Ep28 - Venom Let there be Carnage (2021)

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Venom, let there be carnage. 2021. Eddie Brock is back, and he is still not good at his job or relationships. So much so that his perfect symbiotic match cannot stand living with him anymore. But as Brock's relationship begins to shrivel, others continue to blossom, and that love is shrieked from the rooftops. And in honor of Cletus, poetic nature. I wrote this Venom. [00:00:27] Speaker B: Two poems. [00:00:28] Speaker A: Venom is black, Carnage is red, and both just want to get some head. [00:00:34] Speaker B: Oh, my. And that took you a long time, you said. [00:00:39] Speaker C: Caught me off guard. [00:00:43] Speaker A: Yeah, it took me a long time to write. [00:00:45] Speaker B: Yep. [00:00:46] Speaker C: Yeah, I could tell. Really jambered into that poem, too. [00:00:49] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I was better than I would have done. [00:00:52] Speaker A: I was having trouble thinking of what to write for the premise, and then so I just ended up writing a stupid poem. Okay, that's. That's it. [00:01:00] Speaker B: I'm not sad about it. Perfect. All right, so the first time. Well, the first Venom movie we were discussing, we were talking about how I thought it was a buddy cop movie, and you correct me saying it's more like a love story. Watching this one with that prism. Holy cow, did you nail that, like, the entire, like, boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back thing that happened in the first quarter half of this movie was just like, oh, yeah, no, I reread the room wrong so badly the first time. [00:01:27] Speaker A: This whole movie is all about love. This. It's all about love, this movie. It's. [00:01:31] Speaker B: They even say things like, you guys should be in couples counseling. Like, they. They really lean into it in this one here. [00:01:37] Speaker C: Yeah, they. [00:01:38] Speaker A: They lean in hard. They do indeed. [00:01:41] Speaker B: Yeah. Was it. [00:01:43] Speaker A: Was it good, though? Well, we're about to find out. [00:01:47] Speaker B: That's what the entire episode is about. We're not going to start there. I. I will say, as I usually do, how did you guys come to this one? Is this your first time watching this one, Will? [00:01:56] Speaker A: Yeah. So this is the first time that I saw this one. I was always excited that Woody Harrelson was playing Cletus. I thought that was a decent cast. But he's supposed to be, like, 40, maybe early 40s of this movie. He's, like, 57 when he's playing the role, so it doesn't quite work out, but, you know, he does what he can with what he was given with as a script. [00:02:23] Speaker B: I didn't catch. I've seen this one. Maybe this is my second or third time, and I don't remember catching on it before, but when you see that, like, flashback to 1997, and he's like 12. I'm just like, no, he would be like, 30 something in 1997. But okay, sure. What about you, Brian? Is this your first time watching? [00:02:43] Speaker C: They dub over his voice in that flashback, and it just doesn't quite fit. They can't take you from me. [00:02:49] Speaker B: You're my one bright light. [00:02:52] Speaker C: Right? It's. Yeah. I wish they would have, like, kept him in the shadows, and you. You saw him, but you didn't see him, you know, and then dub his voiceover. That would have been a better play, I think, but whatever. No, this is the second time I've seen this movie, and I remember the first time seeing it. And I went into the first Venom, not happy with the movie. Last time, I gave it a score of 68. And I came. I came into this one. [00:03:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:19] Speaker C: And it might even be a high score for me. I don't even know why I think, whatever. And I came into this one the last time I saw it. I remember thinking, this was very slightly better than the first one, but basically the same movie again, just with a few different twists. And I rewatched it, and I went, I don't know if it's even better than the first one. Maybe not. I don't know. And so we'll see when we get to my score, and we'll dig into it, but this one just doesn't get me too excited. [00:03:50] Speaker B: See, that's interesting, because I remember liking the first Venom and thinking this one was a serious step backwards. And then I was watching this, I was like, I don't hate this as much as I thought I did. No, I'm not gonna say that it's a great movie by any stretch of the imagination. [00:04:03] Speaker A: We're never gonna say any of these Venom movies are great movies ever. [00:04:07] Speaker B: Well, I've never seen the Last Dance. Who knows? I hold out hope. But, yeah, I was. I was shocked. Again, not like giving away, like, this is not necessarily a better score than the first one, but it was like, oh, I. I didn't mind this as much as I thought I was going to. [00:04:24] Speaker C: So before we get into it, help me out, because I'm not, I don't know, the backstory of Spider man or the Spider Verse, as well as you guys may. [00:04:33] Speaker B: Sure. [00:04:34] Speaker C: How does Carnage come to be? And is this an accurate origin for Carnage? [00:04:42] Speaker A: Okay, so, yes and no. [00:04:44] Speaker B: Yeah, pretty much that. So my understanding was. And anybody correct me if I'm wrong. Eddie Brock gets arrested, goes to jail. His cellmate is Cletus Kasady. They don't get along all that. Well, Venom comes to break him out and leaves behind a baby, essentially, which becomes Carnage. Venom never thinks to mention that, because that's just what symbiotes do. They just leave babies when they go places. [00:05:10] Speaker C: They just. Is it shedding? Like, kind of. [00:05:14] Speaker B: And so that's how Cletus gets the Carnage thing. Now, my understanding is, unlike with Venom, Cletus and Carnage are basically one being, like, the d. Like, the Carnage symbiote gets into Cletus DNA and kind of rewrites his DNA a little bit so that they are one. So you'll hear him be like, I am Carnage. Whereas Venom is always, we are Venom because they are two separate entities being symbiotic. I hope nobody yells me too hard. That's my understanding. I. I'm not a huge Carnage fan, so, like, I've not read that book, but I was trying to do a little bit of homework on this when I was talking to my buddy, support Dingo in chat, who, again, not a huge Carnage fan, but is a huge Venom fan. So I was trying to, like, pick his brain a little bit, like, what's accurate, what's not. How do we get here? [00:05:59] Speaker C: So then in the movie, they kind of. They kind of lean into this. Hey, look at them. Carnage and Cletus are not as good a symbiote partnership as we are, which is the opposite of the true origin, right? [00:06:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:14] Speaker C: And. And honestly, throughout this movie, Eddie and Venom are fighting amongst each other, showcasing that they're not a great couple at times. And then they kind of work through their issues with some couples counseling, I guess, and figure things out. Their little romance. Yeah, they kind of go with that theme, which, in my opinion, was not a great direction for this film. I don't know, it just didn't feel fun to me that it went on [00:06:40] Speaker B: a bit too long. The, like. [00:06:42] Speaker A: For sure. [00:06:42] Speaker B: The separation thing, I wouldn't say that I disliked it, but it just. It felt like it was so much more of the movie than it should have been. [00:06:50] Speaker A: Not that there was a lot of movie here. [00:06:52] Speaker B: No, it was actually. It's very fast. And honestly, 90 minutes is all I really wanted from this. Like. Like, I know we joked about that with Jurassic Park. Like, put it on the poster. Like, oh, it's short, but, like, this is a good thing. Like this. This movie was two and a half hours long. I would have been crying and just be like, no, please let it end. Like, hour and a half is kind of the right length for this. That's all I really Want from symbiotes fighting each other. [00:07:16] Speaker A: Yeah, I think they. What did they do here? They kind of saw what worked in the first one and what didn't work. So they got rid of any story element whatsoever and just leaned hard into Eddie and Venom bickering. And that was the movie. [00:07:31] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So in this version, why does Cletus hate. Hate Eddie so much? [00:07:38] Speaker A: Because he wanted to be Eddie's friend. [00:07:41] Speaker C: You know what I really wanted? I wanted your friendship. [00:07:46] Speaker B: Okay. [00:07:46] Speaker C: But why does he pretty fan? [00:07:48] Speaker A: Because he didn't give him a proper story in the newspaper. And so he's not as friendly friend. [00:07:56] Speaker B: I know, but like, that's so lame. [00:07:58] Speaker C: Yeah. And Venom. Venom figured out where the bodies were hidden by Cletus, which was like, they didn't even like, lean. You don't know any backstory about Cletus or where these bodies are, how they're related or whatever. [00:08:10] Speaker B: Right. [00:08:11] Speaker C: There's bodies. He buried them someplace and wasn't going to tell Eddie until he got his big write up in the paper. Didn't get the write up he wanted. And Venom showed him where the bodies were and Eddie gets the. The praise for it. So it wasn't the outcome Cletus wanted. [00:08:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:26] Speaker C: And that was this huge attachment thing to Eddie Brock. And I'm like, really? Like, come on, this is paper thin. [00:08:33] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, even, like, there's no reason for, like, because he keeps reaching out to Eddie and be like, oh, you should come see me and write a newspaper article. But, like, we don't even know why he attached to him in the first place. Like, there was literally no backstory for why he wants to be his friend or how he knows anything about him. Like, he just. [00:08:48] Speaker A: Aside from Cletus getting newspapers out to get his girlfriend information, like, that's really the only connection. But I wonder if Andy Serkis cut out a lot of that part of this movie. I think there was Tighten it up. [00:09:06] Speaker C: There was a few lines where he says, we both have parents that were mean to us and did stuff to us and we're do our dad beat us both or whatever. We didn't know any of that about Eddie. Eddie. But apparently Cletus does know that and he said something. We just got to take his word for it. And even Eddie was like, don't talk about that. You don't know who I am, or whatever. And it didn't go anywhere. [00:09:26] Speaker B: And here's the thing from the first movie we see that Eddie is a video journalist. So why is he reaching out to him to put a Newspaper article out because it works for a newspaper. [00:09:35] Speaker C: He's trying to get to the written word. Remember? He wants to go big with a written word. [00:09:39] Speaker B: Sure. [00:09:39] Speaker C: No, I get that. [00:09:40] Speaker B: But, like, why would you reach out to a video journalist to get a newspaper article out? Wouldn't you reach out to a reporter? [00:09:48] Speaker A: Yeah, well, why is anybody reaching out to Eddie anyway? This guy's a complete douche tool. He sucks at everything. His life is trash. Why is this character even here? I can't get over that. [00:10:01] Speaker B: I also loved how they were like, oh, Eddie, you're back on top now after that story broke. And like, he's not even reporting on the story. He's talking to the police. And it's like Channel 6 news is reporting on the story. So it's like, it's not even his broadcast. They're like, oh, you're back on top. He's like, is he. Did he do anything? [00:10:17] Speaker A: Well, just because he got those bodies right, which. That. That would be huge for sure. [00:10:21] Speaker C: That would put your name upon. [00:10:24] Speaker B: Fair enough. I guess people would start, you know, [00:10:26] Speaker A: they don't really show it in any way that he's back on top. You're right. They don't know. [00:10:30] Speaker B: They just mention it at one point. [00:10:31] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:10:32] Speaker C: And he gets a shiny red motorcycle. That's a shiny red motorcycle. He's back on top. [00:10:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:10:38] Speaker A: Well, his girlfriend breaks it. [00:10:39] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:10:43] Speaker B: What did you guys think about the portrayal of Cletus Kasady slash Carnage? You were excited for him, Will, so I'll go to you first. [00:10:51] Speaker A: Did it live up like the. Like the first movie? Again, they seem to double down on things the audience liked. And I guess the audience liked paper thin characters because all we got in this movie was three more paper thin characters to watch. And so it made it really tough for me to like Cletus. You're not supposed to like him, but you should love to hate him as a serial killer. He was just like, I'm a poet and I'm misunderstood. And let me tell you my backstory in a cartoon, and it doesn't make any sense. I. I didn't. I didn't love it. And they fast tracked everything. So you don't even have time to sit in any of the backstory you are given. It just was like this movie tried to be a roller coaster, and yet it only had really, like, one action scene in the last 15 minutes of the movie. I don't know. I don't know what to tell you. I'm all over the place with this movie because it's all over the place. [00:11:47] Speaker B: And that's really. She touched on a couple of things that I wanted to touch on. One, I actually kind of like that cartoon scene. Not necessarily the exposition that was over, but just like the actual way the cartoons looks like. I thought that scene was actually well done in. In practice, if not in storytelling. This movie is more of a comedy for me than it is an action movie. And I'm not saying it was hilarious by any stretch, but they definitely went for like comedic beats over action beats almost the entire time. I know this wasn't rated R, but for a movie with Carnage, I wish he was a bit more of a sociopath and a little bit less controlled. And I want to do this and we're going to get married and this is going to happen. I wanted to just walk down the street and murder people. [00:12:25] Speaker C: They watered down the sociopath angle so much. He had bodies of people he murdered and he hid those bodies and Eddie found them. And that is literally all we got to learn about the actual dark side of him. Otherwise they tried to make him like a lovable villain. It was terrible. I mean, they tried to make him like cool and hip and colorful. Like he was so red. Everything was so red about him. His frickin hair. And it just turned into such a waste of a character for Woody Harrelson to jump in and play the role of like Woody. When you saw that at the end of the first movie, you're like, oh, sweet. This could be good. This was a. Travis. This was the same thing, right, Tom. Tom Hardy is a great actor. Given a terrible character that is so flat and dead and nobody cares about. And it's the same thing with Woody Harrelson. He's given this terrible character with no room to expand. I mean, what was it? Natural Born Killers. Now you know the only thing that kills a demon. [00:13:34] Speaker B: Love. [00:13:36] Speaker C: He starred in Natural Born Killers. That movie was amazing and dynamic and deep and what a crazy character he played. That was the Carnage. That was the Cassidy that I wanted to see in this movie. Didn't get it. [00:13:50] Speaker B: No, not at all. No, you're right. Carnage should have been fun to watch. [00:13:53] Speaker A: And he just wasn't just fun, scary, destructive. He should have been all of these things. [00:14:00] Speaker B: Yeah, He. [00:14:01] Speaker A: He was not. They were not. [00:14:04] Speaker C: They were not robotic. [00:14:05] Speaker B: Right? [00:14:05] Speaker A: Were they? [00:14:06] Speaker B: They were. [00:14:06] Speaker A: They. They were not a he. Well, it was. It was bad. And I. You know what? I agree with what Brian said. Almost 100. Except for the wigs. The wigs got top notch upgrade compared to the first movie. Okay. Even Anne's wig looked good this time around. [00:14:24] Speaker C: The wigs were the best comedy in the MO. [00:14:29] Speaker B: I think you touched on something about Woody Harrelson being, like, paper thin and, like, honestly, that's how I feel about all those characters. Like, every single one of the people in this movie is a phenomenal actor given nothing to do. Woody Harrelson is great. Tom Hardy's amazing. Michelle Williams is phenomenal, and even Naomi Harris is significantly better than you would think after watching this movie. Oh, yeah. [00:14:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:52] Speaker B: Oh, man. [00:14:54] Speaker C: I. I wasn't a fan. That's the Screech character. Sorry, Shriek. Okay. I wasn't impressed with her acting, or maybe it was. It. Maybe it was the character that she was given. I'm not really sure. Her character looked like a cliche. It was. It was a caricature of itself. It was really a dumb character. I did not like it at all. It was. I don't know the acting or not, but it's terrible. [00:15:19] Speaker B: Her character really bothered me for many, many, many reasons. I don't know that the actress is the problem, but definitely the acting was one of the weaker ones in this film, though. You. She is the only character we see that has superpowers outside of aliens interacting, and nobody seems surprised by that. Like, even at the very beginning, they're like, oh, you've got to go somewhere else because you've got powers. Okay. Is there anybody else in this world that has powers? Because we never talk about. Hear about, see anything other than Venom and, like, symbiotes, but it's just, like, everybody's so casual but, like, oh, yeah, there's this chick that can just like, scream and break walls and. And kill you with her voice. [00:15:54] Speaker C: Like, I thought we were gonna get screamed the symbiote scream because of this, and we didn't. [00:15:59] Speaker B: Yeah, that felt like a very weird lost opportunity. [00:16:01] Speaker C: She got. She got smothered by a bell. [00:16:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:05] Speaker A: She was so shoehorned in just to get the last fight in Venom's favor. Right. Like, that was. The whole point, is that she was the weak link or, like, the one weakness of Cletus because he actually cared for her. [00:16:17] Speaker C: And let's talk about it was so [00:16:19] Speaker A: phony and so forced. [00:16:21] Speaker B: She's the weakness to both because she, like, weakness to Cletus because he cares about her, and weakness to Carnage because. Yeah, she's the only that can damage him because realistically, a Venom Carnage fight, Venom loses every time. [00:16:31] Speaker C: 100%. [00:16:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:32] Speaker C: Yeah. They keep using unnecessary dialogue to point out the weaknesses. Again, you know. Oh, don't forget fire. And the guy comes in, and the boyfriend throws some flames on everybody. And then at the. At the end, Venom's like. And sound. And then he flicks screech off the tower. Yeah, I thought. I thought, okay, he's gonna flicker into the bell and, like, ring the bell, and that'll be the loud tone. But that didn't do anything. It was her falling and then letting out a big, loud scream. Like, how did he, like, 3D chest that idea out that he could flicker down the hallway and she was gonna screech him apart? It just didn't make sense to me. [00:17:16] Speaker B: Well, in fairness, two movies in, I can say with full clarity, Eddie Brock is a genius who knows exactly what to do in any situation. So that made perfect sense to me. I don't know. [00:17:28] Speaker C: Yeah, this movie was. It was. This movie turned out to be way more brutal to me. I couldn't turn my. Maybe it was because the first one offended me so bad, and I turned my brain off going into this the first time that I was able to enjoy it. But going through and paying attention to it, I was just astounded at how dumb and paper thin and bad the plot was and. And the. And the direction and. And. And almost every single aspect of this movie turned out to be kind of a failure for me. They had great actors, but no room for them to breathe. That was maybe the highlight of it. The soundtrack was as good or maybe a little better at points, but the overall sound effects, when you have a screeching superpower, that screech sounded dumb. And it looked bad, too. Yeah. Sonic waves kind of. Yeah, it was. It was bad. [00:18:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:18:24] Speaker A: The Symbiotes look better, though. Like, cards look great. [00:18:28] Speaker C: That I do agree. The Symbiotes did Looked. Looked better. Both Symbiotes looked better. Venom walking through the party with all the lights on him looked kind of cool. [00:18:38] Speaker B: Agreed. [00:18:39] Speaker C: I'm not sure, like, I was 100% on board, but I was like, okay, that's not how I would make it look, but it's still kind of cool. I like it, I guess. And Carnage was amazing. [00:18:49] Speaker B: Yeah. I. The first time. I don't know why I didn't hit on this until this viewing that Venom is just randomly going around killing innocent people by, like, clinging on to them. And I was like, yes. [00:18:59] Speaker A: Remember that at all? [00:19:00] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. But, like. [00:19:01] Speaker A: And again, for the hero that she's just like. That feels like another cut in the movie script that saved time is that they didn't actually, like, further that. Because they show him going through a few different people. [00:19:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:18] Speaker A: Eddie's already kind of like on the outs with police forces because of the prior movie and similar events. So I was just like, I think they just cut all of that stuff. But you see the remnants again of these people going down, right? [00:19:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:32] Speaker C: It's weird. It's weird. [00:19:35] Speaker A: Gotta keep that pace up. Don't worry about those people. They'll. [00:19:37] Speaker C: They'll. [00:19:38] Speaker A: They'll walk it off. They'll walk it off. [00:19:39] Speaker B: Yeah. There was a sequence at the very beginning of this movie that just really bothered me. I know that everybody will have these moments where, like, if you're a specialist in a certain category, that when you watch a movie that touches on that, you're just like. It just hurts you that much more. I've worked in a correctional facility for 18 years now. [00:19:57] Speaker C: I knew this was coming. [00:19:59] Speaker B: The fact that they a told her she was leaving before she left. Huge. No, no. The fact that they just carry her out, no restraints of any kind for a regular person. Huge. No, no. The fact that they know they've got a super powered person and they did nothing to restrain or hold her back. And she's just, like, sitting there with a cop who's not, like, ready to do anything. He's just sitting there reading a newspaper. Almost rookie. [00:20:23] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:20:23] Speaker B: It was just like, what the. What did you expect would happen in this situation? Like, it just. It bothered me so much. And I know that it's just because they. They need her to lose an eye and him to lose his hearing for reasons like basically they just need her to have any sort of arc. And her arc is, I hate this one cop. And, like, that was their way of doing it. It's like cops kind of had that ear infection coming. Like, he kind of deserved that one for being so stupid. [00:20:50] Speaker C: How about when. When Eddie is talking to Cletus and he's like, stay behind the line. Don't touch the prisoner. And then immediately sets his recorder up on. And then they end up tangling. Meanwhile, the guy's sitting there, like, not, like, reading a newspaper, whatever he was doing, not noticing Venom throwing him around in the kit. Like, what is going on? Like, how can they be so dense with this guy? Like, this is. I don't know. It was just terrible. It's just terribly lazy. [00:21:20] Speaker B: It was a lot of lazy writing to get us where we needed to go. But, like, almost every scene, as soon as you think about it at all, it's just like, why is this happening? Why? [00:21:28] Speaker C: Yeah, Okay. [00:21:30] Speaker B: I have never been in A long term relationship. Other than the long term relationship I am in right now. So maybe you guys, if you've broken up with a long term partner, you can help me out on this one. Would you ever in a million years take your ex out to a fancy restaurant to tell them, oh, by the way, I'm engaged now? [00:21:45] Speaker C: Nope. Not happen at all. [00:21:48] Speaker B: I didn't call any of my exes when I got engaged. That didn't happen whatsoever. I didn't do it over the phone by a text. Literally nothing. And she's like, we should get together. No. Do you remember me? Who? [00:22:00] Speaker C: No. [00:22:01] Speaker B: Like, well, we dated back in like, you know, 97. Who? Never mind. I'm married now with kids. That whole scene was so weird to me. Like you can tell she regrets it instantly. Like this is literally just a way to get her back into the story [00:22:17] Speaker C: and it just hurt really bad. Yeah. Venom. Venom thought they were coming to get back together and that would make sense. Like from his perspective. That totally makes sense. Know that that's not going to happen. But we also have no idea why this is happening at all. Because this is not a normal interaction between two or three people or four people or however many people are involved in that quasi love triangle cube thing going on. It didn't like any of that at all either. [00:22:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:51] Speaker C: Just a way to bring her back in. [00:22:52] Speaker A: Can I also say it led to one of my biggest grievances of this movie and that was that they stripped all the life and character out of Dan. He was so fun and likable in the first movie and in this one he's just like a brick wall of nothing. [00:23:11] Speaker C: Yeah, they watered him down as Dan's [00:23:13] Speaker B: tend to be in the last one. [00:23:16] Speaker C: He was a totally vibrant and different character. That was not cliche. He was very helpful and likable guy helping Eddie and stuff. When that's not how they normally portray that character. Right. They normally have him like offended or jealous or whatever. And he wasn't. He was a stand up guy with. And he had depth. He was probably one of the most well written characters in the first movie and they just watered him down completely. He was just there to throw some fire on carnage at the end. And like, like that was it. It was brutal. [00:23:47] Speaker A: It was. It was like my least favorite part of this movie. Like there. There's so many problems with this movie, but that's the one I attached myself to because it was like one of the only good things from the first movie. Yeah. [00:24:00] Speaker C: Yeah. I don't have a lot of good Things to say about this one. And I don't know why I remember enjoying it so much. I guess I do enjoy watching the action sequences. I do enjoy watching Venom. I like Venom from the Marvel universe. Not really sure I like the portrayal of him in either of them, these movies. I don't really like the portrayal of Carnage in either of these movies, but watching Carnage in this was fun. That was visually very cool. Super powerful symbiote. Just blow the walls off, power wise. Yeah. And so that was really cool. But like, that's kind of all I've got for this one. They've got top tier actors being wasted. We have paper thin characters, paper thin plot, lazy writing all around. Sound is okay. The, the look of the CGI stuff is pretty good. It's a step up from the last one, but there's still some questionable stuff in it. [00:25:02] Speaker B: Yeah, sorry, dingoes in chat. He can correct me if I'm wrong here. I was noticing in the movie Carnage can change his size pretty drastically. Like he was getting pretty huge by the end there. And even on, I think it's IMDb, one of the tags for this movie is Kaiju. And I'm just like. I mean, I get where you're going with that, but I don't. In my brain, I don't think his Carnage is being massive. Like, kind of. He's spindly, he's small, he's got blades, he's. He's crazy. Like, these are all great things and you don't see a ton of that. You see some blades for sure. But like, I want Carnage to be sociopathic. I want him to be crazy. I want to not know what he's about to do next. Like, he should be Joker X. And instead he felt very calm and calculated and we're gonna do this. Even his voice, as silly as a complaint as this is, the Carnage voice sounded like the Venom voice. Like the get really dark. I would have preferred him to be again, almost like a Joker voice. Like high pitched and crazy and just like, like manic. Yeah. And that is not the portrayal that we got from this character at all. [00:26:03] Speaker A: No, it wasn't. You're right. It was a missed opportunity. And it, it falls into like a lot of Hollywood bad CGI battles at the end is it's. You have to fight somebody bigger and more stronger, but it has to be bigger. And in the end, he bites off somebody's head and says, power up. And then he like, actually grows from that. I'm just like, what is happening right now? Like, so terrible. Not to mention run. Said he kind of liked the action sequences. I hated the final fight because not only one, he powered up and got bigger power up. He then goes to say, I'm going to let you watch me kill an in front of you. And then continues to just climb up to the top of the tower out of sight of everybody who can see anything. It didn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. [00:27:01] Speaker C: Again, yeah, so bad. [00:27:03] Speaker A: It's so bad. [00:27:04] Speaker B: Well, and that, like, again, like, killing the priest. I hated the line power up, but killing the priest, okay, like, I'm very on board with that because Carnage should be murdering everybody, but I wanted it to be like, you know, during the ceremony or something. You know what I mean? Like, just like he couldn't control himself any longer or something. Not like, I'm going to wait for the opportune moment to power up. Like, oh, yeah. [00:27:24] Speaker C: I mean, it wasn't. It wasn't Carnage. Not the name. I mean the word. He. There was not Carnage happening. It was very much methodical and directional. [00:27:36] Speaker B: Even in the jail scene where he breaks out and he turns into a tornado for some reason, like, all the. All the prisoners are, like, clapping and just be like, yeah, get him. He should have turned on them in a heartbeat. Just like, I don't care about any of you. You're not on my side. [00:27:51] Speaker A: Thrash them all. Thrash them all. So is this a result of A, bad writing? B, staying pg 13? Or C, they just don't know who Carnage is. [00:28:04] Speaker C: Like, D, all of the above. [00:28:07] Speaker B: I don't. I don't know if an R rating would have helped this movie with the same writing. You know, like, if you just throw in a couple of F bombs and some blood, that doesn't make this movie better for me. I need the character to drastically change. So the character of Carnage changing Venom in this movie, I. He doesn't exactly have an arc by any stretch of the imagination, but I found their interactions, Venom and Eddie to be actually kind of fun. Time to die. [00:28:35] Speaker A: That's the spirit. [00:28:37] Speaker B: I mean, us. We are going to die. For the most part. I would have preferred if the reason they broke up. I was just thinking about this literally while we were talking. You only get one Eddie. Venom fight. Sorry, Eddie. Sorry. Venom. Carnage fight. And that's at the very end, like, he runs in, be like, oh, crap, a red one. And then they fight and he wins. It would have been better. And we could have seen how strong Carnage is if they fought earlier in the movie. Kicks his ass. And Eddie's like, I don't want any part of this. Like, this is your war, not mine or something. They split up for those reasons. Instead of just like, I'm tired of eating chickens. And then they had to, like, get back together to do something. Like. Like, give us any. Like, maybe ends in trouble. Like, give me any reason for these characters to, like, actually interact. That feels plausible. And instead you get, like, a weird love story at the beginning and then one fight at the end. And it's like, why do we think Carnage is so strong when he's killed five people? They were all cops. No offense. And then Eddie takes him out. It's just like. And again, you could have had Eddie do something. Something come between Shriek and Carnage. And Shriek turns on Carnage instead of just, like, getting thrown off a balcony. Like, yeah, give me literally any emotional core to grab on to with these characters. [00:29:50] Speaker C: They kind of built up that dynamic between Carnage and Shriek. Like, Carnage clearly did not like Shriek, and they could have gone somewhere with that, and they ended up not. Instead, Venom flicks her off the tower to get her to scream at Carnage. And that had nothing to do with it. Like, she was clearly getting mad at Carnage, but, like, it wasn't going anywhere. It was terribly undeveloped. And then, of course, we have this weird dynamic at the end scene where everybody's getting together and everybody's being drawn to the. To the chapel and their wedding gifts. Each person has a wedding gift for somebody else. And it felt like they had to invent a reason for Screech to be there and have a thing that she wanted, which was the cop, and he was barely there at all. It was. It was just horribly, horribly thin. It was no good for me at all. [00:30:44] Speaker B: So in the. In the comics, in. In. I think it's in Maximum Carnage, the way they beat Carnage is they have to break into the Fantastic Four building and grab, like, a sonic gun. Yeah. And then they use the Sonic. That's literally all Shriek is. Like, she is just a sonic gun that they carry around for most of the movie and then, like, aim them. They're the right person. Like, again, almost literally anything would have been better. Either develop the characters and make them, you know, characters, or just replace them with a gun and have Carnage go crazy. Like, he doesn't really need a love story. We certainly don't need a marriage. [00:31:16] Speaker A: Can I just quickly say that I love that Brian's calling Shriek Screech, who is the character from Saved by the Bell. [00:31:24] Speaker B: He's good for America. [00:31:27] Speaker A: Shriek was defeated by a bell. So I like. I just love that your comedy inadvertently is better than all the comedy in this movie. [00:31:35] Speaker C: One of the least memorable characters in the franchise for me. Clearly, I can't hold on to her name. [00:31:41] Speaker A: It's so funny. So good. Oh, it's great. [00:31:44] Speaker C: Okay. [00:31:44] Speaker A: Okay, how about this? Did you guys like the setup for Toxin? [00:31:50] Speaker B: I had to look that up. I had no idea who that character was. Like, I mean, I. I know the name Toxin, but I don't know the name of Peter Mulligan. Thank you. Awesome. Ultimate Chaos just gave it to in chat just as we were talking about it. [00:32:01] Speaker A: No, that's so funny. [00:32:02] Speaker B: I didn't, like. I had to look that character up. Also didn't recognize that actor for, like, half the movie until it clicked with me. Like, oh, that's. That's Tommy from Snatch. [00:32:11] Speaker A: Do you like Dags? [00:32:14] Speaker B: Yeah, Dags. Oh, dogs. [00:32:18] Speaker A: Sure, I like Dags. [00:32:20] Speaker B: I like Caravans more. You're very welcome. [00:32:24] Speaker C: How did. How did Peter Mulligan get infected? I see his eyes turn bluish green at the end. [00:32:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:32] Speaker C: And I was like, where did that come from? What was that? I missed it. Like, I guess [00:32:41] Speaker B: the editor missed it. You're fine. [00:32:44] Speaker A: No, there was nothing aside from that. There was nothing aside from that. [00:32:47] Speaker C: His eyes just turned blue. That was it. [00:32:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:50] Speaker C: Okay. [00:32:51] Speaker A: Now he's got a symbiote, I guess. I don't know. Okay. [00:32:55] Speaker B: I have not seen the third Carnage movie that he's in the credits, so. Okay, strap in. We're gonna get more Stephen Graham Toxin coming up. [00:33:05] Speaker A: I think that's the other problem with this franchise is that it's just symbiote on symbiote action. I mean, the first one you had Riot, and it wasn't greatly executed, which I think took away from us getting Carnage because he's the. The real bad symbiote that you want to see fighting. But you already saw a symbiote fight, and now in the third one, I'm guessing there's more symbiotes, and it's just symbiote on symbiote. [00:33:30] Speaker B: There's. [00:33:30] Speaker A: There's nothing else going on. It's brutal. Without Spider man to anchor anything, this thing is just in the air. [00:33:37] Speaker B: Well, and you've got shriek, so you've got superpowered creatures. So give him a superpowered creature to fight against. It doesn't have to be a symbiote anything. [00:33:44] Speaker C: Yeah. The Carnage Venom fight that we see in two should have been the symbiote fight that we saw in one, not Carnage. But the way it played out with a big symbiote being big and covering things and smashing stuff and outpowering things, we should have gotten, like Dan said, the. The wily, crazy, thin, but sinewy Carnage in this one. That was like a Joker X villain. I think that would have made this much better. We should have seen actual Carnage from the Carnage character. We should have seen him lash out at prisoner and guard alike. We should have seen him off the handles, just. Just going nuts everywhere, not knowing what next. We should have seen Chaos from this movie. It did not exist. [00:34:35] Speaker B: We did see Chaos from this movie, just not the way they wanted us to. Not the way you're discussing. [00:34:40] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:34:41] Speaker B: Now, I mean, obviously we're picking this one pretty hard because it's fun too. I can't lie. I like, I sat and watched this again with my kid. I didn't have a bad time. Again, it's a short run play. It's nonsensical, but it is kind of fun. And to turn your brain off and just kind of have fun with your kids sense, like. Which is kind of go back to what I said last time. Like, as much as we were like, I want this movie to be rated R, I'm almost kind of glad there's not because the writing is at a, you know, seventh grade level. So it's kind of nice that I can watch this with my seventh grade kid. [00:35:14] Speaker A: Right. [00:35:14] Speaker B: Whereas if this was rated R, I'd have to watch it with like an adult. And that painful. Just at the level of writing it is. I don't think that would have made it better. I don't know. [00:35:24] Speaker C: I don't know. But with Carnage the Last Dance, that title makes me feel like maybe it's a trilogy and they're hard stopping there. [00:35:35] Speaker A: We can only hope. [00:35:36] Speaker C: But maybe they're also setting it up for a full reboot as it combines into the MCU proper. [00:35:44] Speaker A: Right. So should we talk about that? We should talk about the credit scene. [00:35:47] Speaker B: That's exactly what I was just gonna say. Like, that kind of leads us nicely into the end credit scene where. Where we see him enter the mcu. We see Spider man on screen, and Venom is, you know, like, oh, there he is, or whatever he says, that's him. Or that guy, whatever. And then licks the screen. [00:36:03] Speaker A: Yes. [00:36:04] Speaker B: And then that's it. Now, I don't know. Are you guys familiar with the mcu? Have you. Do you know what happens after that in. [00:36:12] Speaker A: I do. No Way Home. Yes. Yes. [00:36:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. Where literally he gets transported, he gets drunk. At a bar and gets transported back before he has time to do anything and just leaves that tiny little piece of symbiote left behind. And that's it. Like, I was hoping for that to pay off and we get to see, like, Tom Hardy versus Tom Holland. Thank you. Would have been fun. Now, I've heard rumors that they're going to try and get Andrew Garfield back into the Venom verse, that we do get a Spider man on Venom. I. I would be okay with that because I really like Andrew Garfield as an actor and I like his Spider man portrayal. Hey, I'm. [00:36:45] Speaker C: I'm sorry. I'm running a bit late. I got stuck in some traffic. [00:36:48] Speaker A: Your timing is terrible. [00:36:49] Speaker B: It started already. [00:36:50] Speaker C: I know. I'm sorry. [00:36:51] Speaker B: Where are you? [00:36:51] Speaker C: First in Broadway, second in Broadway, third in Broadway. Five minutes, ten tops. [00:36:55] Speaker B: But I don't think that actually makes sense in either the Amazing Spider man or Venom universes. But as far as, like, these movies making sense, they don't already. So give me Spider man versus Venom. Right, but what do you guys say? Do you want Venom in your mcu? Do you want it to be Tom Hardy? Do you want to be somebody else entirely? [00:37:11] Speaker C: I want. I want a full reboot. And unfortunately, I don't want Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock. I want a full reboot into a different universe. I want them to completely redo Venom everything. Let's just let it be some sort of Venom baby left behind someplace, and it grows into its own much different version of Venom still. And still maybe Venom. But let's give it some adjustment that we need to really make it function and work the way we want it to. And a new Eddie Brock. [00:37:46] Speaker B: Do you want it to be the mcu, or do you want it to be a. An old Spider man or a brand new Spider Man? [00:37:52] Speaker C: I would go mcu. [00:37:53] Speaker B: Okay. [00:37:54] Speaker C: I would just go into the mcu. Can't really make the MCU any worse. [00:37:58] Speaker A: That's true. I feel like they definitely left option for that actual best case scenario. Right? They have this. This random symbiote off shot that got left in the MCU world that can find its way to Spider man and have a black suit. Absolutely left that option open. And then this universe's Eddie Brock can get a hold of it afterwards. That's all very much a possibility. And we never have to think about Venom versus Carnage ever again. And except for next week when we have to do the third and hopefully final of this trilogy. [00:38:36] Speaker B: Final for now. No asterisks. [00:38:38] Speaker A: Hopefully final. [00:38:39] Speaker B: So, interestingly enough, the next Avengers Movie I believe is called Secret wars, which actually is in the comics where Spider man originally got the black suit. We didn't know it was a symbiote for a couple of years after that. I don't believe. But that would be an interesting way of bringing this character, like, full circle. [00:38:57] Speaker A: Exactly. Yes. They go to Battle World, he finds this. This suit. He needs a replacement, and he takes it home and Mr. Fantastic finds out what it is, and so on and so forth. It all comes full circle. Fantastic Four is coming. This could all happen. I pray maybe not. [00:39:15] Speaker B: I pray we get Spider Man 4 before that happens. And he's just wearing the red and blue leotard the entire time. First, because I want at least one Tom Holland Spider man movie where he is just Spider man and not Deus ex machina. Spider man, not Venom. Spider man just freaking give me street level little kid in a leotard beating the crap out of people. Spider man, please. [00:39:40] Speaker A: Which they also. [00:39:41] Speaker B: Way weirder when I said it out loud than I meant it to. [00:39:43] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. But they also. [00:39:44] Speaker A: They also alluded to that in no Way Home. Right? Like, yeah, they set him up to be exactly that. He found he had his Uncle Ben moment at the end of that movie. And so he is geared to go in that direction as well. So all the pieces are there. It's just whether or not Marvel, Disney. Marvel goes in that direction. Right. Because they have so many balls in the air, they don't know what they're doing half the time anymore either. [00:40:07] Speaker C: Do you guys want to get to reading this thing? [00:40:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:40:11] Speaker C: Yeah. I'm going to jump in here real fast. I want to take lead on this because I was all over the place with this. And the thing that really lowered my overall score, and I even lowered it more talking to you guys, because you kind of reiterated some points I wasn't quite sure about. The thing that really did it for me the most was that I was watching this with my kids, and my kids were catching on to how paper thin the plot was, how stupid the characters were. And they were asking why. Like, why? And I'm like, you're 8 and 11. You guys shouldn't have to ask why. And that brought me out of any fun state I might have had for viewing the movie. And I kept asking why, and I kept getting distracted by the stupid things that didn't fit. And I didn't like a big carnage. I wanted the carnage like what Dan talked about. And I love Woody Harrelson just like I love Tom Hardy. And that's why I'm so upset that they're cast in this movie and then given no breath to act, and it's such a waste. And it was. And it was. Honestly, it was just awkward seeing Woody Harrelson play this role where he had no room to work, and that made it so much worse. So in almost every single point of this movie, the scores were the same as the previous or worse. And in the direction and plot, it even is. Is much worse. I still didn't have a bad time watching. Wasn't great, but, I mean, like, I watched it and I got through it, and I kind of enjoyed it and everything, but this movie comes down to a 59 for me. [00:41:49] Speaker B: I'm gonna go next. I think. I think I have to agree with pretty much everything Brian just said in every category this movie went down except for possibly enjoyment. The thing that I liked the most from the first movie was the Eddie Brock Venom relationship. And we just got more of that in this movie. Did it all work? Absolutely not. Did most of it work? Not really, but it was. I did. I had a fun time with this. I was watching with my kid. They had fun with it. Yes. We were both pointing out the holes in it, and that was even a little bit fun. My issue with this movie is carnage is in the title. He is on the poster. He is the main villain, and we just don't get nearly enough of him. And what we do get of him is just not at all the character that I wanted him to be. As we've mentioned a bunch of times, you've got Michelle Williams, Tom Hardy, Woody Harrelson, and you just give them nothing to do. Like, even without Symbiotes, those three should have made an incredible movie about a hero and a serial killer and whatever, you know, the girlfriend does. But, like, that would have been fun to watch, even. But then you give them symbiotes. You're like, that should be amazing. And instead, you get this weird hodgepodge of a movie, looks fine, is relatively fun, but just is nowhere near the mark of what it could have been or should have been. This one dropped for me as well, putting it at a 64, still probably higher than most of you are anticipating it being. But at the end of the day, I've seen this a couple of times, and it's. It's short, and it's kind of fun in a really, really stupid way. [00:43:16] Speaker A: Good job. [00:43:17] Speaker B: And now we come in with the. The red score. [00:43:23] Speaker A: Well, I mean, yeah, you're not wrong. [00:43:25] Speaker B: Okay, [00:43:29] Speaker A: What. What else is there to Say when the plot is so very simple, but revolves around all the characters and their relationship, you kind of need to care about those characters. Unfortunately, we got a bunch of mashed up one ply toilet paper just revolving around the bowl until the very end credit scene. This movie is not about comic book accuracy or being R rated. It's about the friendship we made along the way. Except for in Cletus's case, nobody wanted to be friends with him. I did appreciate the ample amounts of M M's and Mars bars product placement, because you know what? I love candy. Okay, so let's just be honest. That's where all the score is coming from in this movie for me. This movie gets a 43 out of 100. It's trash. [00:44:26] Speaker B: Hard to argue with. So my problem is I was talking about my score rating earlier. By the way, the poster's up. You can see that it. It went lower than Gremlins currently. [00:44:38] Speaker A: Thank the Lord. [00:44:41] Speaker B: Zach would be proud. I was looking at my rating score for, like, all the movies we've done so far, and I think I'm kind of comparing this to comedies more so than action movies, if that makes any sense whatsoever. You compare this to like Gremlins or Anchorman. I do enjoy the comedy in this better than the comedy in those ones, at least in this day and age. Anchorman in its heyday, I enjoyed quite a bit, but recently watching it was kind of painful. But comparing it to action movies, the action in this by comparison to something like the Alien franchise, the Predator franchise, or the Mad Max franchise. Mad Max specifically, nowhere close. Doesn't compare on any level. But that's not necessarily why I'm watching this movie. [00:45:21] Speaker A: Movie. [00:45:23] Speaker B: I don't know if that makes any sense to anybody outside of me, but [00:45:25] Speaker C: honestly, you know, you know how I say that? The 50 is the mark. For me, it's got to be above 50 before I'd ever recommend it to anybody before it's considered a movie worth your time in any way, shape, or form. And then of course, the further above 50 you go, the better it really is. But anything 50 or below is not worth your time at all. And I think for franchises, I think that number is actually somewhere closer to 65 or 70. Like, if you want to spend time in a franchise, the franchise should be a series of good movies that are genuinely good, not just one great movie that carries a high number for the rest of the of those films. Yeah, I'm just saying, like, I look okay. Like, the breakpoint for me is Evil Dead. I think that as franchises go, Evil Dead is a good franchise and everything above that, not Home Alone is worth your time and a good franchise to watch. But as we drop down to Gremlins, Venom, Anchorman, Highlander, these are all the franchises should not be on your radar. You should not waste your time watching a series of movies that don't get a high enough grade. If you're going to watch that many movies, they got to be good, real good. [00:46:37] Speaker B: That's a very interesting point. [00:46:39] Speaker A: I don't disagree. I think you can break out a franchise and be like, yeah, just watch the one or watch the these two movies. Call it a day on that franchise. Don't even bother with the rest. And I think because of that, you're right. The mean of what is passable as a watchable franchise is higher than the 50, give or take. It should be around 65. Yeah, I think so as well because it is averaging. All those movies which are going to have hits and misses is. [00:47:07] Speaker B: Yeah, all right. And that is our rating of Venom. Let There Be Carnage. What did you think? Way too high, way too low. About right. Let me know down in the comments. I'd love to know what you think of this franchise. We record this live over at Twitch tv, the Mongoolie Show. So you can head over there at 9pm Eastern on Thursday nights to go watch that live. Drop a follow over there. Or if you made it this far in the video, you probably enjoyed it. Hit the like button on this video so you see more great content like this going forward. Until next time. I don't know. That might be the actual outro. That might just. I just might just go with it. [00:47:44] Speaker C: You had like three F bombs in this recording, by the way. [00:47:47] Speaker B: That's less than some.