Review Roundup For Venom: Let There Be Carnage

Venom: Let There Be Carnage is the long-awaited second film in Sony's Spider-Man Universe, and the sequel to the 2018 film Venom starring Tom Hardy. Ahead of its theatrical premiere this weekend, reviews have finally started to roll in.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage stars Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock, who is infected with the alien symbiote Venom. Woody Harrelson plays the serial killer Cletus Kasady, who is controlled by the evil symbiote Carnage, and the cast also includes Michelle Williams, Reid Scott, and Stephen Graham. The movie is directed by Andy Serkis.

The film was one of many that was unlucky enough to be delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally, the film was due out in October 2020.

You can see a sampling of review scores and excerpts below, and more critical consensus here at GameSpot sister site Metacritic. As of this writing, Venom: Let There Be Carnage has an aggregate score on Metacritic of 52 based on 27 critics, and 76% based on 49 reviews in Rotten Tomatoes. For more, check out GameSpot's guide to the biggest upcoming movies of 2021.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage

• Directed by: Andy Serkis
• Written by: Kelly Marcel
• Starring: Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams, Naomie Harris, Reid Scott, Stephen Graham, Woody Harrelson
• Release Date: September 14 UK/October 1 US

The Wrap - No Score

"Venom: Let There Be Carnage is a bold and brisk superhero story, unlike any other mainstream Hollywood film in the genre. It crams a heck of a lot of movie into an hour and a half, but it doesn't feel like it needed to be longer. It just feels like we need more movies like it." -- William Bibbiani [Full review]

Roger Ebert.com - Three Stars

"Venom: Let There Be Carnage is zippy and breezy… [it is] a blockbuster comic-book sequel, a mismatched-buddy comedy, an opportunity for some gloriously self-aware overacting." -- Christy Lemire [Full review]

ScreenDaily - No Score

"Venom: Let There Be Carnage is a grander spectacle than the mediocre 2018 original, offering monster-movie mayhem with a welcome sense of humour about its own ludicrousness." -- Tim Grierson [Full review]

Associated Press - Two and a Half Stars

"It's hard to overstate just how much the relative success of this film comes down to Hardy and his go for broke performances as Eddie and Venom… Venom 2 [is] weirder and more irreverent than the first movie, when it seemed like no one could decide how seriously they were taking themselves." -- Lindsey Bahr [Full review]

IndieWire - C+

"Venom: Let There Be Carnage is at its best — and its most unique, amusing, and fresh — when it's tossing out those expectations and letting its freak flag fly. There doesn't need to be carnage (or, hell, even Carnage), there just needs to be Venom, and more of it." -- Kate Erbland [Full review]

Slant - Two Stars

"The title isn't only a promise of so much destruction to come, but also inadvertently an assurance that its most action-packed sequences will be defined by loudness, incoherence, and pointless cruelty." -- Wes Greene [Full review]