In life, only two things are certain. Death and Taxes. However, when it comes to the life of a film, death is only certain if the taxes are too high. Films rarely end nowadays. Well, there’s a literal ending, but the story remains alive, but on ice. Like a mosquito in amber, most modern blockbusters’ narratives are preserved, stuck in a state of inaction, waiting for the next sequel, reboot, or “reimagining”. Especially in today’s franchise-focused filmscape, it’s becoming more and more difficult for stories to have an end, a conclusion where everything wraps up and we say goodbye to these characters once and for all. Venom: The Last Dance, for some reason, attempts to do this, and, in the humble opinion of this one guy, kinda pulls it off?
Look, Venom, the 2018 film centered around a popular (or possibly THE most popular) Spider-Man villain that does not even feature any mention, nod, or reference to the webhead, is one of the most bizarre success stories of the modern superhero genre. Making $856 million worldwide, it was the 7th highest-grossing film of 2018 and possibly the only true success in the Sony Spider-Man villain cinematic universe thing. This led to 2 sequels, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, which grossed over a reasonable, yet still mildly disappointing $500 million worldwide, and the recently released Venom: The Last Dance, which may not make as much as the last two.
So why Venom? Why did the Tom Hardy-led superhero flick, that dared to ask, “What if we made a movie about a space parasite who has a homo-erotic relationship with a bumbling “New Yorker” in which he eats people, but only bad people and with no blood and gore so we can make it PG-13 because who else is gonna see this besides a bunch of teenagers and a few adult nerds?” become such a success? Well, they’re just simple, fun action movies with a likable, and, more importantly, memeable superhero duo at their core. Technically Tom Hardy is both Venom and Eddie Brock, the “New Yorker” I brought up earlier but don’t worry about that, they’re two characters who happen to have the same voice. This basic principle mixed with the odd-ball narrative choices and supporting cast of beloved actors proved to be enough to spawn a trilogy that I personally enjoy a lot.
The final chapter of this trilogy depicts Eddie and Venom on the run from both the United States government, who view the duo as a threat to national security, and Knull (played by Andy Serkis, who, fun fact, directed the last film), a cosmic being of immense power who needs Venom’s “Codex” (Don’t worry about it) in order escape from his space prison, which also happens to be Venom’s home planet. Now, if you’re not caught up to the last 5 years of Marvel comics, Knull might seem like the most out-of-left-field antagonist for the “Lethal Protector” and you’d be right, but we’ll come back to that later. While our heroes are on the run, they must survive encounters with High-Level Special Forces Operators under the command of Chiwetel Ejiofor and a deadly, near-invincible space creature called a Xenophage. Meanwhile, a scientist played by Juno Temple leads a secret government research group that is studying the symbiotes to better understand them at their secret facility located below Area 51, which is being decommissioned for some reason. Rhys Ifans plays a guy named Martin Moon, a middle-aged man whose life dream is to see an alien, who has spent all of his life savings to go on a cross-country road trip with his family to the soon-to-be demolished Area 51. Oh and look! There’s Peggy Lu playing Mrs. Chen again! And Stephen Graham’s back from the last movie? Huh..?
The plot is a mess with one too many supporting character backstories and a villain that feels both generic and insanely out of place. With a runtime of an hour and 50 minutes, The Last Dance moves at a brisk, but steady tempo, where we get exposition, a quick action scene, then a new character backstory, more exposition, another action scene, and repeat until the credits roll. Action scenes and set pieces do keep this film alive via creative choices like having a fight scene take place in a whitewater rapid or having a Venom dance number to a remix of ABBA’s Dancing Queen, but they don’t completely save the movie. There are simply too many things going on here and it feels like two, maybe even 3, Venom sequel scripts were dumped into a blender, and then served up as one messy smoothie of a film.
While overall structure and plot might be lacking, Hardy is not. As the soul of this franchise, Hardy’s performance as both Eddie Brock and Venom is the anchor that keeps this film from going completely off course and into the Bermuda Triangle like the rest of the Sony Spider-Man films, where no character actor has returned from. Both characters are more emotionally open with one another, with Venom being honest about how much he enjoys being with Eddie and how badly he wants to see the rest of the planet with him. It’s honestly kind of sweet, in a weird alien parasite turned off-beat relationship kind of way. On the flip side, Brock shows his vulnerabilities as a self-imposed outcast, unworthy of being loved, and refusing to open up to anyone besides his alien parasite best friend/partner. I wouldn’t call this performance nuanced, but there’s something to dig into when the movie gives it time to breathe. Unfortunately, 3 other script ideas need to happen, so it never really gets enough time to shine.
Speaking of other script ideas, Knull is a complete dud. As an antagonist, he’s such a nothing-burger who sits in a chair and threatens that he might be a big deal at some point. Possibly the most cliche and boring villain of the 2020s, Knull demands to be taken seriously without actually doing anything to warrant any credibility besides the fact that he did some heinous stuff before the universe even began. The film starts with him basically explaining why he’s in the movie and there 2, possibly 3, scenes where characters explain Knull’s deal, and these are the worst scenes in the movie. His minions, the xenophages, have an interesting design but fail to be anything more than a CGI monster that refuses to die (for some reason). Spoiler, but Knull makes a promise that we will see him again, and I’ve never wanted a plot line to be dropped more. My dream is that Knull goes the way of another recent supervillain where he is quietly erased from the slate and forgotten just as soon as he’s introduced. Hopefully, it comes without having to cancel Smegol in the process.
Overall 3 out of 5
So a bad script, a bloated story, unapt side characters, and a lackluster big bad. Why should anyone see this? Well, if you’ve been on the ride for this long, you might as well finish it. I know that sounds like a poor reason to spend $20 bucks, but I’m serious when I say that The Last Dance does feel like a proper conclusion to this bizarre experiment that was a Venom film franchise. If you’ve enjoyed the wacky hijinks of Eddie Brock and his space parasite boyfriend Venom as I have, then The Last Dance should fit right in as another fun time at the theater. This isn’t high art, there are no deeper themes, no interest in an expanded universe, and no cameos to other characters from other franchises. None of that stuff was ever the goal of the Venom films. They were simply an excuse to have fun adventures with two losers, and I had a good time while they lasted. Sure he might come back in Spider-Man 4 or whatever, but it’s nice to know that this story got to end the way it wanted to. Venom: The Last Dance is what we deserve as fans of this character and these stories, which is an oddly heartfelt and inherently silly conclusion to the Lethal Protector’s story. 3 out of 5, but in the best way.
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