Venom: The Last Dance Review

It is no secret that Sony's several attempts to create their own cinematic superhero world have been less than successful. Morbius and Madame Web were critical and financial flops, leaving Sony as the laughing stock of the town. Although they were not critical darlings, the Venom flicks enabled Sony to capitalize on the Spider-Man franchise. The original film garnered an unexpected $865 million worldwide, while the sequel earned $506 million. Venom: The Last Dance was advertised as the grandiose end to a trilogy; would fans come to see it? Is it worthwhile to invest your time?

Eddie and Venom are on the run after being wrongfully accused of murder. However, the law isn't the only one hunting them. Creatures from Venom's planet become interested in Eddie and Venom's particular link, which may hold the secret to freeing Knull, the creator of the symbiotes. Hunted by both universes, the couple is forced to make a heartbreaking decision that would mark the end of Venom and Eddie's relationship.

Venom made it quite evident in 2018 that these films were attempting to replicate comic book adaptations from the 1990s and early 2000s. They were not interested in innovating the characters or challenging viewers; they were simply a pretext for Hardy to do three stooges acts on his own. Clearly, this strategy worked well enough to keep customers coming back to this business. I don't think the films are of high quality, but I would be lying if I said they weren't enjoyable to watch. Venom: The Last Dance follows the same approach, and it works until it doesn't.

We learn early on that when Eddie and Venom join their bodies, it acts as a blaring alert to the animals seeking them. As a result, for the bulk of the film's runtime, these two characters are kept apart. It's an odd choice since one could assume the studio did this to save money, but that can't be the case given the film has a variety of monsters and different symbiote characters in the third act. Nonetheless, as a result of this decision, we're left with a film whose core draw - Eddie and Venom doing great things - isn't as dominant as you'd like for a trilogy finale.

Venom: The Last Dance does itself no favors by repeatedly moving away from Eddie's location to focus on Juno Temple and Chiwetel Ejiofor's characters. Temple portrays a scientist with a dull sad past, while Ejiofor is a standard military general. Not only do they lack individuality, but all that their characters do is offer exposition that the audience has already heard from Venom. As a result, their parts appear redundant and a waste of the performers' skill.

Venom: The Last Dance succeeds in its strange humor. We don't see much Eddie morphing with Venom, but there is a lot of Venom morphing with fish, frogs, and horses. These moments are brief, but they provide much-needed vitality to the film.

Because the film is essentially a road trip, Eddie finally meets a family of nomads who are journeying to Area 51 in the hopes of seeing an extraterrestrial. As you can expect, this leads to some spectacular moments in the film's conclusion. Rhys Ifans and Alanna Ubach, who play the family's parents, are both aware of the film's absurd nature. They transform cringe-worthy sentences into jokes that really work. Their plotline feels divorced from everything else happening on, but, aside from Hardy, they're the only ones enjoying the material they're handed.

There's not much to say about Venom: The Last Dance. Don't interpret that as a disrespect to the finished product. The third chapter is comparable to the franchise's previous two installments; it is as generic as the first and as cartoony as the second. Venom: The Last Dance isn't really fantastic, but it is a great time. The bromance between Eddie and Venom is delightful, the effects are ludicrous, and there is an ABBA dance routine for no apparent reason other than 'why not?'. If you liked the last two, don't see why you won't like seeing this in cinemas.