"Venom: The Last Dance" is the third and final installment in the "Venom" trilogy and the fifth film in Sony's Spider-Man Universe. Once again starring Tom Hardy in the lead role, it concludes the saga of one of Spider-Man's most notorious foes on an unremarkably dull and forgettable note.
Sometime after the events of "Venom: Let There Be Carnage", both Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and Venom are on the run after they are framed for the murder of Patrick Mulligan (Stephen Graham). With every cop in the vicinity searching for them, the pair decide to head east towards New York City, believing that all of their problems can be sorted out on the opposite side of the country. Unbeknownst to the duo, the evil symbiote creator Knull (Andy Serkis) has sent one of his monsters to Earth to hunt down and kill them, adding further complications to their predicament. As both the human and symbiote fight off their respective adversaries, it quickly becomes clear that Eddie and Venom's time together could very well be reaching its end.
If I had to describe Sony's solo "Venom" movies in just one word, it would be "inconsistent". Granted, I have greatly enjoyed the way Sony nailed the character's physical appearance, voice, and personality traits but they just had to ruin it by placing him in two watered down and tonally inept films that left me begging for a more gory R-rated experience that would have suited him much better. However, compared to Sony's other solo Spider-Man villain movies, these definitely rank among the studio's better offerings, although that certainly isn't saying all that much. As its title implies, "Venom: The Last Dance" is in fact the final Venom solo film in the series and after suffering through what it has to offer, not a moment too soon.
Even from the very start, it's quite obvious that the film is going to offer nothing new in terms of entertainment that we haven't already seen two times previously. The story begins with Eddie Brock sitting in bar in Mexico getting drunk and chatting to the bartender about a large purple alien who was responsible for half of the universe disappearing for five years. We then see that Eddie and Venom still have a rather contentious relationship with each other, of which the film plays mostly for laughs. But soon the pair must set aside their petty differences upon seeing on TV that Eddie is a wanted man, setting the stage for what you could probably call a road trip movie. The duo decide to travel to New York City, but since Eddie is low on cash, they must hitch a ride instead... by plane. Although this may be a decent set-up for your typical buddy comedy, this is unfortunately where the film peaks, meaning it's all down hill from here on out.
One of my main complaints about the first movie that was somewhat corrected in the second was the constantly awkward attempts at comedy, with nearly every joke falling flat. It would appear that the filmmakers thought they had something going the first time around, because instead of learning from their mistakes, this third film contains no moments of comic relief that actually work. What we get are the same repetitive jokes involving Eddie wanting to do something with Venom saying no, or vice versa. Since Eddie is the only one who can hear Venom's voice when he is talking to him, he always looks like he is talking to himself out loud with other people looking at him like he is crazy. Jokes like this were mildly amusing in the last two films, but by now the novelty has long worn off and I can't help but assume they only included these gags to pad out the run time as opposed to wanting to make the audience laugh.
Additionally, the film is also overstuffed with so much bland exposition and filler that it greatly affects the pacing. There were several scenes of military personnel trying to explain the origins of the symbiotes on Earth, but it is done so in the most boring and tedious way imaginable. The dialogue scenes between these people are so clunky and poorly written that I find it hard to imagine that anyone actually proofread the script before deciding to film with what they had. As much as I wanted to learn more about Venom and his race, I frequently found myself unintentionally tuning out during these moments, hoping in vain that the next scene would be more exciting to watch, which it rarely ever was. Even the film's climactic finale felt undercooked in its execution, merely meandering from one mediocre CGI fistfight to another.
Worse still, nothing about Knull is ever interesting enough to pay any lasting attention to, especially considering we never really feel like he is much of a threat throughout the story. For instance, in one scene Eddie and Venom are in Las Vegas trying to win big on the slot machines and this alerts one of Knull's creatures to their location. As the creature and Venom do battle, the fight is over in minutes after quickly being broken up by a group of generic military soldiers. Even though I could tell this scene was supposed to be important to the story, I just couldn't bring myself to care about anything that happened due to how anticlimactic it felt. If this were just one scene, I could maybe let it slide, but nearly every moment involving Knull's character, who is supposed to be the true link to Venom's symbiote homeworld, is treated in this manner, making it near impossible to care about any significance he has within the plot.
In terms of visuals, the best way to describe them would be a mixed bag. As mentioned earlier, Venom himself looks great and I did like watching him use his powers of combining his body with something organic. In one of the film's most notable scenes, we see Venom fuse with a horse as a quicker means of transport across the large wilderness. This is the closest the film comes to looking visually appealing as we see Venom use this opportunity to demonstrate his ability to jump from one living creature to another, including other animals like fish and frogs. However, the same cannot be said for everything else, especially in regards to Knull's symbiote creature. It's difficult to feel intimidated by something that doesn't even look properly rendered into the movie, as this thing looks like the product of early 2000s CG.
Although the overall quality of the films have been has spotty at best, one thing I've always enjoyed watching throughout this trilogy is Tom Hardy's performance as both Eddie Brock and Venom himself. This dynamic can be compared to that of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, albeit, with a decidedly more comedic undertone. Even with some of the awful lines the characters have said and questionable things they have done, Hardy always looks like he's at least having fun with the duel role, never taking himself too seriously and playing up the ridiculousness for the sake of our entertainment. Without spoiling the ending, I did actually like this one part where Venom is talking with a supporting character for what could be the very last time. It's such a shame we may never get to see a more brutal, gorier take on the character of Venom, as these films have always gone for the safer alternative in having the camera cut away from any moment that could push these films' ratings above a PG-13.
As this inconsistent trilogy of films draws to a close, "Venom: The Last Dance" may not be the absolute worst way for things to end, but it certainly could have been a whole lot better than what we got. These films have been hampered with so many problems involving tone, plotting, pacing, and varying degrees of entertainment value, but I suppose if you set aside these obvious handicaps, there is still some fleeting fun to be had in watching Tom Hardy play the title role. This is much more that can be said for Sony's other stinkers like "Morbius" and "Madame Web", which has me concerned for the direction things will be going for the upcoming "Kraven the Hunter". At this stage, all I can do is wish Sony the best of luck trying to top their three "Venom" films, because they are definitely going to need it.
I rate it 4/10.
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