Venom: The Last Dance (2024)

1 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

Symbiote Meal

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

This third and supposedly final entry in this "superhero" series, Kelly Marcel's Venom: The Last Dance is more of the same, endless exposition, an over-reliance on visual effects and explosions, and no real characters or story.

After briefly being sent to an alternate universe, Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is returned home only to discover that he's wanted for the murder of Detective Mulligan (Stephen Graham). Eddie and Venom decide to head for New York to try to start over. On the way, attached to the outside of an airplane, they are attacked by a huge monster with big teeth. After the fight, Eddie plummets into the middle of the Nevada desert.

Venom explains that this monster is after their Codex, a kind of energy force that reveals itself when they go "Full Venom." They are attacked by Rex Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and his team of soldiers, but escape. Now stranded, they receive help from Martin (Rhys Ifans), a UFO-obsessed traveler and his family, who drops them in Las Vegas. The monster attacks again, and they are brought to a secret facility below Area 51, where Dr. Payne (Juno Temple) is in charge studying symbiotes. Eddie realizes that there is no escaping, and that it's time for a final showdown.

Venom: The Last Dance starts badly, with a stringy-haired super-being issuing some kind of warning (all exposition) that goes in one ear and out the other. We meet up with Eddie just after his little cameo in Spider-Man: No Way Home, and then we get the arbitrary idea for a road trip to New York. (Venom's wanting to see "Lady Liberty" somehow becomes a major motif.)

The rules for the Codex seem totally arbitrary, and only exist so that either Eddie or Venom will have to die to save the day. Indeed, nearly everything seems arbitrary, from the government deciding to de-commission Area 51, to the very existence of some of the characters.

For example, Mulligan (from Venom: Let There Be Carnage) is brought back and turned into a symbiote for basically one reason: to issue the same warning that the stringy-haired fellow did. Otherwise, he's not necessary.

It's especially disheartening to see such talented people as Temple and Ejiofor choke on their ridiculous dialogue. They never once talk to each other or listen to one another; it's all explaining or accusing.

Truthfully, the entire idea is flawed, given that Venom kills without consequences in order to "fuel up"; he was initially created as a supervillain in the comics, and the attempts to turn him into a hero for the movies are sketchy at best. The showdown is, predictably, all shooting and explosions and creatures being tossed around or ripped to pieces, and death doesn't matter.

The only saving graces in Venom: The Last Dance are its professional FX and the sporadic laughs we get from Eddie and Venom's bickering. But when it's over, it's hard to care. Like Eddie says after riding an alien horse, "that was horrible."