Venom: The Last Dance review: Another sloppy twist

Some people doubted this, but in the end Sony Pictures prevailed. The rights holders of the Spider-Man characters have made a (financially) successful solo film about the cheesy villain Venom—and then tripled for an entire trilogy about the toothy, slit-tongued bastard with oversized, malevolent eyes merging with human reporter Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy). Victory: In the last six years, there have been more films about Venom than films about Iron Man, Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Black Panther or Captain America. In some ways, this trilogy contradicts the character's symbiotic origins by removing any perceived dependence on the hero, who is most associated with this bad-guy-turned-good-guy. But they also adapt to them by replicating the gut feeling you're supposed to feel about black goo from outer space: Yeah, maybe it's best to keep that shit away from Spider-Man entirely.

Venom: The Last Dance nominally deals with the toll isolation has taken on Eddie. Eddie and Venom are still on the run after the events of the previous film and are wanted for the murder of detective Patrick Mulligan (Stephen Graham), who is not actually dead. They agree to travel from Mexico back to the East Coast to somehow clear their name. (One suspects that Eddie is as adept at name-clearing as he is at reporting, his supposed profession going entirely unmentioned in this episode.) Their cross-country trek is halted by the arrival of a giant, rampaging creature from Venom's home planet, who was sent to recover a “codex” within Eddie/Venom, which was activated when Eddie briefly died and came back to life (and remains active until at least one of them dies again). This code can free Knull (Andy Serkis), the creator of the symbiotes, who they subsequently imprisoned for his plans to destroy the universe or whatever. He's a big glass of VINO—a villain in name only, waiting in the shadows to be called upon for his future spin-off of a spin-off. There are allusions to more cosmic and/or multiversal concerns on the fringes of Venom: The Last Dancebut most of it takes place in and around the Nevada desert.

If a barely visible CG mega-villain seething in the shadows on a distant planet while discussing a codex brings to mind the now-defunct DCEU, wait until you see the extremely Zack Snyder-esque opening scene and the fact that this is the case Poison Threequel actually got shot Justice League Cameraman Fabian Wagner. Of course, Wagner is in the fine tradition of Robert Richardson and Matthew Libatique in frantically focusing a film to truly showcase his talents, seemingly in the style of the house. Kelly Marcel, who co-wrote the scripts of both previous films, has been promoted to writer and director—Share a story credit with Tom Hardy himself.

This ensures a certain level of consistency Venom: The Last Danceas well as a final confirmation that yes, these others Poison Movies were like that on purpose. Still, Hardy and Marcel may have some regrets. In one sequence, Eddie meets a family led by the crazy Martin (Rhys Ifans), who takes them on a pilgrimage to Area 51 before it is shut down (which, of course, means bathing the facility in metal-melting acid). In a largely unexplained role reversal, Eddie feels uncomfortable around this semi-loving family, while Venom finds them adorable and even sings along to “Space Oddity” (if only in Eddie's tortured head). It's a funny moment, accompanied by a surprising longing for the human connections that Eddie lacks in his superheroic codependency. Another way to read this is that Eddie/Venom is longing for a better film, one that actually manages to capture the sudden accelerations and decelerations in the plot, the hairpin turns in tone and the industrial-strength performances that are almost entirely British The actors have to cope with American accents (other actors this time include Chiwetel Ejiofor and Juno Temple), all trademarks of the series.

If that regret isn't real, it should be. Reimagining a “cool” '90s-style Marvel villain as a Universal Monster-style antihero is a great, potentially liberating idea for a superhero movie, and offers the opportunity to connect otherwise disparate eras of comics and genre films . Yet three entries consistently undervalue the creature-like characteristics of this trilogy—even in a movie where multiple symbiote variants fight cool, gnarled beasts that exude a grisly mist of blood from the back of their heads after consuming their enemies. Marcel scatters pieces of the lizard-brained chaos everywhere Venom: The Last Dancelike a rushing river chase in which Venom hops back and forth between several animal bodies while Eddie has to fend off the pursuing soldiers alone, without the film ever entirely giving way to deranged abandon. Even the film's self-conscious, whimsical fits, like an impromptu dance number, are exaggerated and abruptly cut short.

An entire trilogy has now been spent trying to keep up with Tom Hardy's performance, a modern special effect in its own right—both in its elasticity to try anything and in its hasty, do-everything sloppiness. It's amusing that Hardy spends so much Venom: The Last Dance He wears shorts and a sweat-soaked T-shirt, is constantly hungover, constantly loses his shoes, and mumbles to himself—the Marvel hero as a bum, in Rocky meaning of the word. It's all the more disappointing when… Poison The series can't think more imaginatively than strategically: if Hardy goes any harder, the greater Marvel Universe may have no choice but to bend in our direction! Like its predecessors Venom: The Last Dance have some fun in the meantime. But in the end it's just a writhing symbiote waiting for a host that never shows up.

Director: Kelly Marcel
Authors: Kelly Marcel
With: Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Rhys Ifans, Stephen Graham, Andy Serkis
Release date: October 25, 2024