
Sony Pictures
Venom: The Last Dance is, most likely, the final film in the Venom trilogy.
That weirdly breaks my heart.
I was never a Venom fan. In fact, I actively loathed the character for decades.
I worked for thirteen years in one of the largest comic book companies in the Northeast, ten of those years as a manager and district manager.
In all those years I TRIED to read a Venom comic and I literally got about an issue or two into a series and had to stop because I just didn’t care.
It wasn’t until these stupid movies that I had any interest in the Lethal Enforcer and any of his adventures.
What that says about me or about the films, I don’t know. But I unironically love the first two Venom films.
They are dumb and fun.
I am sure this automatically dismisses me in some people’s brains as someone whose opinion means nothing now but the fact is, I am here writing this piece and you aren’t so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Venom: The Last Dance picks up almost exactly where the second film, Let There Be Carnage, ended. We find Eddie in a bar in Mexico trying to wrap his brain around the events of Infinity War, Endgame, as well as the events of “The Blip”, where the post credits scene in Spider-Man: No Way Home took place. He just about gets it when he is sucked back into his world as a result of Doctor Strange healing the multiverse (for now) at the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home.
We discover the symbiotes had imprisoned a ruthless and evil being named Knull on their homeworld in their universe and then scattered to escape his inevitable wrath. When it is discovered that Eddie and Venom hold the key to Knull’s escape, the Codex, Knull sends out his Xenophage hunter destroyer creatures to retrieve it and kill any symbiotes in their way.
Meanwhile, a military commander (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and a scientist (Juno Temple) are studying the symbiotes at Area 51 to understand why they are here and what is their ultimate purpose. And just for the heck of it, let’s add in a hippie (Rhys Ifans) and his family looking for evidence of the existence of alien life traveling to Area 51 before it is decommissioned.
Why not? All their destinies converge in a final, improbably ludicrous battle that could mean certain death should Eddie and Venom not stop the minions of Knull as well as discover how to destroy the Codex Key.
It is all way more convoluted and tangled than it really needs to be.
Oh, and I didn’t even mention the extremely shoehorned in Mrs. Chan cameo scene that sort of advances the plot but in the end wasn’t truly necessary.
It was all a lot. And where sometimes a lot can mean good. Here a lot means… a lot. Not quite Michael Bay “a lot” but close.
I love Juno Temple, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rhys Ifans, Stephen Graham (reprising his role as Detective Mulligan from Let There Be Carnage), Andy Serkis, et. al but I feel like they weren’t really given much to do.
Especially Graham, who spends most of the film sitting on a bed looking bored and possibly tired. Most of the actors spend their screen time doing a thing and then giving exposition as to why they did the thing in the first place.
Writer Kelly Marcel, who penned the previous two films, is back as writer along with Hardy co-writing the story. Marcel also helms the film in her directorial debut, taking over from Andy Serkis who directed Let There Be Carnage. She does a capable job though I had kind of hoped that having her as both the film’s writer and director it might have been a little tighter and more coherent. Instead it is all over the place.
Not that I was expecting some high art or mind blowing film , but I had hoped The Last Dance to continue the same level of ridiculous fun and focused storyline.
I can’t believe this is a sentence I am about to write; I think Venom: The Last Dance may have lost a certain panache of the previous two entries. Not to say I didn’t enjoy it. I did. I just didn’t love it like the previous films.
Now, when I say “love” I mean, my love of Tom Hardy.
Let’s be honest, these films are all about Tom Hardy. It is the joie de vivre he brings to these films as both Eddie Brock and the titular character, Venom that makes these films so enjoyable.
The Venom films are ALL about Hardy.
Even when he isn’t physically on screen, Hardy’s voice acting as the monstrously delightful Symbiote is captivatingly charming. And honestly it seems like his heart wasn’t in this one as much as it had been previously. It seems like he mostly “phoned in” his performance here and made me sad.
Sure, Mrs. Chan is fun in small doses and for the most part the supporting cast are all great but ultimately do not have anything really to do here. Without Hardy fully invested, this series doesn’t play. So when I say I don’t love it as much as Venom and Venom: Let There Be Carnage, I’m really saying Venom: The Last Dance should have gone out on a spectacle of raucous extra Tom Hardyness that should have been an all out bonkers romp.
Venom, Like Doctor Who, is best when it is weird. And this film just felt like it wanted to take itself too seriously and that heaviness is what ultimately sank this film for me.
Overall, the film fell very flat.
Perhaps my not so stellar review of this film comes from my deep rooted sadness that I know that this is probably the last time I am going to see Tom Hardy play Eddie Brock/Venom on screen. Unless some miracle happens and he get to reprise him in an upcoming Spidey film *fingers crossed*.
Perhaps Hardy was thinking about this fact while filming it so he wasn’t 100% as committed as he usually would have been. He continues to be the heart and soul of this franchise especially in the wake of the dreck Sony continues to pump out.
Though, I still haven’t seen Kraven The Hunter yet… So maybe there is hope. HAHA.
Extras include featurettes, interviews, deleted & extended scenes, outtakes & bloopers, and pre-visual scenes.


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