I was really looking forward to this. I enjoyed the first one and the trails for this sequel looked fun... What happened? It is all over the place. It starts off promisingly enough with an enjoyable set piece with "Eddie" (Tom Hardy) and Michelle Williams ("Anne") - aided by some pithy one-liners from an unseen "Venom" but after we are introduced to "Cletus" (Woody Harrelson) the thing really hits the skids. The entertaining elements from the first film, the humour and - dare I say it, the symbiotic relationship/tolerance of man and amoeba are thrown under the bus for this angry CGI fest. Add to this pretty dry mix the rather pointless character of Harrelson's childhood sweetheart "Frances" (Naomie Harris) alias "the Scream" (remember the symbiotes don't like fire of sound), with her own agenda against copper "Mulligan" (Stephen Graham) and the whole thing just boils down to a very good looking film - but one with a plot that was almost non-existent, and that robbed the formidably sarcastic "Venom" of much of the charm that made the original work. Come to think on it - Hardy hardly features at all. I didn't hate it - it has a pace that passes 90 minutes effortlessly enough, but sorry, I was really disappointed.
