Whether some of this is down to the film’s Covid-thwarted post-production schedule, who knows – but it bolts along comparatively, and stands out from the current crop of blockbusters for being just about the only one that feels like it’s in a hurry.Ī Tim Burton-ish prologue brings in two new villains: a serial killer called Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson) and his girlfriend Frances, aka “Shriek” (Naomie Harris), fellow inmates in an asylum who generally seem like bad news. Venom: Let There Be Carnage is refreshingly nuts, and benefits from being a whole 45 minutes shorter than its predecessor. Mess though it was, it was the very weirdness of the picture that made it a cult smash, and into this weirdness the sequel, directed by Andy Serkis from a story Hardy co-wrote himself, has decided to lean. The film had a lot of work to do: it needed to explain how Tom Hardy, as failed hack reporter Eddie Brock, got fused with the rapacious alien symbiote of the title, but struggled to make proper visual sense of its concept, flailing slimily in all directions. Venom was a huge hit back in 2018 that got critically mauled for being all over the shop.