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Venom: The Last Dance Review
Image Credit: Sony Pictures
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Directed By: Kelly Marcel
Written By: Kelly Marcel and Tom Hardy; Based on the Marvel comics and characters
Runtime: 110 minutes
MPA Rating: Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, bloody images and strong language.
Tom Hardy – Eddie Brock/Venom
Chiwetel Ejiofor – General Rex Strickland
Juno Temple – Dr. Teddy Payne
Stephen Graham – Detective Mulligan/Toxin
Clark Backo – Dr. Christmas
Rhys Ifans – Martin Moon
Alanna Ubach – Nova Moon
Hala Finley – Echo
Peggy Lu – Mrs. Chen
Cristo Fernández – Bartender
Andy Serkis – Knull
The Venom film franchise will never be confused for haute cuisine. The previous two entries were much closer to cinematic fast food than anything else. Unfortunately, Venom: The Last Dance more closely resembles reheated airplane food. The threequel does not reach the heights and prestige of its self-important title. Kelly Marcel, who wrote the previous two entries, fails to make the final adventure of Eddie Brock (Hardy) and his bonded alien symbiote pal from another parent a compelling journey. Instead, it’s a poorly thought out, disjointed, incoherent mess.
The Last Dance runs like the executives in charge never watched a good comic book movie, instead opting to view only the bad ones and opting to emulate them rather than avoid them. The film’s editing and narrative plotting look so choppy and disjointed that it appears no one was awake during the editing room. Otherwise, the film was so beleaguered throughout its production during both an actor and writers’ strike. That Tom Rothman was desperate to keep the film under budget. As soon as a semblance of a scene was completed, it was rushed into the final cut with someone at the helm saying, “Good enough.”
Venom: The Last Dance recounts the utterly frustrating bait-and-switch post-credit scene from Spider-Man: No Way Home. Eddie and Venom’s jaunt to Earth-616 is over before it even begins. That means Eddie is still a fugitive from justice, wanted for the death of Detective Mulligan (Graham), after the events of Let There be Carnage. Eddie concludes they should trek to New York City under the flimsy idea he can blackmail a judge into clearing his name. Eddie is supposed to be an investigative journalist. One imagines his journalism degree was printed on construction paper with ink that looks suspiciously drawn with crayons. Unfortunately for Eddie and Venom, the military spooks of Area 55, a government organization dedicated to containing and studying alien symbiotes, are tailing the duo. Led by the tightly wound General Rex Strickland (Ejiofor), they are closing in on Eddie and Venom.
As if that isn’t enough, the oddball duo faces an even graver threat. Knull (Serkis), the creator of the symbiotes, has awakened on the edges of the Void. This Eldritch Abomination resides on Klyntar, where the benevolent symbiotes imprisoned him. Knull is massively peeved but still trapped on Klyntar. Venom and Eddie inexplicably hold Knull’s only means of escape with a conveniently conjured Codex [AN: Codex, huh? Never heard of that McGuffin in a comic book superhero movie before]. Knull unleashes his deadly, vicious servants, the Xenophages, across the galaxy to find the Codex. Xenophages are tailor-built to counter and kill symbiotes. With the proverbial walls closing in, Venom and Eddie are running out of options and places to hide, which means their joyous halcyon days will soon end.
The previous Venom entries suffered from choppy, disjointed editing, but The Last Dance truly takes the cake. The film juts through its plot without adequately setting up locations or crucial story elements. The narrative poorly sets up character motivations. Many of the multitude of characters receive threadbare characterization or development. Running under two hours with credits, Marcel overstuffs the sequel with too many characters and subplots, with tons of sequel-baiting, references, and teases big setups without suitable payoffs. The sequel plays out like Sony’s desperate attempt to emulate the MCU without understanding how or why the MCU worked in the first place.
The Venom film series’ frustrating wait until its final entry to introduce its main villain does it no favors. The movie inadequately integrates Knull’s presence throughout the narrative. He’s utterly unimportant in the grand scheme of things and does not interact with any of the crucial characters. The plot uses Knull to dump a boatload of hackneyed exposition in the opening minutes, but none of his verbose monologues truly matter. Knull appears under the expectation that he’s being set up for future films, but how does that work? The Last Dance is the last Venom and Eddie story. The story makes it clear this is Eddie and Venom’s last stand. In other words, Knull has no one to fight.
The big bad doesn’t appear until now, and he’s still stuck in the background. Knull adds nothing to the overall film because his appearance amounts to very little. It’s difficult to get excited about Knull appearing in the final installment of a film franchise with no idea how, where, and with whom he’s supposed to appear later. Spider-Man doesn’t exist in Venom’s universe. Who are the heroes he’s supposed to fight? Morbius? Kraven the Hunter? Sony desperately wants a shared superhero universe franchise, with Knull serving as the big bad, but they don’t have the heroes or film slate lined up to execute that plan. Sadly, excremental exposition and trite dialogue hamper one of the most exciting new modern Marvel Comics villains who debuted within the last decade. Knull lacks the proper care, planning, and development a villain of his stature truly deserves in The Last Dance.
Chiwetel Ejiofor and Juno Temple, both talented thespians, deliver some of the most awkward performances of their careers in their respective roles as Rex Strickland and Dr. Teddy Payne. Ejiofor is too talented for the role, portraying a painfully one-note, overly militant, sometimes idiotic, paranoid soldier who would prefer to shoot first and then ask questions later. Dr. Teddy Payne is obsessed with her symbiote subjects and wants to learn more about them. Christmas (Backo), another Area 55 scientist, appears equally enthralled with the symbiotes.
Marcel’s script plays like the production split Dr. Teddy Payne into two characters. In the film’s most awkward dialogue exchange, Christmas flatly asks a lab assistant if she’s spoken to her family lately. The lab tech even more awkwardly responds, “Are you OK?” It was a strange inclusion, but such awkward, unnatural human interactions litter the runtime. The alien symbiotes show more personality and realism in their brief screen time than the human characters.
As Eddie and Venom haphazardly make their way across the desert, they run into a family of weirdly inserted hippies who spent their entire life savings with the bonkers plan to visit Area 51, hoping to see a real-life alien before the government shuts down the base for good. The hipsters, led by dad Martin Moon (Ifans), are harmless and wholesome, except for the wild idea that they needed to go broke to visit Area 51, expecting to see aliens. It would have been acceptable if they appeared for one or two scenes as Eddie and Venom make their way across Nevada in the hope of getting to New York City. Unfortunately, Marcel opts to assemble the hipster family into supporting characters and keeps returning to them throughout the film. They easily overstay their welcome. Considering Rhys Ifans’ previous experience with comic book movies, his role as Martin, a scruffy hippy and tertiary supporting character in The Last Stand, is amusingly ironic.
The lone bright spot of The Last Stand is Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock and his oddball friendship with Venom. Sadly, this version of Eddie and Venom never got the chance to play villains or antagonists first before embarking on a redemptive arc that could have put them on the path of becoming the Lethal Protector. In viewing the rapport between the two characters onscreen, the potential for Hardy as a superior version of Venom exists, but The Last Dance puts that idea to bed for good. Despite the film’s countless shortcomings, Hardy’s interactions with Venom provide the movie’s only charming, entertaining moments. Hardy imbues an exuberant naiveté in voicing the quirky symbiote, juxtaposing the alien entity’s lethal nature.
The sequel constantly undercuts the Eddie and Venom duo to throw in silliness, such as Venom dancing with Mrs. Chen (Lu). Earlier in the film, Venom explains to Eddie whenever they transform, they send out a signal with their Codex directly to the Xenophages and Knull. That means Venom cannot transform under any circumstances, lest they draw their enemies to them. They can perform partial transformations, but later, Venom transforms for a goofy dance sequence with Mrs. Chen set to “Dancing Queen,” and chaos predictably ensues. That scene perfectly exemplifies The Last Dance’s inane stupidity. It was Venom who was desperately trying to lie low and refusing to transform in the first place! It would have made far more sense if the transformation happened because Venom had no other choice or performed the act to save Eddie’s life from a grave wound. But nope, Venom’s gotta bust a rug in Vegas, baby!
Director Kelly Marcel isn’t totally to blame for the threequel’s incoherent messiness. In her directorial debut, she had the unenviable task of directing a comic book movie sequel under a rigid studio system under the oversight of inflexible studio executives who were clueless about the Marvel Universe. Not to mention, she had to direct the movie through two prolonged labor strikes. Making a movie is a tiny miracle, so completing Venom: The Last Stand was probably extremely challenging. It’s no wonder the film looks like a chaotic train wreck.
Sony Pictures remains desperate to create a carelessly thought-out shared Marvel Universe, using Spider-Man adjacent characters who can never interact with Spider-Man or the rest of the Marvel Universe. Sadly, The Last Dance still perpetuates this flawed notion, even as a final entry of a film trilogy. Venom: The Last Dance represents the trilogy’s legacy of lost potential.
