‘Task Failed Successfully’
I was expecting big things from Venom: The Last Dance. I don’t know why. I should’ve known better. Alas, the foreknowledge that a villain called ‘Knull’ was making an appearance in this movie primed me for something gargantuan.
Knull is the primary villain of Venom’s ‘King in Black’ comic-book story arc from a few years ago. He’s the pale and toothy creator of symbiotes like Venom, and his mission is to erase all life and light from the universe.
It’s nothing revolutionary for a comic-book villain, but ‘King in Black’ is still a fun, large-scale story that puts Eddie Brock and Venom at the heart of a world-ending threat. Knull doesn’t have a presence outside of this story—maybe he’ll show up again in the future, but ‘King in Black’ was released only back in 2021—so naturally, I was expecting The Last Dance to be an adaptation of this arc.
Like I said, I should’ve known better.
Wait, WE Are Venom?
On the run from the U.S. government, Eddie and Venom attempt to flee to New York City in order to clear Eddie’s name but find themselves also being hunted by an alien predator sent by Knull, god of the symbiotes.
You see, I went into this movie expecting an alien invasion of world-ending proportions. I was not expecting a road-trip movie.
To be clear, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A good road trip movie with Eddie and Venom is something I would gladly devote my time to. This is not, unfortunately, a good road trip movie. Don’t get me wrong, when it’s actually focusing on Eddie and Venom attempting to cross the country, I am a happy little camper.
It’s when the narrative splits to show us some… other stuff that my attention wavers. Look, neither of the other two ‘Venom’ movies had spectacular B-stories either, but at least Let There Be Carnage had Woody Harrelson to keep you company.
The Last Dance is a new low, though. There are two narrative strands distracting from Eddie and Venom’s adventures. The first is the most egregious: Chiwetel Ejiofor as Military Guy and Juno Temple as Scientist Lady.
Both of them work in ‘Area 55’ studying symbiotes. Scientist Lady is given an absurd level of backstory and screentime for the impact she has on the movie, and Military Guy is… honestly, I’m struggling to find anything interesting to say about Military Guy. He’s there. Ejiofor is a great actor and this character is an insult to his acting capabilities.
Starman
The second distracting narrative strand revolves around a family on their own road-trip to visit Area 51. Rhys Ifans plays the dad. There’s a wife and a young son and a teenage daughter. They exist to give Eddie something to save, I guess, and while I enjoyed some of the interactions between Eddie and the father, this crowd also have a hugely disproportionate amount of screen time.
I love the Venom movies, but the thing that make them so enjoyable for me has always been Tom Hardy’s dual performance as Eddie Brock and the voice of Venom. Their relationship is weird and dysfunctional and regularly makes me laugh. The Last Dance makes the mistake of thinking I’ll care about literally anything else. I don’t. I’ll accept poorly-written side-stories only if they exist to serve me more Venom. But as dramatic arcs in their own right? Nobody cares.
Lord above, I haven’t even touched on Stephen Graham’s appearance in this film. He played a police detective called Mulligan in Let There Be Carnage, but even I—someone who likes these movies and has seen them multiple times—can’t make heads or tails of why his character is in this movie. He was supposed to be maybe-dead, but his maybe-revival is so poorly explained that I’m astonished it made it into the movie in this form. Graham’s talent is wasted worse than Ejiofor’s is.
Dancing Queen in Black
The script is also a mess: apart from diverging from its most interesting feature too often, it’s also oddly deflating. This is because Knull—the super creepy villain whose monologue opens the film and whose release from his prison-planet seems to be what the whole movie is leading up to—never makes a proper appearance. Venom and co. spend the bulk of the movie and climax fighting, essentially, a mini boss.
There is very clearly more to this story, but it also seems to be the end of Tom Hardy’s time as Eddie Brock. Venom was, unfortunately, the only even semi-successful element of ‘Sony’s Spider-Man Universe’, which otherwise consists only of Morbius and Madame Web. So, like, what’s the plan here guys? Why hold back on giving us the big Venom story while we still have Venom movies? The decision to turn Knull into a Thanos-esque villain to be built up across multiple movies is just very poorly conceived.
And yet! Despite everything I just mentioned, I enjoyed plenty of The Last Dance. Hardy is in full form here. Watching him stumble through the woods and talking to himself is cinema to me. The scene where ABBA plays is cinema to me. Venom whispering ‘Nice horsey, good horsey’ to a horse is cinema to me. I just can’t lie: Hardy makes this movie worth watching for me despite its many, many flaws.
Tom? I Hardy Know Him
It has a knowing, tongue-in-cheek humour that begs you to laugh at it as much as with it. It’s such a strange choice, and I can’t help but admire it. Of course this wasn’t going to be an epic alien invasion movie. The ‘Venoms’ would never attempt anything so conventional. No, Eddie Brock will ride a Venom-Horse and play slots in Vegas and someone will piss on his feet.
I’m sad that I had to spend so much of this review criticising the movie. The Last Dance is messier than any of the Venom movies that came before it, and it felt necessary to call attention to that. But if, like me, you enjoy these movies because of Tom Hardy and the Brock/Venom relationship, then you, like me, will have a reasonably fun time with The Last Dance.
Sure, you might be more bored than usual when Hardy isn’t on screen, but I can forgive the third ‘Venom’ movie for not being a masterpiece. It’s incredible that we got three of them at all. So, go. Go see Venom: The Last Dance. Go laugh at Tom Hardy. You’re not going to get another chance.
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