#also I still don't love chalamet for paul atreides but seeing the trailer on the big screen does have me fucking HYPED for dune

[thatsparrow]

just got back from the theater, post-let there be carnage thoughts

shit fuck man I missed going to the movies so much I missed going to the movies SO MUCH I know this isn’t specific to let there be carnage but genuinely movie theaters dark rooms overpriced popcorn overwhelming sound levels my beloveds

truly an incredible amount of romance in the movie. fully leans into the premise that these two are in a relationship together in a way that is jokey at the surface but is clearly working from a genuine emotional place

the end scene…the beach…the toes in the sand…”did you say you love me?” like!!!

for a movie called ‘let there be carnage’ there was. shockingly little actual carnage

I get that’s what happens with a pg13 rating (is that what explains the uh very vivid ‘carnage suffocates a man by literally shoving his tongue into his lungs’ scene bc there wasn’t as much visual gore involved?) but it did feel odd that we only got hints/promises of carnage’s violent potential without really exploring it (even him just going on a violent rampage for the fun of it. like all of his superpower uses were very goal-oriented as opposed to carnage for carnage’s sake)

absolutely a+ usage of their one allotted ‘fuck’

the hinting-at notion of carnage also applies to cletus when he’s just in his woody harrelson form, too. yes, they give details about the violence in his youth, but for a first act that leans so heavily into cletus’ past as a serial killer to set up the chain of events, we hear/learn very very little about what he actually did

the sequence where venom goes on his break-up spiral though…bedecked in glow sticks…gets up on stage to prove how much better he is without eddie…the very mournful “I wish eddie could see me”…truly boyfriends in love with terrible communication skills

I would have happily seen SO much more of venom!michelle williams

don’t get me wrong, I like a movie that can tell its story in 100min, but the actual plot did feel pretty thin

buck WILD to introduce shriek—a character whose abilities are fundamentally at odds with a symbiote’s existence—and not have her introduce any consequences to cletus/carnage beyond hinting at the divide between the two of them

that said, the scene where venom’s like ‘we need sound’ then looks at shriek meaningfully before. fucking bodyslamming her into grace cathedral’s bell to start it ringing KILLED me

I like that they gave dan something to do! I’m a fan of the trend (also see ant man and the wasp) of our male hero recognizing his ex has a healthy relationship with someone else and not resenting her new partner

although…..fucking speaking of the cathedral scene…….”they’re not symbiotic, we are” let there be carnage really said “eddie and venom are soulmates” like!!!

sonny and cher my beloveds

of course I’m annoyed with the post-credits scene but I think the thing that annoys me the most is trying to make the hard pivot into venom being a villain for holland!spider-man

like he looks at peter and instantly goes “gotta eat that boy” inexplicably! absolutely nothing prompts this except wanting to adhere to the comics!!

you could have extended the ‘venom on his own’ storyline and fleshed out the plot a little further by having venom (while possessing random san franciscans) actually eat somebody now that eddie isn’t keeping him in check, foreshadowing that those impulses are just as present and just as powerful

BUT it’s so much more meaningful to have venom—away from eddie, able to act out and go full praying mantis re: head biting—to curb that impulse! even when eddie isn’t around, his voice is in venom’s head! at some level, venom doesn’t want to disappoint eddie even when eddie would never know!!

which is sort of the whole problem with introducing hardy!venom into the holland!spider-man storyline (excepting the much larger, disney is consuming everything please make it stop problem) which is you can’t spend two movies setting up venom as a heroic character (imperfect, admittedly, but still driven by heroic-ish impulses) only to then have him go into some sort of rabid villainous state when he sees holland!spider-man because??? he hates spiders or something I don’t know

i want to end on a high note so woody harrelson’s hawaiian shirt/blazer combination was an absolute look