In the end, after a long wait (as far as I remember, the film was supposed to hit the cinema much earlier. I remember well that it was supposed to debut six months or a year earlier?), We got a sequel to the first part, which made very good money. The budget was $ 100-120 million, and he earned 856 (or, on a slight count, 500 million pure profit). Sequel had a similar budget, reportedly 110 million, and at the moment (11/27/2021) has earned 456 million, or about 200-230 million net profit. Let me add that "Venom 2" is still airing in cinemas, so it will probably reach 100 or 200 million more. The first part suffered from a similar problem to David Ayer's "Suicide Squad" - it was originally planned as a completely different movie, but at one point the concept was changed, what had already been recorded was re-edited and other changes were made. While in the case of Ayera's film it was extremely painful, because there was a potential for a great production, as shown by the "sequel" from James Gunn, it was less disturbing here - after all, few expected good entertainment from him. At least from what I've seen.
Both pictures earned good money, but the effect was different - the SS killed the brand by deceiving viewers, and "Venom" won the public's recognition. It was something "new" in the context of repetitive, mass and typical for a corporation products. Those that are to earn as much money as possible, be as universal as possible and flattened to the level of a total average audience. I don't blame them, they found a good way to make a lot of money, people loved them (I once did too), but a fool wouldn't milk a cow that produces golden milk. I can, however, criticize them for mass-producing movies like burgers. Did I say "Venom" is new? Well, I lied, it's a reversion to the old pre-X-Men formula by Bryan Singer. Such a journey back to the times when films of this genre were not always too serious and did not earn that much money. We can argue, because the 3 parts of "X-Men" and the "Spiderman" trilogy by Sam Raimi also made a lot of money, but on the other hand, there was no fashion for these movies and looking at the profits, the MCU made more. True, the producers also tried to cash in on non-comic book fans, but could not find the golden formula - that is, they had a problem similar to that which the creators of Japanese cartoon adaptations are currently suffering from. Therefore, I am calm about the upcoming adaptations, they will eventually succeed, and the rest will probably follow their example (such as in the case of "The Boys", "Invincible" etc. which were created largely thanks to Marvel and less DC productions).
Eh, again I wrote too long an introduction ... Well, like I said, I was waiting for this movie. Not so much, because I knew it would be a garbage picture, for which it is not worth having too high expectations, because it is easy to be disappointed. And it's good that I didn't expect too much, because I was disappointed. Before the screening, it seemed to me that I would not be bothered by the fact that Carnage will only appear in this one part, but unfortunately during the course I had to agree with my colleague that Sony wasted the potential on an interesting thread on the basis of which this universe could be built. Not that there was potential for something comparable to, say, Marvel (despite my many complaints, this is one of the things they really did), but it could have been made something better. I don't know comics, and I only know Carnage from the FoxKids cartoon, the game "Maximum Carnage" and a few comic stills, but after what I saw in this film, I saw the potential for at least one more production. By the way, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the creators adapted some of the plots from the comics pretty well. For example, Carnage is the "son" of Venom. In fact, they're not exactly the same as in the comic books (as I know from some YT channels that have covered comics featuring Carnage), but for my ignorant eye, they turned out pretty ok.
I don't have much to write about the plot, effects and actors. In each of these cases, it was average, at best. I liked Tom Hardy moderately in the earlier film, including ... Well, in my opinion, he played poorly. It was better in the case of Michelle Pfeiffer, but this is mainly due to the relationship between her and Venom. Okay, I exaggerated - apart from some of the fragments in which she played as poorly as Hardy, she did really well and it was nice to watch her on the screen. Woody Harrelson played well, but got far too little airtime. I enjoyed his relationship with the symbiote very much, it's a shame they got so little time for each other. Fortunately, I can't say the same about the relationship between Eddy and his symbiote - their conversations, arguments, chickens talk, friendship etc. they turned out great! If part 3 is made, I'd love to see more of them. The rest of the actors ... They just were. Apart from Shriek, which stood out a bit above the rest. Her relationship with the criminal was more or less what I imagined after playing "Maximum Carnage." Overall, the sequel has the vibe of some decades-old junk action movies like Venom 1, but it's done noticeably better. Special effects ... Well, they already look very cheap and I suspect that in a few years I'll be laughing with him, like from kitschy movies from 2 decades ago. Kind of like "Batman Forever".
As I wrote in the first paragraph, the previous section had a problem. She couldn't decide whether to be a poor horror movie or thriller or a comedy. For the sequel, they avoided this problem, but it didn't make us get a much better movie. Yes, he was a bit better, but I wouldn't remember him enough. On the contrary, I will probably forget about it, rather quickly. The first part was worse in all respects, but at least I could imagine it would have been much better if it had been done consistently from start to finish. Here I don't have to use my imagination anymore because they did, but ... The effect is very unsatisfactory. True, I had fun during the screening (unlike "Aquaman 1"), but right after the screening I had the same impressions as after the DC movie - I forgot about it immediately. As if I had just eaten a nice burger, which was not bad, but not tasty enough for me to eat it again. I rate it on 6/10 - it's a good position to watch with friends for beer or vodka, possibly with a girlfriend (because there are some funny situations where you can laugh together), but nothing else. If it wasn't for the relationship between people and the Symbiotes, it would be bad. A wasted idea that could have squeezed a lot more out of it.