Reviews

I'll start with the pros. Tom Hardy, Woody Harrelson and Naomie Harris are absolutely perfect in their roles. Hardy plays a very unstable and uneasy version of Eddie that I really enjoy, his Venom is goofy and kinda strange but it works, I liked it. Harrelson and Harris were so fun as Cletus and Shriek. They seemed to be having so much fun in their roles that I feel the movie was at its best whenever they were on screen. The VFX work in this movie is also fantastic and really sells you on what's going on.

Now the cons; and there are plenty. This movie was incredibly rushed. Every single line from this movie felt incredibly forced in as set-up or pay-off with almost no time to enjoy the movie before the next scene starts. Carnage and especially Shriek had very little screen time, which is sad considering they were by far the best part of the movie, and were then very quickly and unceremoniously killed off making it unlikely for them to return in a future, better, movie.

This movie felt like it was trying to juggle two movies in one. An origin story for Carnage and Shriek, and a romantic comedy with Venom and Eddie. This idea isn't horrible and I think it could be executed if these separate things were better connected through shared themes but there was nothing there. Let's also not forget the fact that this movie was trying to juggle so many plot lines in under an hour and a half.

Andy Serkis was a bad choice. This is his third ever movie and he has yet to prove himself as a director. Serkis was great at directing the visual effects. They were perfectly choreographed with the stunt work and practical effects which helped blend them seamlessly. However, Andy Serkis is a terrible story teller. Every idea from this movie felt undecooked. It felt like this movie needed more time in production and a longer runtime.

Let there be Carnage had a lot of potential, especially with how great Hardy, Harrelson and Harris are in their respective roles, but it falls very short of reaching it. I left the theaters excited to have seen such a great iteration of Cletus Kassidy (one of my favorite comic book characters of all time), and incredibly dissatisfied. Wasted potential.

Now, I'm not a big fan of this genre, so take what I say with that in mind.

Let's start with the positives: the movie is well produced and the acting isn't horrible. The director and the cinematographer made artistic choices some times.

The most glaring problem is the fact that this movie lacks the originality of the concept behind the first. The first movie, while I wouldn't consider it to be any good either, at least had an original idea with the letters. This sequel, however, has nothing going for it. It's a cookie cutter rom-com with completely avoidable artificial conflicts (which get resolved pretty quickly) and a love triangle that drives the plot. The love triangle itself is very dull, with none of the boys getting enough screen time to get the audience invested. Although this is very noticeable with Peter's character, it is even more clear with John, about whom I couldn't tell you a thing. The pacing also makes this movie extremely boring to sit through in the begging while feeling extremely rushed in when the main conflict is finally introduced.

Now let's talk about the characters.

Lara Jean: Annoying drama queen who makes dumb mistakes so that the plot can move forward.

Peter: Weirdly misogynistic at times but other than that I don't think I can tell you anything about him in this movie. (He is a main character, btw)

John Ambrose: Jordan Fisher tried, but there was barely a script to work with. Barely in the movie at all.

Kitty: Still just as annoying but at least this time is she is less prominent.

Their dad: I guess an improvement from the first movie since he did nothing in it. But honestly I might take that back because what he does do in this movie is introduce a bring side-plot which drags the movie and goes nowhere.

Chris: She is there sometimes... that's it.

All of the other characters: boring filler for this movie with no substance.

Federal is movie set mainly around the satellite cities of the Brazilian Federal District where the capital is located. Though the movie is supposed to be set at Brasilia, it barely ever takes place in the capital except for a few skyline shots and scenes that take place inside of the homes of the federal policemen in attempts to make them seem more human by showing that they have families. But what really makes this movie awful to experience is the fact that there is absolutely no redeeming factors; there is almost no character development, the female character that speaks the most says about 5 complete sentences, the plot is confusing (thanks to the movie trying to fit in all the bland character backgrounds), there is no payoff at the end, the main characters just simply decide to kill each other without much of a reasonable motivation and, the only main character that survives the whole movie is the least memorable with no remarkable features and most forgettable name.

The movie gives us a great universe that could have been explored so much more. There were literally an infinite possible "Earths" to be visited but the movie restricted it self with only two unoriginal and uninteresting "Earths". The character development was also very weak in this movie not only with the character Polly, who was meant to be a mysterious cliffhanger, but all characters in general. There is also no wrap up for any of the movie's mysteries therefore the viewer finishes the movie with questions like: Why did Ronan's father (Alex Carver) lead his children into the building in the first place? Why did Ronan's father (Alex Carver) nuke that post-apocalyptic Earth? What did Tinker mean when he said Ronan's dad (Alex Carver) was lying? Those are few of the many questions this movie left unanswered. Do not get me wrong for I did not hate this movie, it had an interesting idea and was very promising at the beginning.