Marvel Hits the Big Screen with Gods and Goo

I’m not sure what they are doing over at DC, but Marvel has been pumping out the movies. Marvel has had 3 recent movies and 2 more to come before DC puts out their next one in March. It’s not like the Marvel ones have been lower quality either. The movies have been quite good. The two most recent are Venom: Let There Be Carnage and The Eternals. After the first movie, I was really excited to see a Venom sequel despite the credit scene reveal that Cletus Kasady would be played by Woody Harrelson. Even given that point, I definitely planned to see the second movie. The entry in Marvel’s schedule that really confused me was The Eternals. Although they pop up from time to time with their own title, they are a fairly obscure and unknown group in the Marvel Universe. I figured that it would be worth checking out, especially when the cast list showed that Dane Whitman would be included. I’m a big Black Knight fan so that excited me. Both movies were fun but I definitely enjoyed Venom more. One thing about The Eternals I enjoyed though was the upset so many people had over the fact that there was going to be a gay kiss in the movie. People were giving it bad ratings even before the movie was released because of this. That’s pretty ridiculous and gives you an idea on how closed minded and spiteful people still are in the U.S.A. But, let’s talk about the good stuff that was in the movies.

One of the best parts of Venom is the humor. The conversations between Eddie and Venom sometimes seem like a therapy session with Venom being the psychiatrist. The fact that Venom picks up on things that Eddie misses shows that he may actually be the smarter of the two anyway. You have to admit that being tied to someone like that would be annoying after all the time since the first movie. People in relationships or living together need breaks from each other whether it’s a night out on the town or visiting friends. Eddie and Venom can’t even get away from each other to use the bathroom so it’s no surprise they get on each other’s nerves. This time, Venom does go out on the town though, leaving Eddie and looking for a new host. Venom at a club with all the people there was the really funny part. No one knew who or what he was when he was attached to the new host but they all thought he was cool. Venom ended up in the bodies of a few other people than just the ones at the club too, each with some fun encounters. These were high points of the movie.

Now let’s move on to the other side of things with Carnage. They had the CGI for Venom down already so the animation of Carnage was good. I really don’t think Woody Harrelson was the right choice to play Cletus though. I’m not a Spider-Man comics fan so I haven’t read all the stuff with Carnage but what I have read makes me feel like the character should have been a little more extreme. It just seemed forced in the way that Woody made the character feel. And then there’s his partner in crime, Shriek. This is a character I’m not familiar with at all. I had to look her up to realize she was actually connected to Carnage in the comics too. She just annoyed me though. I’m not sure if she’s portrayed in the comics as she is in the movie, but she was creepy and not in a fun way. I looked forward to the scenes with her to be over.

The big battle scene at the end was pretty good and the interactions between Eddie, Venom, Anne, and Dan were good too. I know Carnage isn’t a humorous character so I don’t expect those parts to be as interesting as the Eddie/Venom stuff, but I really think they could have been a lot better with that side of the story. There’s a set-up for the next movie though as Detective Mulligan is ready to become the next symbiote, Toxin. I may have to research him before the next one but that’s still a ways off.

Now, let’s move on to The Eternals. While a decent movie, it definitely pales in comparison to Venom: Let There Be Carnage. To start off, you’ve got a whole group of people that most of the movie goers have never heard of and you have to build them all up at the same time. The movie fails to do that well. Some connections are made between characters (primarily Ikaris and Sersi), but you really don’t connect to them much. It was hard to care about what was happening to most of them. Gilgamesh seemed interesting so I was really disappointed when they ended up killing him. I understand that it was probably due to his connection with Thena and what they needed to do with her, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it. With the news of a gay character, I was trying to figure out who it would be. At first, I thought it was going to be Kingo given the way he acted, but it being Phastos was pretty cool. His connection to his family and wanting to save the Earth for them was one of the few good pieces of character development among the Eternals. The special effects and battle scenes were very good though. The action portions were a big part of what kept the movie interesting.

I know movie studios often use creative license when they do up the stories. The story behind the Eternals was pretty messed up though. Yes, the Celestials had a part in the Eternals existing, but it was more of an evolutionary thing. They experimented on early humans. They were not created in a lab like robots. In fact, Thanos is an Eternal though I expect that to be ignored in the MCU. This is definitely one of the biggest deviations from the comics I’ve seen.

I was really hoping to see more with Dane though. I wanted to see the Black Knight appear, but it was not meant to be. The end scene showing the Ebony Blade and showing a bit of how the blade affects him was nice. It was good to see that part of his mythos wasn’t being ignored. I had to look to see who the voice in the background was though. It was Blade. It’s weird that they would have the voice with no way to tell who it was without checking the movie credits because you have little idea what was actually going on. I had heard about the possibility of another Blade movie (thankfully without Wesley Snipes) so it made sense and both characters are linked to darker magic so I can’t wait to see what they do with the 2 heroes. One other appearance that I loved was Starfox/Eros. The look they had for him was great and pretty much spot on. I’m not sure what Pip the Troll was doing with him as I normally associate him with Adam Warlock, but I guess we’ll have to see what they do with these two.

If you could only see one of these movies, Venom: Let There Be Carnage would definitely be my choice. It’s definitely worth seeing both though. I’m not sure how the Eternals are going to play into whatever else they have planned for future Marvel movies so it’s always good to know what has gone on so far.