Venom: Let There Be Carnage

 

The Venom series is a minor Marvel franchise that turns the villainous alien symbiotic creature in the comics and previous film appearances into a more-or-less devourer of bad guys. The "more" is due to the creature's ravenous appetite for human brains, and the "less" to the restraint of his host Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy, who also voices the wisecracking slime beast). It is the "relationship" between the haggard San Francisco reporter and the entity living inside of him, introduced in the original 2018 film, that turns a fairly routine MCU actioner into something almost heartwarming.

In Venom: Let There Be Carnage, directed by performance capture artist Andy Serkis (Gollum of the LOTR's series), Brock meets with lunatic death row inmate Cletus Kasady (a bewildering Woody Harrelson) who bites Brock and contracts alien blood into his system. The Red Venom that emerges while Kasady is being executed is not suppressed by his better nature because Kasady doesn't have one and so all hell breaks loose as he wreaks vengeance on those who did him wrong and sets out to free his lethally shrill girlfriend (Naomie Harris) from a sanitarium.

Midway through the picture, Brock and Venom have an acrimonious parting of the ways, with Venom "coming out of Brock's closet" and jumping between unwitting hosts, none of whom seem to be compatible.

At one point, Venom wanders into the middle of what appears to be a combined Pride and Day-of-the-Dead celebration. Partiers compliment him on his outfit as he grabs a mic and makes a speech from the bandstand about not being afraid to be who you are. I'm not sure the moment works entirely but props to Hardy and co-writer Kelly Marcel for going there.