Now I've had time to sleep on it, my opinion hasn't changed much. Not since (insert reference here) have I seen a sequel so utterly pointless & devoid of character. Nothing happens outside of the movie's bubble of characters, there's no sense of any external threat to the world at large and the vast proportion of the movie is dedicated to the friction between Eddie & Venom, whose relationship is portrayed as a violent version of The Odd Couple. Honestly, the first 20 minutes or so is just about that.
Ok, a review of sorts. Woody Harrellson reprises his role from the last 30 seconds of the first movie. He's a serial killer on death row who had a troubled childhood (abused by his father after he killed his mum & grandmother), and was sent off to a school for deranged children. While there he bonded with another inmate, a mutant girl with devastating sonic capabilities (if you know anything about venom & loud noises, you can probably see a plot point coming from a mile off). They are separated, and become obsessed with getting back together.
Now all grown up, Woody has had a stay of execution, and for some reason will only talk to Eddie brock about his past misdeeds, so a poorly-cast Stephen Graham allows meetings between the two. At one of these meetings Woody bites eddie, and despite most of the events of the first movie, that's all you need to do to become host to a symbiote.
And that's it. Venom & Eddie have to work together to take down Carnage & Woody, as well as the shouty chick, who might as well not be in the movie at all. Michelle Williams & the other guy show up for 5 minutes of comedic moments (although the Dan character has much more to do, action-wise in the finale, which was a genuine surprise).
It's just that outside the little conflict between the 2 symbiotes & their tiny cabal of hangers-on, nothing else happens. And when something does happen, it's a noisy, confusing, incoherent mess (Michael bay flashbacks, genuinely). It's only when Tom, Michelle & the other guy get together does the dynamic shift to anything resembling the proper humour of the first movie, but by then there's only about 15 minutes left and your brain is already fried.
Mercifully, the movie is only an hour and a half long, but if you took out the Odd couple rubbish and the pointless scene when Venom tries to find himself at a halloween rave, there's barely a 30-minute movie here.
Like I said earlier, just don't bother. You won't get anything out of it apart from a headache.
============================
Writer`s Release
