BARE BONES: VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE (2021)

VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE (2021)

Eddie Brock’s (Tom Hardy) career is on the downslide since meeting and joining with the symbiote Venom. He sees a chance to get his career back in gear, when serial killer Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson) offers to be interviewed by him. An altercation during said interview affords Kasady the opportunity to bite Brock, thus allowing the serial killer to unwittingly ingest a small amount of symbiotic material. Kasady soon forms a symbiote of his own, one even more twisted and violent than he is. Venom and the newly dubbed Carnage are soon destined to collide.

Comic book-based mess is directed by Andy Serkis from a script and story by Kelly Marcel and Tom Hardy himself. It’s a mind-numbingly bad series of comedy bits and loud, chaotic CGI action sequences, strung together with the weakest excuse for a story. Hardy is trying to have a good time, as his Brock argues with Venom as if this was a romantic comedy, and Harrelson is just going as over-the-top as possible. Both are fine actors worthy of far better material. When Venom and Carnage finally do fight, it’s another CGI mess of black and red blobs inside a church. No suspense or intensity. Overall, this is a very silly and annoying movie with some very noisy action sequences in-between the dumb comedy dialogue sequences. The popularity and success of these movies is baffling unless you are one of the Venom faithful. Also stars Michelle Willaims and Naomie Harris as the respective love interests of Brock and Kasady.

-MonsterZero NJ

 

MONSTERZERO NJ’S 15 HORROR THEMED COMIC BOOK MOVIES!

The comic book based Blade trilogy brought the horror…and Guillermo del Toro!

Catching up with some Guillermo del Toro directed, horror themed superhero movies this weekend, I thought it might be fun to put together a list of other like comic book movies. So, here are 15 flicks that brought the horror, while delivering comic book movie entertainment!

Keanu Reeves battled supernatural forces in the comic book based Constantine!

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(To get to the reviews of the titles listed that were covered here at the Movie Madhouse, just type the title in the search engine to find the corresponding critique!)

-MonsterZero NJ

MONSTERZERO NJ’S 15 HORROR THEMED COMIC BOOK MOVIES!

The comic book based Blade trilogy brought the horror…and Guillermo del Toro!

Catching up with DC ‘s delightfully gory, yet sadly canceled, Swamp Thing series gets one nostalgic for other horror themed comic book movies. So, here are 15 of them that brought the horror while delivering comic book movie entertainment!

Keanu Reeves battled supernatural forces in the comic book based Constantine!

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(To get to the reviews of the titles listed that were covered here at the Movie Madhouse, just type the title in the search engine to find the corresponding critique!)

-MonsterZero NJ

BARE BONES: PEPPERMINT (2018)

PEPPERMINT (2018)

Loving wife and mother RIley North (Jennifer Garner) watches in horror when she sees her husband (Jeff Hephner) and daughter (Cailey Fleming) gunned down by members of a drug cartel on her daughter’s birthday. After a failed attempt to bring the thugs to justice, Riley disappears. Five years later, members of the cartel start dying and it seems Riley North has transformed into an avenging angel and revenge is exactly what she is back for!

Film is directed very by-the-numbers by Pierre Morel from an extremely lazy script by Chad St. John. Lazy because the most important aspects of the story, such as Riley’s transformation from mom to vigilante and even the killing of the three men actually responsible for her husband and daughter’s deaths, occur off-screen. We jump five years after the ineffective trial to RIley’s war on the cartel in midstream. All we get is some FBI babble about her spending time in Europe and Asia and being a cage fighter to a gun store theft with Riley taking some very specific weaponry. Riley is now wiping out cartel members like a widowed Rambo and becoming a folk hero on the mean streets in the process. Where did she acquire her arms training? Her knowledge of guns and ammo? She’s outmaneuvering and mowing down men who have spent their entire lives with guns and in gangs. When we last saw Riley she was a banker. What really happened to her in those five years aside from what little we are told? That’s what’s important to give the story some needed substance, but St. John’s script gives us scraps and more clichés than Riley delivers bullets. Even an 80s style training montage would have supplied more information. At least Garner is very effective as Riley and it’s too bad her soulful anti-heroine isn’t in a much better movie that the actress’ work deserves.

-MonsterZero NJ

 

BARE BONES: VENOM (2018)

VENOM (2018)

Comic book based flick finds intrepid reporter Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) investigating the Life Foundation and it’s CEO Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), who unbeknownst to Eddie has just retrieved some symbiotic organisms from space. Eddie gets infected by one of those organisms when sneaking into the foundation headquarters and now he and the alien creature become one as the anti-hero Venom! Can they stop Drake, who has acquired his own sinister symbiote and plans to help them invade the Earth?

Film is directed well enough by Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland), but from a mess of a script by Jeff Pinker, Scott Rosenberg and Kelly Marcel. What story there is, is all over the place and the tone of the film goes back and forth from serious Sci-fi thriller to absurd comedy, sometimes in the same scene. Hardy can be a hoot at times, though, with an eccentric performance and the relationship between he and Venom can be amusing. There are a few decent action sequences, but the human villains are boring and Venom and his adversary Riot are obvious cheesy CGI creations and have no real weight or presence. Overall it’s a silly film, with sub-standard SPFX and is possibly the worst Marvel flick since the equally messy and tonally challenged Iron Man 3. You’d think with the success of the R-rated Deadpool, they’d have gone for something a lot edgier considering the subject matter.

A schizophrenic and forgettable first solo venture for the Spider-Man villain turned anti-hero, though box office returns will probably earn it the sequel the mid-credits scene sets up. Also stars Michelle Williams as Brock’s long suffering girlfriend Anne and a cameo from Woody Harrelson as a familiar face from the Venom comics.

-MonsterZero NJ