DOUBLE THE MONSTER, HALF THE FUN

Venom: Let There Be Carnage (15, 97 mins) Verdict: No one wins ★★☆☆☆

SUPERHERO movies are always about improbable things, but few have actually been as improbable as 2018’s Venom.

Its main character was a psychopathic alien blob fused to a journalist played by Tom Hardy. That creature normally faces off against Spider-Man in the comics, but rights issues meant that he was stranded in his own movie, outside of the vaunted Marvel Cinematic Universe. All the signs were that it would be a dud.

And yet: Venom was wild, crazy, inventive fun — and it made cosmic levels of cash. So now comes a sequel. It goes by the unwieldy name of Venom: Let There Be Carnage, though it might as well be called Venom: Now There’s A Red One.

Hardy’s oily, black monster has to face off against a scarlet version of himself who is bigger, stronger and spikier. This one is attached to Woody Harrelson’s Cletus Kasady, a serial killer. It’s a setup with a lot of promise: Hardy vs Harrelson, outsillying each other.

Except it doesn’t work out like that. The two don’t spend much time together, and when they do, it descends into some of the most incomprehensible action sequences ever filmed. It’s just a stomachchurning whirl of tentacles. It’s time for Venom to hang up his . . . appendages?