Finally saw the movie. And yeah it was exactly what I thought it was going to be. Just a dumb movie to kill 2 hours with. I honestly don't know where to begin because everything, EVERYTHING was either straight up bad, cliched, or cringy, especially the humor, my god the humor. The comedy in this was very low brow to the point that knuckle dragging neanderthals could feel the cringe in this.
Alright first up are the personal complaints I have with this as a Venom mark. The characters. Again Tom Hardy is a good actor in this and is trying but he isn't Eddie Brock. Hell, I don't anyone can physically portray today him anyways nor can Eddie Brock be written the same without taking liberties with the character. That's why I think Hardy could pull out another character who has a lot more depth to him than Eddie and allowed him to show off his acting chops to boot. This version of Eddie is pretty lame and tame to compare the religious, sociopath, survivalist vigilante in the comics. The only real connections he has to the comics besides his name were him being a reporter, which he wasn't anymore after getting the symbiote, helping the poor(from the first movie), and living a hobostatic lifestyle. To me, he's only Eddie in name, nothing else really made him Eddie Brock to me. Woody as Cletus was okay but wasn't exactly how he should have been portrayed. Cletus is a bit of redneck which was weird for me to see him hooking up with black Shriek. Cletus was a bit more subdued here and had a bit of humanity in him. Cletus in the comics was basically Joker with a red symbiote. Cletus also never really loved Shriek like he does here. The only thing Cletus really loved was causing absolute chaos and destruction to everyone. Also, Cletus was so insane apparently when he and the Carnage symbiote merged, they became of one mind instead of being separate entities like Eddie and Venom, or like other hosts and symbiotes. Speaking of Shriek, really her being race swap isn't the hugest problem but her being in the movie was just unnecessary and not needed to tell the movie. A very d list character that they put a lot of into this movie but put the least amount of effort into how she looked in the movie. The same can be said for Pat Mulligan. A minor character that shouldn't haven't been included in this. Anne Weying has next to no chemistry with Eddie. I thought this would have been a good point to introduce Scream, a visually different looking symbiote that would have at least stood out from the rest, but nope.
Actual complaints. The humor DID NOT work at all. Very kiddish humor. I did a chuckle at the bit where Cletus is giving the usual villain spiel about how he isn't that bad of a guy and Venom is basically said fuck it and ate his head off. That was the most I laughed at the movie. Hell, the plot itself is very low brow. In fact it repeats some of the same story beats of the first with just a red version of Riot. This definitely doesn't feel like a modern superhero movie, it feels like a movie from the early 2000's. I think the movie has every cliched villain trope in this. From the whole "we're not so different, you and I" to "my family/world made me this way". Just the cliched shit you can think of for a villain like Kassady. And don't get me wrong, Cletus isn't some sort of multifaceted character, cuz he isn't but again they didn't really try.
Other tidbits I had noticed throughout the movie. When Brock and Venom are chilling at Cancun, it's a reference to when Venom 'killed' Spiderman and decide to vacation at an island by himself
The church that Cletus and Streik are getting married in looks awfully like the church where Eddie got the symbiote. Another one is the reference to the hive. Iirc this is a reference to the Planet of the Symbiotes comic in 95 and the recent Venom run by Cates.
The pitch/fix I thought of for the first movie. The problem with these movies is that there's no human element or heart to them. To fix this, what the film studio should have done is Instead of doing a purely Eddie Brock movie, I suggest doing a Flash Thompson movie. Or if you still want to do Eddie Brock, just give him Flash's origin of getting the symbiote and adapt that story and a bit of the License to Kill story. Flash has a lot of things going for him to make him a compelling character for audiences. He's a patriot, a vet who lost his legs during a war, a recovering alcoholic who still struggles with it. These some of the things will hit home for a lot of people. You put him in a situation where he wants to serve his country again but he has to do through the government with an alien symbiote and a bomb attached to him. Also I propose the first villain not even be a symbiote character, it could be the villains from Flash's run as Venom, Crimemaster and Jack-O-Lantern.
Circling back to Venom 2, ironically enough I didn't hate this movie. It's very forgettable and the plot is super thin, but it's a movie that doesn't really pander or preach at the audience. I do think this is worse than the first movie. 4/10.