‘Venom: The Last Dance’ Movie Review: The Third One Is A Turd In The Wind For Sure
Photo from IMDb
From Jeremy Kibler
Leave Madame Web alone. While that non-starter in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe was as silly as a mom researching spiders in the Amazon right before she died, Dakota Johnson’s deadpan, almost indifferent performance made it tolerable. Venom: The Last Dance, though, is the one more deserving of a pile-on, as it bills itself to be the conclusion to an enjoyably wonky but aggressively mediocre trilogy but can’t even do that right. Why should it tell a complete story when the future of the franchise is more important? Screenwriter Kelly Marcel (who wrote the first two Venom movies) makes her directorial debut with Venom: The Last Dance, a turd in the wind — or, to be slightly nicer, stupid, unfocused and cacophonous nonsense. And while this is intended to be “the last dance,” promises are always broken when money talks.
Tom Hardy is mostly phoning it in at this point as Eddie Brock, the San Francisco reporter on the run. But he’s still having an unhinged blast as Venom, Eddie’s white-eyed, grin-toothed parasite. When we last found the happy couple, they were in Mexico, living the fugitive life and slamming down mai tais at a bar (just like in the post-credit scene at the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home). Just as Eddie/Venom gets sent back to his original universe (Sony, not Marvel), a piece of the symbiote has been left behind for General Rex Strickland (a game but overqualified Chiwetel Ejiofor). In the hunt for Eddie/Venom is also Strickland’s associate, Dr. Payne (Juno Temple), who’s already containing a bunch of symbiotes to study in the soon-to-be-decommissioned Area 51. There is also a much bigger villain in the hive of symbiotes; you just don’t see much of him, except in the visually cruddy bookending scenes. Basically, Eddie/Venom makes their way to New York, while a bunch of barely-written characters who are neither entirely bad nor good are on their tail (or tentacles).
Venom: The Last Dance is a road trip movie that never reaches its destination, only Nevada. Spoiler: Venom does not get to see Lady Liberty. There is an oddly delightful narrative detour involving a family of hippies, led by Rhys Ifans and Alanna Ubach, who give Eddie a ride in their van on their way to Area 51 and even encourage him to sing along to Space Oddity. Let’s watch *this* movie instead. Or, we could be watching the one with Juno Temple (who is admittedly cool to see in a Marvel-associated movie) as a scientist with a tragic Dead Brother backstory and an arm paralysis from a lightning storm. Every which way you look, there’s the glimmer of a more interesting movie than the three that get thrown into a blender here.
Two movies ago, watching a Brando-caliber thespian like Tom Hardy argue with himself about whether or not to eat someone was fun, weird, and kind of endearing in a Jekyll-and-Hyde (or now Madison-and-Gabriel?) sort of way. Then the banter in the first sequel became more rambunctious and more tiresome, while still clinging to a little amusement in a questionable “are they buddies or are they lovers?” dynamic. Now? It’s grating, assaultive, and you just wish the scientists of the world would leave Eddie and Venom alone, letting them live happily ever after or divorce on their own terms. It’s still a toss-up who’s more unintelligible: Hardy as Eddie or Hardy as Venom? Every now and then, an amusing insult can be distinguished, but it’s mostly a lot of baritone garbling.
Because nobody sets out to make a bad movie (not even Tommy Wiseau), Venom: The Last Dance does scrounge up a few fleeting moments of gleeful goofiness. One of those moments is a non-sequitur involving a returning character and an extremely random dance number to ABBA in the Paris Las Vegas Hotel. But then we’re back to Venom being contained, and the climax is a whirlwind of body-morphing and blobby monsters going at it. The filmmakers do also wish to send out our mouthy anti-hero and his rugged host on a poignant note. It almost gets there, but with a tacked-on “happier times” montage, one almost expects Christina Perri’s “1000 Years” from the last Twilight movie to play. Your eyes may just roll back into your head.
Even when a movie prides itself on just being a check-your-brain-at-the-door lark, there should still be enough reason to care. Without that, and simultaneously too much table-setting and wrap-up, Venom: The Last Dance just side-steps off-stage as a numbing afterthought.
Rating: 1.5/5
Venom: The Last Dance hits theaters on October 24, 2024.
