Venom: Let There Be Carnage
Columbia Pictures | Release Date: October 1, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
49
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 48 Critic Reviews
Positive:
19
Mixed:
19
Negative:
10
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
85
TheWrapWilliam BibbianiSep 30, 2021
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. Read full review
80
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyOct 23, 2021
Venom: Let There Be Carnage is a love story written in blood, sweat and the slime of half-eaten brains. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesRobert DanielsSep 30, 2021
It’s not the promised spectacle that cements Venom: Let There Be Carnage as touching, wild entertainment. It’s the themes of home, love, and companionship that make Serkis’ sequel another reason to want more “Venom” movies, and quickly. Read full review
76
CNETRussell HollyOct 8, 2021
If you liked the first movie, you're going to love this sequel. And if you weren't totally sold on the original Venom, there's every chance you'll like this movie a lot more. Read full review
75
UproxxVince ManciniNov 3, 2021
It’s silly, thoroughly disposable, and a breezy 90 minutes long. What else could you ask for? Read full review
75
The Film StageEthan VestbySep 30, 2021
Basically what separates this from other junky blockbusters is that everyone seems in on the joke, aware they’re making a sequel to a critically reviled, low-brow superhero movie. The easy-going tone set forth is infectious. Read full review
75
Washington PostKristen Page-KirbySep 30, 2021
What it lacks in originality it makes up for with a streamlined story, a sharp pace — there isn’t a superfluous moment or a wasted scene — and quips galore. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comChristy LemireSep 30, 2021
Venom: Let There Be Carnage is zippy and breezy. Read full review
70
VoxAlex Abad-SantosJan 21, 2022
On its face, Venom 2 is a no-frills, rock-and-roll superhero flick that unashamedly swings for the fences when it comes to camp and cheese. Yet beneath those elements, it’s strangely about finding love and the intimacy of relationships, building on the rom-com core of the first movie. Read full review
70
PolygonOliver SavaSep 30, 2021
Though it suffers from some of the first movie’s problems — mainly a shallow villain and underwhelming action — Hardy’s ownership of Let There Be Carnage has had a clear impact, with the movie recapturing the electric character dynamic from the original, and getting to the off-kilter odd couple stuff far earlier. Read full review
70
Rolling StoneK. Austin CollinsSep 30, 2021
Carnage is for the most part, in ways that count, another dirtbag delight. It’s a lesser movie than Venom, but one that scratches many of the same itches and then some. Read full review
70
Screen DailyTim GriersonSep 30, 2021
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. Read full review
70
The New York TimesAmy NicholsonSep 30, 2021
Let There Be Carnage flourishes in high-energy moments and feeds off low expectations; it’s the mold in the Avengers’ shower. Read full review
70
UproxxMike RyanSep 30, 2021
Yes, this movie is so stupid! But that seems to be the point. And Serkis knows the heart of these movies is the relationship between Eddie and Venom. Read full review
70
SlashfilmChris EvangelistaSep 30, 2021
There are countless superhero movies better than this. Better written, better directed, better acted, better made. And yet, Let There Be Carnage has a weird, quirky heart, and sometimes, that's exactly what you need to see. Read full review
70
IGNFrancesca RiveraSep 30, 2021
Taking itself less seriously and having more fun, its relatively short runtime is packed densely with plenty of action, character development, and campy humor. At the same time, it’s a love story about relationships evolving and learning to grow and trust each other. Read full review
67
Original-CinJim SlotekSep 30, 2021
If brevity is indeed the soul of wit, at a tidy 90 minutes, Venom: Let There Be Carnage is on point for what it largely is - a violently slapstick domestic sitcom. Read full review
67
ConsequenceClint WorthingtonSep 30, 2021
The results are deeply, charmingly dumb, especially the extended focus on the tete-a-tete between our tic-heavy underdog and his murderous companion. Read full review
63
The Associated PressLindsey BahrSep 30, 2021
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. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeyNov 4, 2021
The film satisfies all the same, because they’ve figured out what a great stand-up routine Venom can do this time, and Hardy has settled well into being straight man to his own not-at-all-straight alien weirdo. Read full review
60
Film ThreatRob RectorOct 13, 2021
If you bought into the messy magic of the first film, you will undoubtedly find much in which to revel with its successor. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubJesse HassengerSep 30, 2021
It’s a faster, wilder ride—and a choppier one, even as it moves primarily in circles. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattSep 30, 2021
If we're all disposable space chum in this franchise game anyway, who needs a coherent narrative and character arcs? Just bite the head off every chicken, and lean in. Read full review
58
IndieWireKate ErblandSep 30, 2021
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. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleSarah JaneOct 4, 2021
Venom: Let There be Crazy, Stupid Love isn’t a great movie, but it doesn’t matter because it’s just big, dumb, romantic fun. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliOct 1, 2021
The Venom sequel checks all the generic comic book movie boxes and, if all one expects from a film adaptation is a straightforward translation with motion and live actors, it’s hard to knock Let There Be Carnage. But, in an era when most superhero productions are becoming increasingly complex, challenging one another for greater depth and storyline intricacy, the shallowness of both Venom movies stands out in an unflattering fashion. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternSep 30, 2021
To its perverse credit, “Venom 2,” as it’s being called, manipulates its audience with all the tentacles it can deploy, most of them cheerfully ridiculous, although a climactic battle between Venom and Carnage is the dreariest face-off since the Caped Crusader and the Man of Steel duked it out in Zack Snyder’s 2016 “Batman v Superman : Dawn of Justice.” Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperSep 30, 2021
The fine actors onscreen are mere accessories to the computerized puppets thrashing and slashing and stabbing and biting and roaring and breaking stuff all over the place before only one of them is left standing. Sigh. Read full review
50
Screen RantMolly FreemanSep 30, 2021
Venom: Let There Be Carnage delivers some more of what works - Eddie and Venom's dynamic - though everything around them remains quite messy. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeSep 30, 2021
The film does develop the chemistry between the titular alien and the human he’s forced to inhabit while inside Earth’s atmosphere. But the distinctiveness of this buddy-movie bond is often drowned out by giant set pieces of CG mayhem that feel exactly like those found in the good guys’ movies. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineWes GreeneSep 30, 2021
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. Read full review
45
The AtlanticDavid SimsOct 1, 2021
Venom may not have realized it was a so-bad-it’s-good cult classic, but Let There Be Carnage is striving to maintain that status from minute one. Read full review
40
The Observer (UK)Simran HansOct 17, 2021
In an improvement on the film’s predecessor, director Andy Serkis dispenses with detailed explanations and instead amps up the humour, leaning into the goofy, flirtatious dynamic between Venom and Brock. Read full review
40
The Irish TimesTara BradyOct 15, 2021
As with its frantic copyright-countdown predecessor, Venom 2 is, by any metric, a bad movie. But, gosh darnit, it’s going to be the baddest bad movie of the year. Read full review
40
Total FilmJamie GrahamOct 14, 2021
Some entertaining bicker-banter, but you may feel like Venom craving human heads: undernourished and angsty for what could’ve been. Read full review
40
EmpireBen TravisOct 14, 2021
There’s a little bit more polish this time, but for all the talented people involved, Let There Be Carnage still has the whiff of a turd in the wind.  Read full review
40
Vanity FairRichard LawsonSep 30, 2021
Let There Be Carnage tries to recreate the first film’s giddy shock while also upping the ante, taking what audiences liked and slopping more of that onto their plates. Read full review
40
The GuardianBenjamin LeeSep 30, 2021
It’s at least a short film, clocking it at around 90 minutes, Serkis chopping off any extraneous fat, but it floats by and floats on without ever causing us to sit up and pay attention. Let there be no more. Read full review
38
Movie NationRoger MooreOct 1, 2021
Venom: Let There Be Carnage is wanton slaughter lightened by monstrous zingers delivered in a growl that needs subtitles, a colossal waste of talent in front of the camera and not exactly a resume builder behind it. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeMark FeeneySep 30, 2021
Andy Serkis directed. Serkis, who’s given so many memorable acting performances (Gollum! Caesar the chimpanzee!), doesn’t elicit any here. The great cinematographer Robert Richardson shot the movie, which makes its lack of visual texture all the more dispiriting. Read full review
32
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzSep 30, 2021
Hardy’s use-it-or-lose-it charm very nearly drowns out the dreadfulness all around him, but ultimately it’s not enough to sustain life. And given that the actor has a “story by” credit here, he deserves more blame than praise. Read full review
30
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreSep 30, 2021
It’s so obviously shaped by fan response that it feels like the movie equivalent of someone who went viral online and now can only repeat themselves to diminishing returns in an attempt to hawk merch while they can. Read full review
30
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 30, 2021
Managed (more than directed) by motion-capture star-turned-aspiring blockbuster helmer Andy Serkis, Venom: Let There Be Carnage has all the indications of a slap-dash cash grab. The set-pieces look sloppy, the visual effects are all over the place, and the laughs come largely at the movie’s expense. Read full review
30
ScreenCrushMatt SingerSep 30, 2021
Fundamentally, its creators course corrected from the first movie a bit too drastically. Where Venom was a grim body horror movie with a very broad and sometimes extremely silly comic performance at its center, Let There Be Carnage is practically a romantic comedy between Eddie Brock and Venom. Read full review
25
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiSep 30, 2021
Watching it, unless you’re already a demented diehard fan, is utter agony. Read full review
20
CNNBrian LowrySep 30, 2021
Two head-chomping symbiotes aren't better than one in Venom: Let There Be Carnage, a mind-numbingly tiresome sequel, filled with uninspired comedy and a CGI monster fight that seems to drag on forever. Read full review
16
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezSep 30, 2021
In doubling down on would-be humor, the already poor, perspiring, flop-sweat CGI mess of Venom actually gets worse and arguably even more incoherent, thanks to the unbearable, overweening quarreling between Brock and Venom and the vaudevillian crazy legs antics and presentation. Read full review
0
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleSep 30, 2021
To say Venom: Let There Be Carnage is not worth seeing is not enough. It’s not worth admitting into your life, even as an option. You’ve read a review of it. That’s enough. Now, never think of it again for the rest of your life. Read full review
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