"Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings"and "Venom": two-fer review

"Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings," a 2021 action film directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, tells the story of "Shaun" Shang Chi (Simu Liu), a man who's been trying to escape from his past. He currently works as a valet, but in his youth, he was trained by his father Wenwu (Tony Leung) to be a top assassin. Wenwu possesses the mystical Ten Rings, which grant him enormous powers, and he has been on a quest to enter the magical village of Ta Lo, where he is convinced he can reunite with his dead wife (Fala Chen), a former guardian of Ta Lo and mother of Shang Chi and his sister Xialing (Meng'er Zhang). What Wenwu doesn't know is that the voice he hears calling him from the beyond isn't that of his wife, but rather that of the Dweller in the Darkness, a trapped soul-eater looking to be released into our universe to wreak havoc. Shang Chi's friend Katy (Awkwafina) comes along for the ride as Shang Chi is forced to confront his past, his family, and a great cosmic danger.

Overall, "Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" wasn't horrible, but it also didn't cohere well as a story, and it was actually hard to figure out what the film's central conflict was. Was it Shang Chi versus his past? Shang Chi versus his father? Shang Chi versus the Dweller in the Darkness? Was the film's emphasis supposed to be on how Shang Chi was trying to find his own identity? Was it a parody of or commentary on Asian parenting, with the heavy expectations that Asian parents often foist onto their children? Hard to say. While often visually pretty, "Shang Chi" engaged in far too many CGI fight scenes for my taste while leaving undeveloped any number of potentially rich storylines. And some plot points were ridiculously implausible, such as the idea that Shang Chi's little sister, barred by sexism from being trained alongside Shang Chi, could secretly train herself to be as good as, if not better than, her brother. The movie often felt like a college try at world-building without anything coalescing into a coherent world. In the end, the film was substance-free and not too compelling, but it worked on the turn-your-brain-off level of much Marvel entertainment.

2021's "Venom: Let There Be Carnage" has the distinction of being directed by Andy Serkis, who knows a thing or two about motion-capture characters. The story continues to explore the relationship between reporter Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and his alien symbiote Venom (also Hardy, but with an altered voice), who needs to survive on a particular chemical found in chocolate, but in even greater quantities inside human brains. Venom manifests in several ways, often taking Brock over and making him do things he couldn't otherwise do: he can appear as a muscular humanoid around Eddie, almost like a suit of armor, or he can appear as one or more flexible tentacles, or even as a head attached to a long, rippling neck so he can converse with Eddie directly. Eddie becomes the focus of serial killer Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson), who manages to bite Eddie at one point, allowing him to absorb a bit of Venom into him. This bit of alien tissue becomes Carnage, who has no compunctions about eating human brains (Venom has agreed to eat only the brains of bad people; Carnage follows no such rules). Carnage helps Cletus escape Death Row and go in search of Cletus's old girlfriend, a mutant nicknamed Shriek (Naomie Harris), whose ear-splitting screams can cause physical injury. Unfortunately, these alien symbiotes have two weaknesses: fire and loud noises, and this means that, while Carnage is happy to help Cletus find Shriek, the alien can't stand it when Shriek uses her power.

I didn't feel that the plot of "Let There Be Carnage" was really leading up to much of anything; nothing about the network of conflicts felt inevitable, necessary, or even urgent. Cletus Kasady sees himself as a serial killer who is unjustly misunderstood, and later, he tells Eddie he simply wants Eddie as a friend. Eddie is still trying to move on from his relationship with Anne (Michelle Williams), and he's having trouble in his weird relationship with Venom. The movie felt disjointed and directionless at times, which may be more of a problem with the scriptwriting than with the direction. I still have trouble understanding the rules by which the alien symbiotes operate. In 2007's "Spider-Man 3," directed by Sam Raimi, it was established that the symbiote was specifically affected by resonant noises. In "Let There Be Carnage," however, the symbiotes are hurt by loud, sharp noises of any kind, which is why Carnage can't stand it when Shriek uses her power to get the bad guys out of a jam. If the aliens can't tolerate noise, why does Venom appear in a loud nightclub, and how is it that Carnage can let out a deafening roar without damaging himself? Also: why do Eddie and police detective Patrick Mulligan (Stephen Graham) both speak with New York-ish accents despite being West Coasters (the actors in both roles are English, by the way)? None of this makes any sense, and when a film fails in its basic logic, it'll also fail to pull the viewer in. That said, I found some of the dialogue uproariously funny, and Venom's line right before Cletus Kasady meets his fate was golden. Overall, "Venom: Let There be Carnage" was sporadically entertaining, but with a good bit of script-doctoring, it could have been much better.