Three years after the tragic and entertaining hit "Venom" took the screens for a moment, Tom Hardy returns to the black alien suit of the most popular anti-hero in Marvel's repertoire to star in the inevitable sequel, "Venom 2."
Unfortunately, this time the result is just trash, without the entertainment.
The plot continues from the same place where it was stopped the previous time.
Loser investigative journalist Eddie Brock (Hardy), who lost his job and journalistic fame in the previous film, continues to have an amusing couple relationship with the symbiotic alien who clings to him (and continues to be upset that his lover Anne, played by Michelle Williams) abandoned him to love .
To the delight of Eddie, an unstoppable serial killer named Cletus Cassidy (Woody Harrelson), who is just about to be executed, insists he will do a cover story about him in which he will reveal all his dark secrets.
But from there, Cletus gets mad at the interviewer and gives him a juicy bite in the hand - which puts Venom's alien element into his bloodstream and turns him into a monstrous villain named Carnegie.
As mentioned, despite the promising opening figures, "Venom 2" is not as fun as the previous film.
It's overlapping and ugly, it does not offer anything we have not seen before, and its only virtue is that it is short (an hour and 35 minutes, including the post-credits scene, for which only this film seems to have been produced).
Although it is clear that Hardy really enjoys fooling around as Eddie / Venom (he also signed the film story), and the dynamic between them, which is based on the dynamics common in romantic comedies, is definitely likable.
But their shared scenes alone make it difficult to hold the business.
Unusually, Harrelson submits an off and uninvested performance, and this connects directly to the fact that his character's super-plot manages to be both yawning and unreasonable.
On the one hand, he wants to rescue his psychopathic lover, played by Naomi Harris, from prison and marry her.
On the other hand, in the same breath, he also wants revenge on Buddy and Venom.
But why?
What did they do to him?
It is not clear.
Right.
The first film in the series also gave the feeling that it was made in a hurry and without investment in the finish.
The connection between the scenes is sometimes made in a rude way, and the fragmented and not always logical continuity of the story, together with the abrupt length of the film, raised the speculation that things got tangled up in the editing room (which indeed happened).
And yet, thanks to the spirit of nonsense and unpretentiousness, Hardy and his friends somehow managed to get out of it.
This time there is no charm in this haphazardness and this time there is also nothing refreshing about it.
It's always fun to see Tom Hardy talking to himself and doing angled and unexpected nonsense.
But there really is no reason to run to the movies to do that.
You can wait for VOD.
Score: 4