As Eminem once said, “They ain’t gonna know what hit ’em when they get hit with the Venom: The Last Dance.” The third movie of the Venom trilogy has arrived in theatres. While Sony’s Spider-Man Universe has given us some truly unwatchable movies like Morbius and Madame Web, the Venom movies have always been a dim (not bright) light. The first two Venom movies were mildly entertaining superhero flicks that have stayed afloat due to a dual performance from Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock/Venom that’s so committed that it could get him committed.
Venom: The Last Dance keeps up the streak. While this may be my least favorite installment, it gives us more of what we want to see from this series. And what do we want to see? The titular character. Venom is one of the best superhero characters in contemporary cinema. He is absolutely hilarious. Everything that comes out of this alien creature’s mouth is gold. While this film does not reach the comedic or crowd-pleasing heights that the first movie reached, we can always count on Hardy’s fantastic voice work as this brash, irreverent character to bring in some high-quality laughs (particularly during a scene that involves David Bowie).
Before we get into how entertaining Venom: The Last Dance is, we must address the strange way this series was almost incorporated into the MCU. The mid-credits scene of Venom: Let There Be Carnage had audiences freaking out three years ago because it brought Venom into the Marvel Cinematic Universe as he encounters Tom Holland’s Spider-Man on the news. Two months afterward, Spider-Man: No Way Home featured a mid-credits scene that sucked Venom right back into his own universe. It’s strange to have a mid-credits scene that teases a Spider-Man villain finally about to face off with Spider-Man, only for him to get yanked away two months later, and now, we have yet another sequel with a story that does not revolve around Venom’s nemesis, Spider-Man.
The SSU has been a disaster of studio meddling, given that it’s called the Sony Spider-Man Universe and Spider-Man has not shown up once (and no, Madame Web does not count). This is a strange franchise filled with brief references to Spider-Man. You can practically see the legalities here, as Eddie Brock can only reference the Avengers but cannot appear on screen with any of them. So, after teasing an integration of the SSU and the MCU, Eddie gets sucked back into his own universe, and the movie moves on from the multiverse/hive knowledge plot as if it never happened.
You can feel some more possible studio interference, as a plot thread or two from Venom: Let There Be Carnage gets abandoned here and replaced with other ideas. But Venom: The Last Dance works the best when it’s letting us spend time with our central character. The opening action sequence has Venom facing off against bad guys. The fight choreography is excellent, and we also get to see Eddie take on the bad guys. It’s fun to see Eddie take a more active role in the action rather than fully having Venom take the wheel. The movie also gives a plot reason for allowing Hardy to have as much screen time as possible.
Kelly Marcel directs this film in her feature directorial debut. She was formerly a screenwriter for the first two Venom movies and wrote the screenplay for this movie based on a story by Hardy and herself. She does a serviceable job with the direction. She’s become the leader of a series following directors like Ruben Fleischer and Andy Serkis. It’s daunting, but she steps up to the task. She matches their quality without exceeding it or overstaying her welcome. The direction of every scene, from the action to the dialogue scenes, manages to be perfectly acceptable.
Venom: The Last Dance aims to be a buddy road movie with Eddie and Venom. This could be great, but like the rest of the series, this film only musters up the ability to be good. These films can qualify as guilty pleasures because they’re the equivalent of cinematic fast food: they have no nutritional value whatsoever but are delicious in every bite. You go into a Venom movie expecting perfect writing and high art, and you can expect disappointment. You go in expecting viciously fun escapism and one-dimensional, breezy entertainment, and that’s what you’ll get.
The film attempts to infuse some more heart into this series, particularly with a new hippie character played by Rhys Ifans. He’s a welcome addition and gets incorporated into the plot quite well. It felt necessary to incorporate this character because Eddie’s ex-girlfriend Ann and her husband Dan are nowhere to be found in this one. This series has moved on from them, instead focusing on the heartwarming bromance between Eddie and Venom while setting up a future for the SSU (which I’m sure we’re all dying to watch with bated breath).
Juno Temple’s supporting role as Dr. Teddy Payne and Clark Backo’s role as Sadie Christmas feel a bit shoehorned in, but the stakes are higher than ever in Venom: The Last Dance, with a finale that brings everything to a height that the series has not reached yet. The issue is that it’s often a clunky ride getting to each story beat. For example, the trailers have featured Eddie arriving on the Las Vegas strip and putting on a tuxedo. Vegas is a picturesque setting for an action set piece, but the film spends no more than six minutes here. The movie relies on a dumb decision here to move the plot along and tries to cover it up by being entertaining.
Is it entertaining? Yes. But the movie should have stayed in the Vegas setting longer. It would have been nice to feel the departure from the San Francisco setting and have our final battle occur in a heavily populated Vegas street with bright lights, casinos, and the Bellagio fountain. But much like Venom was quickly yanked out of the MCU, we are quickly yanked out of Vegas for a final act in a dark, empty field.
Regardless, does the final act deliver what we wanted? Yes, it does. And we can be satisfied with how crazy it is. It reminded me of the finale of another threequel: X-Men: The Last Stand. Like that film, the finale of this movie feels the most like what you’d expect out of a large-scale superhero battle sequence.
While some of the military scenes feel disposable compared to the rest of the movie, it works best when Eddie Brock and Venom are at the forefront. These movies are essentially bromantic comedies, with their chemistry serving as the lifeblood of what keeps these movies from being personality-free. While I can’t say that the villains in this film are as interesting as Riz Ahmed’s or Woody Harrelson’s characters from the first two, Venom: The Last Dance has enough entertainment value to keep you watching. You won’t be in a rush to watch it again, but if you have two hours to kill, this movie delivers exactly what you’d expect. If you didn’t like the first two movies, you won’t feel differently about this. But if these movies scratch your guilty pleasure brain like me, then have at it.
SCORE: 7/10
As ComingSoon’s review policy explains, a score of 7 equates to “Good.” A successful piece of entertainment that is worth checking out, but it may not appeal to everyone.
