Even though I was a huge fan of both Spider-Man and Venom as a kid, I could not stand the standalone Venom movie from a few years back. Taking away Spider-Man’s role from the story takes away all of both Eddie and Venom’s motivation to do what they do and these movies do kind of prove that his character is much weaker and less interesting without the complete symbiote story. Not to mention how the movie felt like it was confused on whether it wanted to be a serious film or comedy, and not like how the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies were able to juggle both of these genres perfectly, more like they wanted to do a serious film, but half way through production, they changed their minds. Mix all this with some choppy effects, bad dialogue, and a really bland villain. It has a cult following, but it was a huge letdown for me.
With this new movie, it felt more realized what they wanted to do with it. It just goes for a straight up comedy/action film that doesn’t over stay its welcome with just an hour and a half runtime. There are plenty of scenes where Eddie and Venom play off of each other pretty well, especially in a scene where they get fed up with each other and start fighting. Woody Harrelson as Carnage is a much more memorable villain than the last one with Woody just hamming it up in many of the scenes along with Carnage causing a lot of destruction and mayhem. There are still plenty of problems with it when it comes to dialogue, effects, and some missed opportunities, but this is one that I actually had fun watching.