2018’s “Venom” was hardly a unanimously loved film. Yes, it has its defenders (myself included) that will admit to the film’s many, many shortcomings, but also praise the superhero movie for its great lead performance from Tom Hardy. And there are plenty that will say the film was terrible, and that the A-lister jumping into a tank filled with lobsters in the middle of the restaurant is proof of its awfulness. Those people are obviously wrong. But regardless of what team you’re on regarding “Venom,” everyone can probably agree that the post-credits scene introducing Woody Harrelson’s Cletus Kasady is…uh, not good.
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Unfortunately, in a first look picture at Harrelson’s return, courtesy of Tom Hardy’s Instagram feed, to the character in “Venom 2,” it appears that Cletus isn’t changing his look much between films.
For those that haven’t seen “Venom” or left before the post-credits scene, Harrelson was a surprise addition to the film, shown only briefly as the future villain Cletus Kasady, aka Carnage. Many comic book fans can immediately tell you that Kasady is a character that is supposed to be ugly (he’s a serial killer with no redeeming qualities), with a bright mop of red hair on his head. But for some reason, when you see Harrelson portraying the character (his acting is fine!), the wig that is used looks almost clown-like. It’s distracting.
And while the picture of Cletus that Hardy shared on social media is very dark and obscures a lot of the details, if you crank up the brightness just a bit, it’s clear that Harrelson’s character still has that curly mop on top of his head. And if it looks anything like the first film, the actor can play Carnage as evil as he wants, but there will still be giggles in the crowd. That’s no shade at Harrelson, who is an inspired choice for the character. Instead, that’s just proof that no actor can wear that wig and pull it off on screen.
That being said, this is still an out of context picture, with some serious filters thrown on. So trying to say that Cletus Kasady is going to be a bad character and sink all of “Venom 2” is silly. We’ll just have to wait and see what director Andy Serkis has up his sleeve to make Carnage the formidable, scary villain he deserves to be.
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You can watch the post-credits scene from “Venom” below, as well as seeing Hardy’s recent Instagram post. (We recommend turning up the brightness to get a better idea what Cletus looks like.)