seems unbelievable. I liked that she was willing to help, but Anne does things that don’t make sense given her lack of experience with alien symbiotes. While this willingness helps move the plot along it also weakens what could have been a much stronger character.

“Venom” can’t quite decide what it is. Is it a buddy comedy? Is it a superhero (or anti-hero) origin story? Is it a drama about ethics and the desire to put profits over people? The film tries to do all these things and only succeeds with one of them. When it focuses on the relationship between Eddie and Venom, the movie sails along smoothly. It is entertaining as we not only learn more about the symbiote, but about Eddie as well. It makes a strong case for the two being the focus of several movies in a shared Spider-Man universe which will eventually put the parasite and the web-slinger against each other in a film. I am hopeful the next movie will have a more focused story and not waste so much time on secondary story elements that might work in a comic book but not in a film.

“Venom” is rated PG-13 for intense sci-fi violence, action and language. Venom bites the heads off a couple of people. We don’t see the aftermath but there’s no doubting what happens. Venom throws characters around in a large battle scene. While Eddie doesn’t want to hurt anyone there are clearly some serious injuries and likely deaths. A character is impaled by a large spike emitted by one of the symbiotes. Another shoots several small spikes simultaneously, killing several people. There is other assorted violence including car crashes, rocket explosions, falls from great heights and more. Foul language is scattered and mild.

Director Ruben Fleischer is responsible for one of my favorite films: “Zombieland.” He will also be directing its sequel, “Zombieland Too,” due out next year. Most of his movies have been of a smaller scale until “Venom.” With a worldwide opening weekend of $205-million, and a debut in China in the future, it seems likely a sequel and an eventual meet up with Peter Parker are in the cards. I hope the story issues get worked out as Venom is an interesting character and Tom Hardy handles the double duty very well.

“Venom” gets four stars out of five.

This week I’ll be review “First Man” for WIMZ.com.

Other movies this week:

Bad Times at the El Royale—

Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween—

Listen to The Fractured Frame for the latest news on TV, streaming and movies available wherever you get podcasts. Follow me on Twitter @moviemanstan and send emails to stanthemovieman123@gmail.com.

Review of “Mad Max: Fury Road”

Most of Australia is a desert that is roamed by gangs looking to steal from others or make them slaves. In this harsh world is Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy), a former cop who is dealing with the deaths of his wife and daughter at the hands of the aforementioned gangs. Max hallucinates seeing and hearing his wife and daughter. Max is captured by War Boys who are the soldiers of Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne). Joe controls both the water and food for his followers, making him their king whether they like it or not as both are in short supply. Also a valuable commodity is gasoline used to fuel the various gangs modified cars and trucks used as war machines. Going out on a run to collect gas from a nearby refinery is Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) who was kidnapped from her clan when she was a child. Max is discovered to be a universal blood donor and is used as a living blood bag for one of the War Boys named Nux (Nicholas Hoult). Nux is a dedicated soldier of Joe’s and is willing to die for him to receive salvation in the next life in Valhalla. Furiosa has helped Joe’s five breeding wives escape his compound and deviates from her route trying to take them to her old home territory called the Green Place. Joe’s people are watching and see her change course. Joe checks and finds his wives are gone and gives chase along with several War Boys, including Nux who has Max strapped to the front of his car giving him a constant transfusion. The wives all begged Furiosa for her help and she believes this is the best chance she has to escape Joe’s domination and return home.

There’s very little story or dialog in “Mad Max: Fury Road.” Most of the film’s two hour running time is filled with a massive car chase through the desert that is punctuated with incredible stunts, huge explosions and the occasional brief bit of discussion between the characters. Most other films that follow this formula would receive a fair amount of criticism but director and co-writer George Miller has delivered an action picture that succeeds despite what for many other movies would be shortcomings.

For his first trip back to the dystopian world he last visited 30 years ago, Miller has populated “Mad Max: Fury Road” with his most twisted and distorted group of characters yet. Most are freaks in some very obvious way. The War Boys have very pale white skin with many scarred with massive images on their chests and backs. Nux seems to be suffering with an ailment that causes large tumors just under the skin. He mentions that either the tumors or the night fever will probably kill him. Immortan Joe is covered with open boils and wears a breathing apparatus. Other secondary characters have ailments ranging from facial deformities to massively swollen legs and feet. The only people who look fairly normal are Max, Furiosa and Joe’s wives. Furiosa has an artificial arm that straps on with leather belts. My guess would be she ran afoul of Joe in some way and the loss of her arm below the elbow was her punishment. Joe obviously selected the five young women with which to breed due to their apparent lack of physical deformities. He also protects his property, as he calls them, by equipping each one with a chastity belt. Joe is willing to risk everything to get his wives back, even leaving his compound largely undefended to chase after them.

Joe’s dominance over his people is a bit puzzling. He requires a great deal of physical assistance from his inner circle as well as equipment to help him breathe. It doesn’t seem like it would take much to overthrow his regime by someone with a little courage. All the various gangs appear to be led by people who could be easily deposed. While these characters are certainly colorful, the world they populate seems to be geared toward those who are physically able to take and hold power. None of the primary gang leaders appear to be up to that. Something else that strikes me as odd is the availability of gasoline. If the world economy has completely collapsed it would seem that industry would be the most vulnerable. It isn’t easy to find and pump crude oil and it takes a fair amount of technology to refine it into gas and diesel. All this takes infrastructure, manufacturing, skilled labor, transportation and more. The world of “Mad Max: Fury Road” appears to be lacking most of the things needed to keep an industry producing yet there are dozens of gas guzzling vehicles running at full throttle over vast stretches of barren desert. I’m probably trying too hard to apply logic to a movie but these things stuck out to me.

My issues aside, “Mad Max: Fury Road” is a visually spectacular film that should sate the appetite of action fans. The number of vehicles that must have been destroyed is likely enormous. Modified cars and trucks are flipped end over end and rolled numerous times right after they’ve been hit with an explosion. The stunt coordinator and stunt performers should all receive any and every award there is as bodies are sent flying in these crashes. Riders are shot off of motorcycles while flying 20 feet or more in the air. Gang members are swaying back and forth from tall polls and are dropping into moving vehicles during a lengthy fight scene near the end of the film. Many of the stunts were performed live with a minimum of computer effects making this one of the more dangerous shoots for stunt performers. This is action filmmaking the old fashioned way where there’s a chance people could die. No one did but that’s beside the point.

Aside from the stunts, the vehicles of “Mad Max: Fury Road” will catch your eye. Volkswagen Bugs covered in spikes, sawblades mounted on swing arms, trucks outfitted with dozens of speakers and a guy playing a flame-throwing guitar, a car running on tank treads, it all is on display and much more. If there is a backyard mechanic with ambition watching this film, it will likely make him or her start looking for a beater that can be modified into one of these automotive visions from Hell.

“Mad Max: Fury Road” is rated R for intense sequences of violence throughout, and for disturbing images. There are of course numerous car crashes and more than a few people being run over by vehicles. We see several people shot by various weapons. There is also a scene of a baby being cut from the womb of a woman who has died. The baby is also dead. It isn’t gory but it may be disturbing to some.

Tom Hardy isn’t given much to do in “Mad Max: Fury Road” other than to look angry or concerned. It sounds like most if not all of his dialog was overdubbed adding more bass to his brief speaking parts and grunts. It’s a bit of a reminder back to the original “Mad Max” when Mel Gibson’s and most of the other actor’s dialog was replaced with American actors covering up the Australian accents. In that instance, it was done since no one in the film was a well-known star and the script contained Australian slang terms. This time, the slang has been left intact but Max’s voice has still been overdubbed but by the same actor as playing the role. I suppose this was done to set the character apart and make him seem somehow special and almost supernatural. To me, it just stuck out as odd. Of course, this movie is populated by the odd who in the world they inhabit are the normal ones. That probably makes the action of the film just another day in the Australian outback even if it isn’t your usual fare in American movie theatres.

“Mad Max: Fury Road” gets five stars out of five.

The summer movie season rolls on with two highly anticipated new films: One is a remake of a classic 1980’s film while the other is a project that was kept tightly under wraps until recently. I’ll see at least one of them and let you know what I think.

Poltergeist—

Tomorrowland—

Follow me on Twitter @moviemanstan and send emails to stanthemovieman@comcast.net.