Separation anxiety is never pleasant – but then, neither is the continuing bafflement concerning Sony Studio’s Spider-Man free Spider-Man universe. Still, that hasn’t stopped the studio from pressing on with a sense of determination that, if you attributed it to a person, would probably result in some sort of intervention of some kind in order to get them to snap out of their delusion and get back to reality. However, with one of three projects slated this year already being ironically worshiped by being possibly one if the worst films of the year and minimal faith being leveled at the upcoming Kraven The Hunter, it’s once again down to Venom to save the day and any lingering box office that may still exist after bombs like Madame Web and Morbius have substantially loosened the foundations of the superhero movie.
But, as the movie’s subtitle hints, is this really the last dance between scumbag reporter Eddie Brock and his brain eating symbiote companion? And if it is, can Sony really afford to retire them at this point?
After a quick spot of ret-conning that sees the multiversal post-credit endings of both Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Spider-Man: No Way Home get ironed out into something a bit easier to follow, both Eddie Brock and his symbiote partner find that they’ve been framed by a secret military organisation named the Imperium for the death of Detective Patrick Mulligan in the last film and have to end their Mexican holiday by going on the run. However, while the Imperium’s head honcho, Rex Strickland, and its head scientist Teddy Payne are collecting other symbiotes who seem to be arriving on earth at a worrying rate, they mainly are trying to examine the sentient globs of alien mucus and even manage to interrogate one by merging it with a captive Mulligan who isn’t actually dead at all. However, what they learn proves to be actually quite worrying as it seems that Knull, the destructive God and creator of the symbiotes, is anxious to escape the prison where his creations have managed to hold him and all he needs to escape is to grab something called a Codex – and guess who’s got one of those.. ?
Soon, Venom finds that another creation of Knull, the giant, bug-like Xenophage, has been sent to Earth in order the rip out his Codex that is fused with his DNA and is inconveniently located within his spinal column, and so starts a long, dusty road trip that starts in Mexico, will track through Las Vegas and hopefully end up in New York. However, after numerous run-ins with Knull’s monterous errand boy and the Imperium, who wish to take out Venom in order to eradicate the Codex, it seems that both Eddie and the symbiote might have a tough decision coming on the horizon as the only way to destroy a Codex for good is if one of them is to die.
With aliens and government agencies closing in and an honest to goodness God waiting in the wings, is this truly going to be Venom’s last dance?
The Venom series has been a strange franchise to follow since it kicked off back in 2018 as even though they’ve been the crown jewel of Sony’s weird-ass, live action, Spider-Man movies, none of them have been particularly great. Oh sure, the first movie gave us a hulking Venom almost straight out of the comics (still no white spider, though) and enjoyably let Tom Hardy off the chain; and the second film added more of a buddy movie concept and added fan favorite villain Carnage to boot, but both movies positively reeked of studio tampering, featured some lousy writing and never truly managed to overcome the strange fact that Peter Parker’s Web shooting alter ego was nowhere to be seen. Still, that didn’t stop them from making enough bank to squeeze a bona fide trilogy out of the self proclaimed Lethal Protector, and you have to give The Last Dance some credit by choosing to go big and throw symbiote God Knull into the mix.
Only… it doesn’t, and once again Sony’s unflappable desire to launch their own connected universe (or attach themselves, parasite style, to another) results in some typically ropey plotting that sees the Andy Serkis voiced villain spend the entirety of the film stuck in a throne on the other end of the universe, Thanos style. This means that the “last” Venom movie is actually the opening salvo of a far bigger story that no one has any clue about how things can possibly progress and it makes the more overtly superhero sections of The Last Dance cluttered and oddly redundant.
Yes, the Xenophage is an impressive beastie who has the rather unnerving habit of feed it’s victims into its buzzing maw, only to have them liquefied and blown out of the monster’s gills like some sort of living wood chipper, but it kind of leaves the film without any sort of credible villain whatsoever. While Chiwetel Ejiofor sort of fills that gap for a while with his angry, determined military man role, the lack of an antagonist that isn’t a giant, hissing spider-monster, or a CGI despot who doesn’t even raise his head to get his long, platinum fringe out of his face mean that Venom’s last dance is mostly a two-man show – with both men being Tom Hardy.
It’s here that we find the film’s major saving grace as, after two films, Hardy has his Eddie/Venom double act down pat and the film finally manages to rise about its weakness whenever the character is either allowed to chat with themselves or indulge in some strange campness that adds a strange, but genuine sense of sobriety into proceedings, even when Venom is attaching himself to a horse. In fact Hardy (who co-came up with the story) probably whips up some of the best Eddie/Venom interactions here than he ever has before while continuously looking like shit, dropping in odd running jokes (Eddie keeps losing numerous shoes along the way), bizarre action sequences (during a river chase, Venom leapfrogs from animal to animal to avoid capture) and flat out silliness (a full on Las Vegas dance routine with holidaying convenience store owner Ms. Chen) that manage to squeeze some quirk character beats in among the more typical, end-of-the-world shtick.
Still, at the end of the day, Hardy can only do so much against daffy storytelling, weird subplots and a narrative holes that veer on insulting (Knull can’t leave his prison but he can create portals anywhere in the universe? How’s that work?) and yet despite the fact it’s yet another lopsided brick in Sony’s very wobbly wall, I’d probably argue that it’s probably the most fun Venom movie to date. When Sony isn’t coating the screen in CGI tentacles, the banter between Eddie and Venom carry a very real sense of finality that succeeds in carrying some much needed weight that acts as an oddly touching anchor for when the story feels the need to double down on some rather desperate universe building. However, it’s nowhere near enough to help make sense of a connected universe that, after five entries, still feels about as formless and amorphous as a symbiote’s hindquarters.
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