Venom: The Last Dance

4 outta 5

Venom: The Last Dance is a fun entry into a comic book superhero series that has always been a bit askew. It offers more spectacle than the first film although it isn’t as full on crazy as the second film was. This movie strips out a few elements from the series that weren’t the most compelling, adds more alien monsters, and really narrows down the relationship between the two leads. That is a bit of a neat trick as the lead is both played by the same guy and one of them is a CGI goo monster. It wraps up these three movies but like standard superhero franchise bait, it teases out even more installments to come, with limited success. For a series that is about a guy with his brain eating alien buddy it ends on a surprisingly heartfelt note. But there’s still monsters and plenty of chaos and corny jokes for an entertaining watch.

Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is on the run with his bonded symbiotic alien friend, Venom (also Hardy). There is a big bad guy in outer space, Knull (Andy Serkis, who directed the last film), that is sending out freaky space creatures to try to find Venom and Eddie because they posses a codex. Meanwhile, a military commander, Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor), is rounding up various alien symbiotes and putting them underground at Area 55, right below Area 51 (kind of lazy but it gets a pass) to be studied by people such as Doctor Paine (Juno Temple). So now Eddie can’t bond with Venom because it alerts the freaky space creatures to his position. So, he hitches a ride with a alien-loving hippie, Martin (Rhys Ifans) and in Vegas runs into his old friend Mrs. Chen (Peggy Lu) but the way to finally defeat Knull may be the end for Eddie and Venom.

The plot about how Eddie and Venom have a codex that Knull wants is weak. Having the space bad guy search for a codex recalls, in a bad way, one of the weaker elements of Man of Steel. The best part about this movie is when it goes for chaos, symbiote jumping from host to host, and the bickering between Eddie and Venom. In fact, Venom causes all the 3rd act chaos because he wanted to dance with Mrs. Chen, despite when Venom comes out it attracts evil aliens. Worth it, she’s great and in a scant few moments of screentime, and Lu makes her enjoyable. Also, the spectacle in the finale is impressive as a horde of symbiotes are unleashed. The big killer aliens suck victims into their mouths and then shoot the remains out of the back of their heads like something being sucked through a jet engine which is gnarly. Hardy is very fun in the dual roles and Eddie seems constantly exasperated and there’s a bunch of funny quips that Venom makes in response to Eddie proclamations which gives it a buddy movie vibe. The non-Venom characters are a mixed bag, Ejiofor is the dramatic hardass he’s good at playing, Ifans as the hippy has some fun moments and unexpectedly emotional bits with his family. As the doctor, Temple’s entire character seems to be defined by a weird backstory about her brother being struck by lightning.

Cristo Fernández who played the bartender in Spider-Man: No Way Home who has a conversation with Eddie reappears here when Eddie gets zapped back to his own universe, and the bartender is becoming a likable everyman character in the Marvel movies. Poor guy in the MCU has his family disappear and Eddie stiffs him in the cheque and Earth-688 bartender has Venom wreck his bar and he gets kidnapped, and eventual reveal of what happens to him is a fun scene. This movie repeats the bar scene from No Way Home and it feels like a reshoot (or at most alternate takes) as Hardy’s line deliveries here are a hair different. And when he gets zapped back into his own dimension it’s like him being sucked into a boom tube and not the white fade out from No Way Home. Maybe they didn’t want to pay Marvel Studios or Jon Watts for the footage?

This movie does seem to close the book on Venom’s character, but he’s a goo monster that sheds pieces, one of which was left behind at the Mexico bar in the MCU. If they want him back, he could be back. Also, Knull’s entire character seems to be based around just teasing for future installments. Knull does look cool but he doesn’t do anything in this movie, save for sitting in a chair and screaming at the camera in a mid-credits scene that he’s coming to get them. But it’ll be a heck of a lot less interesting if they try to do it without Eddie and Venom. There are a lot of other symbiotes introduced here, which are fun to look at but not with as much character as Venom.  

If this is, as the title states, Venom: The Last Dance, then it’s a fun and messy note to go out on. These movies have always been weirder than most superhero flicks, but it does prove the character is cool enough to ride on as his own Lethal Protector. As he makes a few friends and eats some heads along the way.