At least 'Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021)' is brief. That's pretty much the only praise I can send its way. I mean, it's genuinely terrible. Frankly, it's almost unfathomable how a team as talented as this can turn out something so amateurish. It honestly feels unfinished. Having said that, it's actually difficult to properly review, because it's just... well, nothing. It's not even boring. It's totally empty, a meal comprised of zero calories. It's also insanely forgettable. If you asked me to recount its plot beat for beat, even while the credits were still rolling, I'd seriously struggle to come up with a coherent answer. As I said, it's difficult to properly review. Perhaps that's because reflecting on it is like trying to remember a bad dream; by the time you try to articulate it, it has already slipped from your mind. Perhaps it's because it leaves you feeling totally apathetic, unequipped to even think about its events, never mind its shortcomings. Perhaps it's because the flick is genuinely less boring than many movies deserving of a similar, or even marginally better, rating, but also genuinely worse than most of those same movies. A bad movie is better than a boring one, I suppose, but a movie that leaves you feeling nothing, not even annoyance, is surely the bottom of the barrel. It goes in one ear and straight out of the other. It's awful, but I can't bring myself to get worked up about it. I'm aware that I haven't even begun to delve into its cavalcade of issues, but I just can't bring myself to do so. That in itself says a lot. I'm totally ambivalent about the piece. It isn't fun, but it isn't boring; it isn't competent, but it isn't offensive; it isn't anything, but it isn't... well, anything. In the end, it will leave you feeling like Venom himself: hungry for something with a brain. Heck, even a bar of chocolate would be more fulfilling. 3/10.
