‘Venom: The Last Dance’ Review – New York Venom
Sony’s Venom and Venom: Let There Be Carnage have this cheesy enjoyment factor. The writing has always been bad, but there have been these little chunks of accidental greatness along the way. Like whatever the lobster sequence is in the first film and just the fact that we saw Carnage make the jump to live action at all; bad Woody Harrelson wig or not.
Venom: The Last Dance sees Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) in Mexico as he and Venom are still on the run after the finale of Let There Be Carnage. Eddie is now the prime suspect in the murder of Patrick Mulligan (Stephen Graham). Thinking they could blackmail a lawyer into helping them clear Eddie’s name, Eddie and Venom decide to head to New York City.
Meanwhile, a nasty creature called a Xenophage is hunting Venom. Knull, the creator/king of the symbiotes, was imprisoned long ago and can’t escape with what’s known as a Codex. A Codex is formed when a symbiote brings its host back to life. He has sent the Xenophage to Earth to retrieve the Codex from Eddie/Venom.
There’s also Imperium – a government operation located at the almost-shut-down Area 51 – that wants to capture all of the symbiotes and study them. A soldier named Rex Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor) wants to destroy them all while lead scientist Dr. Teddy Payne (Juno Temple) wants to study these remarkable alien life forms under a microscope forever.
Kelly Marcel slides into the director chair for the first time while once again reuniting with Tom Hardy to write the screenplay (they co-wrote all three Venom films together). The writing is bonkers when you stop to think about the storyline.
The entire film is essentially a road trip that teases Eddie and Venom getting married in Vegas, has the two of them going to the most densely populated city in the United States while a worldwide manhunt is looking for them, and is probably the most unserious film about what could be some powerful mega alien hellbent on demolishing the world.
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While the first two Venom films had visual effects that mostly played off of shadows and smoke to keep the symbiotes partially hidden at all times, The Last Dance shows Venom in broad daylight constantly. Even when the action gets heavy everything is well-lit by either sunlight, explosions, or the constant glow of Las Vegas.
The ridiculousness comes in the form of Martin (Rhys Ifans) and his family as they’ve given up their jobs and their lives in order to drive across the country in order to see Area 51 before it’s shut down for good. They’re hippies who like to sing during long drives and basically try too hard to be the comedic relief of the film.
Tom Hardy has been saying that this is his last go-round as Eddie Brock and that The Last Dance wraps up the Eddie Brock and Venom saga nicely (according to him). What Hardy means is that his current contract is only for three films. When and if they start powering through Tom Holland’s fourth Spider-Man film and if the Venom symbiote jumps over to the Spider-Man franchise then fans may finally get that Tom vs Tom on the big screen that they’ve always wanted.
Since Hardy has always voiced Venom, he has been talking to himself for most of this Venom trilogy. However, it feels so final here. Eddie and Venom talk about being together forever, seeing the Statue of Liberty, and how neither will forget each other. Running gags in the film include Eddie never being able to keep a decent pair of shoes, Venom just wanting to dance and have fun (he has an entire dance sequence with Mrs. Chen), and Venom singing along with Martin’s family as they sing David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.”
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The Xenophage has this Arachnid from Starship Troopers kind of appearance, but it’s really difficult to kill. It bends and cracks back into place even when it’s broken. In one of the best action sequences in the film, Venom first encounters the Xenophage while clinging onto an airplane that’s currently mid-flight.
The Last Dance is also much bloodier than you’re probably expecting. Venom bites off four heads in the opening of the film, the Xenophage spits out this spray of blood from the back of its head whenever it devours something, and the film is probably one of the few PG-13 films to have its one F-bomb be a mother F-bomb.
Venom: The Last Dance isn’t going to win you over if you didn’t like the first two films, but it does go in some unexpected directions and is fairly entertaining. Nearly every action sequence with the symbiotes feels like an homage to creature features and giant monster movies.
With its corny dialogue and disjointed storyline that is all over the place, Venom: The Last Dance feels like the end of a trilogy that truly doesn’t care that it isn’t comic-accurate or even significantly good by the normal definition of the word.
The Last Dance is like being trapped in a car with no brakes and a crazy lunatic you’ve never met behind the wheel. It’s entertaining because it’s chaotic and this bizarre bromance that is way more impactful than it should be is legitimately just one guy that enjoys making silly movies that barely make sense. And just keep in mind this is all coming from a massive Tom Hardy fan.
Venom: The Last Dance (2024), Sony Pictures Releasing
PROS
- Tom Hardy's chemistry...with himself
- The action is solid
- VFX is the best of the trilogy
CONS
- Feels like it's written badly on purpose
- Barely makes any sense
- Seriously, there's a Venom dance number in this
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