BEFORE: I went on a linking tear yesterday, actually most of the hard work was already done, because I've maintained a separate list of documentaries I have (or are available to me) that I also WANT to watch, and that list is already in linked form - although honestly there's so much overlap in appearances (thanks to archive footage) that there are probably a million ways those films could be organized. I can get into more details when the time comes, but I at least had those films in SOME order that I was OK with, and wouldn't you know, those 40-plus films are already arranged in a circle, the last one links back to the first, so I can enter the list from any starting point and go in either direction, which also would then determine the ending point at the same time. So at this point it's just about getting to Father's Day and then looking for the nearest on-ramp to the Doc Block, then figuring out if I'm OK with the exit. Because before I get in, it's good to know that I've got a way out.
So I linked to Father's Day - I maybe got the date a bit wrong, looking at an actual calendar might have been a good idea, because this year it's on June 15, not what I thought. I've got plenty of films about fathers, so linking to one wasn't a problem at all - in fact, I linked to SEVEN, five of which are in a row. As long as one of those lands on June 15, I'm good. But I kept going, as there was one entrance to the Doc Block right there - but it didn't place an appropriate film on July 4, which is important. Sure, i could tear apart the whole doc chain and piece it back together in many different ways, but it was easier to just add three more films to the mix and get a new entry point, two more directions and two more chances, and I found that a film about 'Murica lined up almost exactly where I wanted it to be, so there, it's done, the Doc Block is connected.
There are still one - no, wait, two - OK, three more docs that I want to add to the mix, but then that's it. I'm programmed through to August 5 (or is it August 8?) and this will almost entirely clear the documentary section of the list. And like I said, there's a ton of overlap - if a film becomes unavailable, I'll just skip it and move on to the next possible connection, as there's bound to be one. I could work hard and move all the films about rock stars together, all the films about actors together, and so on. But what would that get me? Let's not rock the boat, I only just made it sea-worthy. And I only had to move ONE film from May's line-up to August to get a good outro, more on that in a few days.
Rhys Ifans carries over from "Nyad". The other bonus seems to be that I've got all FOUR outstanding Marvel movies programmed now, so let's start crossing those off. And once i get to mid-August, I can figure out my horror chain and how to get there, at that point another Movie Year will be almost completely planned out.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Venom: Let There Be Carnage" (Movie #4,161)
THE PLOT: Eddie Brock and Venom must make a devastating decision as they're pursued by a mysterious military man and alien monsters from Venom's home world.
AFTER: Honestly, who remembers what happened in the last Venom movie, that was like almost 900 movies ago! Just me? Really, it's only been three years our time and ZERO years in the Venom-verse. This movie picks up right where the last film (and "Spider-Man: No Way Home") left off, with Venom being sent through a portal from the MCU back to his universe, the, umm, Venomverse? Sony-verse? It's apparently the same universe as "Madame Web" and "Morbius" and maybe "Kraven", but it's one without a Spider-Man, at least so far. Which means that this Eddie Brock went to the MCU for no reason, it was some kind of cosmic clerical error because he can't possibly know that Peter Parker is Spider-Man if he lives in a universe that has no Spider-Man and only lesser villains. Who the hell is in charge here? Is this all going to sort itself out during "Secret Wars", or will that just be an excuse for Marvel to re-cast every single character when the biggest names in show-biz turn out to be unavailable?
I mean, this movie is probably fine, but isn't it just more of the same? It feels like some writer just reviewed the plotlines of the previous two films and extrapolated where to go next, using all of the exact same pieces, but once you do a painting or a jigsaw puzzle once, don't you kind of want to do something different the next time? OK, Venom goes to Las Vegas, big deal, but it just leads to a stupid dance number (?) with the woman who ran the deli in San Francisco, and does that even make any sense? Right after that, we're back to a secret army lab where someone is trying to weaponize the symbiotes, but we've seen all of that already!
I went back and re-read my review of the 2nd Venom film, and there I predicted that the next un-logical place to go with Venom's story would be to adapt the "King in Black" crossover, which was where Knull got free from his Klyntar prison and invaded Earth, turning it into a planet full of symbiotes, wouldn't that be something? Blacking out the sky, giant symbiote dragons, all of the world's heroes coming together to defeat the evil power. It felt like this third film WANTED to go there, it introduced Knull as a character, but then didn't do anything with him. HUH? Isn't this the last film in the trilogy, if you don't have Venom fight Knull in this one, when's it going to happen? NEVER? You can't just tease me with the creator of the symbiotes being held captive in an intergalactic prison and then NOT release him to ravage the Earth!
Instead, Knull sends his Xenophage aliens to Earth - through a portal of course, which saves a few hundred light-years of travel time - but enough with the portals already, too! They were a cool story device to get Eddie Brock to the MCU (and back, for some reason) - so portals that only transcend space seem kind of lame compared with the ones that connect to the multiverse. What's worse, this all seems to be done just to show what it would look like if Venom battled the alien from "Alien", or perhaps more accurately, the Acklay seen on Geonosis in "Star Wars: Episode II". Just me?
The Xenophage is trying to get the "Codex" which is part of the Venom/Brock hybrid being, and they explain what a "codex" is by saying it was formed when Eddie died in the previous film and Venom used it to bring him back to life. This doesn't make any sense, how can using it create it? Anyway, there's a symbiote codex in the comic books, but it's a completely different thing - this one can be used to break Knull out of captivity, which would probably be a BAD thing, so either Brock or Venom has to die in this film to make that impossible. But in the comics, a codex is created within a human host whenever a symbiote bonds with it and then later separates. It's a residue of genetic information that allows the former host to connect with the collective hive-mind. The hive-mind is therefore able to preserve the consciousness of the host as a sort of "afterlife", like a copy on a back-up drive, so this way the writers can kill off a character again and again, so the story never needs to end, which is important for comics to survive as a medium.
So why would Venom merging with Eddie Brock, or bringing Eddie back to life, create some kind of key that would unlock Knull's prison on Klyntar? My guess is that this will become important in the NEXT Venom film, if there is one, and it's really too bad they couldn't make this important NOW, this film could have been a lot more relevant, instead Venom battles the xenophage aliens on the site of the U.S. military testing lab, and well, that's it. There's another character left over from the previous film who's bonded with another symbiote, and two different people who work for the military get bonded to other symbiotes, but it hardly matters - the film didn't even bother to give those characters cool names like Shriek or Riot as before. Which suggests they won't be around for very long. Sure, there's a family of hippies who Venom encounters, traveling to Area 51 to see aliens before the place gets shut down, but this is a very long sub-plot that ultimately goes nowhere, too.
Eddie finally makes it to New York, but who cares, because there's no Spider-Man there for him to become the arch-enemy of. Maybe he can hang out with Morbius or Kraven or Madame Web, but if he's never going to be part of the Sinister Six and battle Spider-Man, I'm a whole lot less interested. Knull should really take over this planet and turn everybody into symbiotes, because it's really dullsville, when it could be Knullsville. The closing credits show various Earth animals hosting symbiotes (in addition to the horse that Venom bonded with during the movie) so maybe that's a hint of things to come.
The Venom comics did an even weirder storyline over the last couple of years, where Brock's Venom did some time-traveling and met a bunch of characters who allegedly were all future versions of himself, the main one being a villain named Meridius. So apparently Venom's going to live forever, but undergo various metamorphoses, and changing his name to Finnegan, Bedlam, Wilde, Tyro and then finally Meridius, but thanks to some kind of timeless limbo garden that Meridius rules over, all of these characters can interact with each other and fight each other (only they can't kill each other, because time travel). Rarely has there been a more confusing storyline in comics books, with a main character fighting all of his future selves, most of which don't even talk, because that would make things even MORE confusing. It all came to a head about a year ago in a crossover called "Venom War" where these character all came to Earth at the same time and battled each other, and Spider-Man (wearing the Venom symbiote again) and Eddie Brock's son, Dylan (who also was Venom for a while).
At least this storyline cleared the decks somewhat, and now we're back to having just ONE Venom in the Marvel Comics, but it's not Eddie Brock, because now he's got the Carnage symbiote, or something. But now there's going to be a whole Venomverse, too - kind of like how there's a Spider-Verse, and all the Spider-Men and Spider-Women hang out together or fight each other or both, only this will be all the Venoms from around the multiverse together in the same comic book. Just when you think the multiverse is completely out of hand, the Marvel writers do something like this that just makes it MORE - not better, maybe worse, but definitely just MORE. Maybe it sells comics but enough, already.
The movie Venom is still a weird character because it's not really a hero and not really a villain, and it does bite some (bad) people's heads off, and we're not sure if that makes Eddie Brock a cannibal or not, like, umm, where do the heads go?
Directed by Kelly Marcel (writer and producer of "Venom: Let There Be Carnage")
Also starring Tom Hardy (last seen in "Furiousa: A Mad Max Saga"), Chiwetel Ejiofor (last seen in "Kinky Boots"), Juno Temple (last seen in "Far from the Madding Crowd"), Stephen Graham (last seen in "Venom: Let There Be Carnage"), Reid Scott (ditto), Peggy Lu (last seen in "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse"), Clark Backo, Alanna Ubach (last seen in "Fool's Paradise"), Cristo Fernandez (last seen in "Spider-Man: No Way Home"), Jared Abrahamson, Hala Finley (last seen in "Unplugging"), Dash McCloud, Andy Serkis (last seen in "Einstein and Eddington"), Jack Brady (last seen in "A Royal Night Out"), Ivo Nandi (last seen in "Lying and Stealing"), Jake Allyn (last seen in "Sweet Girl"), Otis Winston (last seen in "Plane"), Jacob Tomuri (last seen in "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga"), Brooke Carter, Fflyn Edwards, Elizabeth Cook, Martin McDougall (last seen in "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny")
RATING: 6 out of 10 dogs rescued from a dog-fighting ring (the best thing Venom does in the whole movie)
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