Spider-Man - Across The Spider-Verse

Webs Are Flowing
Out Like Endless
Rain Into A Paper Cup

Spider-Man -
Across The Spider-Verse
Directed by Joaquim Dos Santos,
Kemp Powers & Justin K. Thompson
USA  2023 Sony/Marvel
UK cinema release print

Warning: Yep, there will be plenty of spoilers here.

Spider-Man - Across The Spider-Verse is the direct sequel to Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (reviewed here) and has been made back to back with its sequel, Spider-Man - Beyond The Spider-Verse, which comes out in cinemas this coming March 2024. So, yeah, if you’re expecting this one to end with an unresolved story plus a cliffhanger, you’d be absolutely right. In fact, don’t even bother sitting through the end credits on this one because, surprisingly, this one has no mid or post-credits scenes on it.

Now, I quite liked the first Spider-Verse movie, even though I had no idea who this Miles Morales was and, yeah, it took me by surprise. This second one also managed to take me by surprise because, after the densely packed previous installment, I really didn’t expect this one to be much more than a disappointing repeat of the first one at best. Well, I was completely wrong because... and I don’t often say this or take this kind of statement about new movies all that kindly or credibly but... this one is at least as good as the first movie, if not better.

The story on this one follows on from the post credits sequence of the last one, where Spider-Man 2099 (played here by Oscar Isaac) seems to be monitoring the state of the multiverse. However, Miles Morales (played by Shameik Moore), it turns out, is not even supposed to be the Spider-Man for his version of reality because, as it turns out, the spider that bit him in the first movie was actually from another dimension and this, plus a couple of other things happening, including a hilarious new villain called The Spot, have set up the interconnecting universes on a crash collision and, long story short, Miles father has to die to avoid a catastrophic incident. Cue many, many different multidimensional incarnations of Spider-Man trying to stop Miles from returning to his own dimension to save his dad from imminent destruction.

The film looks great, employing different animation styles and colour palettes throughout. It also has a superb voice cast including Hailee Steinfeld returning as Gwen Stacey, aka Spider-Gwen and various other actors, sometimes returning from other related Marvel movies. Such as J K Simmons once again returning briefly as J Jonah Jameson and, in a wonderful live action moment, Peggy Lu reprising her Mrs. Chen role from the two Venom movies. Biggest shout out, though, goes to the superb performance put in by Daniel Kaluuya as the British Spider-Punk. And, of course, all these wonderful performances wouldn’t be possible without the brilliant writers who make both the dialogue and story superb. Note to Hollywood... pay the damn writers who are, at time of writing, on strike. Get your priorities right here!

Now, I heard a review of the film which pointed out that there was a lot of stuff being thrown at the audience all at once but, underneath all that visual chaos, the film has a warm, beating heart which enables you to care about the main protagonists. I’d say yes to the second point but, honestly, this one didn’t hit me as much of an information overload of a spectacle as the first. There are a lot of visual and audio jokes for sure but I think I caught most of them and this one seemed, if anything, to make a lot more sense than I thought it would. To the extent that the big twist reveal near the end of the movie, such as it was, came as no surprise to me by that point in the story.

However, it was a logical story beat so it didn’t disappoint me as such and, that particular villain reveal aside, I also loved that another villainish character in this movie is as much one of the heroes as he is a villain. But his complex psychological needs to ‘parent’ what’s going on in the Spider-Verse kinda turns him into a villain too.

The film would be nothing, of course, without Daniel Pemberton’s follow up score to his wonderful job in the first movie and I am keeping my fingers crossed that some company will release this one on a proper CD at some point and, not just stick with a useless electronic download of the score.

And I think that’s me pretty much done with Spider-Man - Across The Spider-Verse. I absolutely expected it to be, well, not that great but, I absolutely loved it and will be first in line when the third movie comes out early next year. Would recommend this to anyone who loves the various Marvel characters and a script that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Good stuff.

Venom - Let There Be Carnage

Carnage Hall

Venom - Let There Be Carnage
USA/UK/Canada 2021
Directed by Andy Serkis
Marvel Studios/Columbia

Warning: Slight spoilers
concerning the mid-post-credits scene.

The first Venom movie (reviewed here) really shouldn’t have worked at all. Without the Spider-Man character as a catalyst for the look of the ‘suit’ that is Venom, it really doesn’t make much sense, either. However, despite the bizarre gymnastics to get the character into a stand alone film and giving him a totally new origin story (which, as I said, makes no sense), the first movie was a really fun, good time at the cinema... so I was more than happy to reacquaint myself with the character for a second movie.

The film once again stars Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock/Venom and Michelle Williams as his ex-girlfriend... and, as teased in the post-credits scene of the last movie, we have Woody Harrelson back as serial killer Cletus Kasady. Kasady becomes Carnage in this move in the most totally unlikely and unconvincing way, it has to be said. The film also features modern Miss Moneypenny Naomie Harris as a version of Shriek from the comics.

So all well and good and I’m here to say that the sequel, Venom - Let There Be Carnage, is a fun if frothy and insubstantial sequel to the first movie (well, even more insubstantial than the first movie at any rate). Certainly, the film is all about the humour as Eddie Brock and Venom try to live with each other and much of the film’s comedy comes from them trying to work out a few kinks in the symbiotic relationship. So there’s a scene played for laughs where Venom is trying to cook up a breakfast for Eddie to cheer him up after he has been heartbroken by the impending marriage of his ex, where he practically wrecks everything in the kitchen in the pursuit of culinary delight. There’s also a nicely done ‘break up’ scene where the two have a massive argument and go their separate ways in the movie for a while, just as Carnage comes into play and Cletus/Carnage is hunting down Eddie for a quick fix of revenge.

And it’s all... fine. Just fine.

It’s also, maybe, a bit of a mess. There’s nothing much but gloss and, coupled with the fact that the movie runs for just over an hour and a half, which is a nice running length for a movie normally, it feels like it’s finished before it’s even begun properly. The resolution, such as it is, just feels one or two set pieces light before you should be getting to that point and maybe, it turns out, a two hour running time is best suited to movies with big, modern, mythical characters. Which is strange because the action all feels epic but the scope of the story does not. Very little actually happens which is why it’s lucky we have some great performances to carry the movie by the likes of Tom Hardy and Woody Harrelson here. Without actors of this pedigree, I suspect that this movie might have really dragged.

I still don’t think the imagination is quite there for the alien symbiotes in these movies though. Venom, as CGI and fluid a character as he is, still feels like some guy standing around in a suit (even if, you know, he isn’t) and, okay, the precedent has been set for that character in the previous movie so it’s fine to go with that here. But, the real problem is that Carnage, who always looked really ragged, edgy and dangerous in the comics (at least from the cover art that I remember) really doesn’t look all that different from Venom in the movie. He’s red and a little more scrappy for sure but, I felt they really needed to go to town a little bit more on the visualisation of the character in this to give him a more distinctive feel. I just felt he needed to be a bit more splintered from reality and all over the place but, still, the character works fine as a psychotic version of Venom to an extent and it looks fine on screen... it just doesn’t really feel as perilous as Harrelson’s pitch perfect reading as human serial killer Kasady, it has to be said.

But it’s still a nice blend of comedy and action and the scenes with Peggy Lu playing the grocery shop owner Mrs. Chen build on the ones from the first movie and should definitely make you smile. There’s also an extra added dimension to where things go at the end of the movie. While Venom is trying to show Eddie some of the things it knows about the universe at the end of the movie, something happens to them which transports them to a different aspect of the multiverse and they end up in a hotel room watching J. Jonah Jameson’s reveal that Peter Parker is Spider-Man... a different look at one of the post credits scenes from Spider-Man - Far From Home. Which means two things. One, the Venom moves are officially crossing over with the current Marvel Cinematic Universe and two, the various multiverses are beginning to collide. I can’t guess for sure as to whether this happens before Doctor Strange messes up the spell in the next movie... after all, this could be a reason that original post-credits scene happened but, saying that, going by the first trailer for Spider-Man No Way Home, the spell appears to get cast as a reaction to something similar happening in the first place so... yeah, I guess the jury’s out on that one.

Anyway, speculation aside, if you liked the initial stand alone Venom movie then you should have an okay time with Venom - Let There Be Carnage. It doesn’t have a great deal going for it but it is suitably entertaining and that’s more than enough reason to go see a movie anyway, right? So it’s fine.