In the 2018 Marvel movie “Venom,” directed by Ruben Fleischer, journalist Eddie Brock is attempting to live life as best he can with his hit TV show and his amazing girlfriend by his side. As Brock tries to bring down Carlton Drake, one of the biggest corporations in the technology industry, his plan backfires and gets his own girlfriend terminated at her place of work. As Brock keeps investigating Drake, he finds one of the experiments in the Life Foundations labs and merges with an alien named Venom. Brock then has superhuman strength and power but is fueled by rage. Over time Venom tries to take over Brock but eventually, they learn they have to compromise if they want to live. 

Fleischer’s new 2021 sequel “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” follows Brock a few months later and his friendship with Venom. In the beginning of the movie, we see a young Cletus Kasady, falling helplessly in love with superhuman Frances Barrison, as she is being taken away from St. Estes Home for Unwanted Children to the Ravencroft Institute. Years later Brock is contacted by a detective to speak to Kasady, a convicted serial killer who refuses to speak to anyone other than  Brock. Before Kasady is sentenced to death he invites Brock to his execution. Kasady eventually gets a rise out of Venom before his sentencing. Once Venom tries to attack Kasady, blood is left from Brock which Kasady then ingests. As Kasady is getting prepared to die, a red alien emerges and blocks the injection and is introduced later as Carnage. As Eddie and Venom go their separate ways because of an argument about eating people, Kasady goes to free Barrison from Ravencroft. Eventually, Venom and Eddie put their differences aside as they both realize they have to work together to defeat Carnage. 

The movie as a whole was an 8/10. There was good storytelling and representation of Venom and Eddie Brock’s relationship. The theme was much darker and “gory” than “Venom”. However, the plot of Venom 2 was less interesting than we would have liked, and the whole story could be guessed if you watched any of the trailers. “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” was, we would like to say, better than the first, as it really moves away from the usual Marvel movie summary: introduction to new or old characters, filler with hints to villain, the protagonist loses in some way by the villain, they rise up and have a huge battle, hero wins. But this movie goes and makes its own type of Marvel movie, having a final battle, yes, but also adding its own progressive character development, which is a refreshing thing to see after years of watching the basic cliché of Marvel movies.

Carnage as a character is great, as his character in the comics is a random, chaotic bad guy and challenges Venom and other heroes, and this movie really does open up a door for other psycho supervillains (even though most Marvel villains are.) It was entertaining to see an actor who really could portray such a difficult and unpredictable character. Kasady (Woody Harrelson) in the movie was not as crazy as we expected; he was like a bootleg Joker, and though there were moments that lived up to the hype, he was, all in all, a disappointing character.

In the end, though, the rest of the movie was good, CGI was fantastic as usual for Sony/Marvel, and the action scenes were suspenseful. You could really feel how hard a character punched or kicked using sound booms and timing to give that effect.  Overall it is a good movie, and a good sequel to “Venom.”