Venom was the first of Sony’s Spider-Man spin-off films — and the first to establish the not-so-proud legacy of Sony’s Spider-Man Universe franchise. Despite its rocky start, the Venom franchise managed to win over many viewers — largely due to the performance of Tom Hardy as both Eddie Brock and Venom. The sequel, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, got shaken up by the pandemic, but doubled down on the unhinged fun of symbiote buddy-comedy with the addition of Woody Harrelson’s Carnage. Now, Venom: The Last Dance comes along to finish off the trilogy strong — but ultimately comes in at last place as a half-formed attempt at a serious superhero movie blockbuster that would be considered average even by 2000s comic book movie standards.
The “story” of Venom: The Last Dance sees Eddie Brock and Venom (Hardy) snatched back to their native reality after a brief (and very pointless) hop over to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (see: Spider-Man: No Way Home). Eddie returns to his reality to find that the battle with Carnage in San Francisco has made him a fugitive. Eddie thinks (for some reason) that relocating to NYC will be the fresh start he needs, and begins his journey there. Unfortunately, Eddie is unaware that Knull, God of the Symbiotes (Andy Serkis) is awake and searching for the codex, a powerful artifact (read: MacGuffin) created when a symbiote and host fuse their lifeforce.
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Naturally, Eddie and Venom are the holders of the codex, so Knull sends some symbiote beasts out across the universe to retrieve it. After barely escaping a first encounter, the symbiote reveals the whole mess of the situation to Eddie, informing him that fully manifesting as Venom acts as a homing signal to Knull’s monsters, so they must travel in human form, with limited (budget-saving) symbiote abilities. However, the threat of Knull is also being tracked by a shadowy organization of scientists (Juno Temple’s Dr. Teddy Payne) and soldiers (Chiwetel Ejiofor’s General Rex Strickland) who have been tracking, containing, and neutralizing symbiotes since they arrived on Earth. That organization also targets Venom, knowing that killing either Eddie or the Symbiote ends the threat to the universe for good.
Kelly Marcel should get praise for arguably directing the most visually coherent and action-heavy Venom film — especially since it is the first movie she has ever directed. Marcel was a writer of the first Venom film and was the sole writer of both Let There Be Carnage and The Last Dance, so she clearly has some creative authority and love for this version of the character. That’s what makes it curious to see Last Dance fall into the trap of feeling like another Spider-Man spin-off film that’s only half-fitted to be part of a bigger universe. The entire storyline about the symbiote-hunting organization and characters like Payne and Strickland are only half-explained but ultimately get positioned to be a bigger part of the franchise going forward. The inclusion of Serkis as Knull seems more like a prank played on the comic book nerds, as the “King in Black” is largely a non-element in the film, and featured in a few scenes where his face isn’t even shown to the audience. If Sony was hoping this was the Avengers “Thanos moment” for the Spider-Man spinoffs … it’s not.
It certainly draws a lot of screen time away from Eddie and Venom, which is understandable: Tom Hardy is largely walking through the film looking worn out from this run — a fact hilariously driven home by an included montage of all three Venom films, which all but demonstrates the diminishing returns for both actor and audience. In the few moments where Hardy does once again muster the chaotic rom-com energy of Eddie and Venom, we get reminded of what (if nothing else) this series achieved. You almost wish Hardy and Co. had leaned into all the online jokes about how Venom 3 didn’t need to do anything more than provide a final showcase of Hardy’s one-man show. Instead, we get an overstuffed, overly serious comic book movie that could tarnish some of its top-talent supporting cast.
Poor Chiwetel Ejiofor (Doctor Strange) is in a military drama only he seems invested in; Rhys Ifans (The Amazing Spider-Man, House of the Dragon) collected a check to chew the scenery as a hippie dad named Martin; Stephen Graham (Boardwalk Empire) has the weirdest bit part (and a two-time wasted villain role) as Patrick Mulligan/Toxin; only Juno Temple (Ted Lasso, Fargo) finds the line between quirky comic book hyper-realism and gravitas so that her scientist character can charmingly run the audience through all the silly symbiote exposition and CGI effects required to set up the third act.
Without spoiling it, it’s hard to get into the absurdity of Venom: The Last Dance‘s final act, climax, and ending. Once again, it feels like Sony has no handle on this universe or what any of it has to do with Spider-Man — heck, fans won’t even leave with a clear resolution over whether this Venom movie saga is over or not (making even the title of the film feel like a misstep).
Venom: The Last Dance is a disappointing Sony-Marvel release to go alongside Madame Web. And the odds for Kraven the Hunter to complete a single-year trifecta of Spider-Man spinoff misses are going way, way up.
Rating: 2 out of 5
Venom: The Last Dance will be released in theaters on October 25th.
