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A somewhat-enjoyable sequel to “Venom,” held together almost entirely by Tom Hardy’s hyper performance as Eddie Brock. (And also his over-the-top voice work for Venom that works better than it should.) While the trailers didn’t give away much about this film besides its general plot, the film itself doesn’t expand much on that pretty basic plot of Venom vs Carnage. The rest of the film is filled out by relationship drama, which boils down to the first two-thirds of the movie just being Eddie and Venom arguing with each other. Meanwhile, Eddie’s love story with Anne from the first film is largely pushed to the background, while Cletus Kasady has his own love interest and “tragic” back story, but neither of them connects. We really never see the dark events that turned him into monster, and his attempts to describe how bad he had it never sound sincere enough. His love story also falls flat, because we get too little background on their courtship, and the fact the Naomie Harris’s Shriek just comes off as too campy of a villain. (The entire film has a bit of camp overall, but Shriek just feels too much like an underwritten cartoon character.) The acting is fine for what the film calls for, but most of the characters feel disposable besides Eddie and Anne. The effects are solid overall, and there’s some cool design work and textures, especially on Carnage, but there’s a ton of CG and it can be pretty noticeable. There is a mid-credit scene, and it’s pretty interesting. (It brought a round of applause from the audience at my theater.)
** out of *****