Header Image Source: Sony Pictures Entertainment (via screenshot)
When we talk about "superhero fatigue" these days, it's not comic book movies we're tired of. It's franchises and their elaborate, long-gestating plans that pave the way toward future installments at the sacrifice of the one that's on hand at any given time. Universes that require continuous investment from viewers just to keep up. Movies as homework. It's the Marvel Method, to be sure, but it's the one that, for better or for worse, other studios have chosen to emulate. Sony with its collective Spider-Man universe has long appeared to be constructing a villainous Sinister Six team-up, and maybe it still is, but it apparently has its eye on a larger prize now as well. And to tee up this honking new galactic threat, they squandered the one part of their franchise (apart from Spider-Man) that actually worked.
Venom just got Sony-ed, y'all.
To be fair, there is still fun to be had in Venom: The Last Dance. Tom Hardy as both the beleaguered Eddie Brock and his ravenous alien passenger continues to thwart the expectations of a comic book movie lead (read: ripped and swaggering) to deliver a selflessly weird two-step of a performance. This third installment finds Brock a fugitive on the run from the law after the disastrous events of Venom: Let There Be Carnage, and propels the duo on what is often a very silly little road trip. Unfortunately, there's this whole other half of the movie - the Sony franchise plotapooza - that gets in the way of our collective joy. Where previous Venom installments dispensed the comic book plotting like the perfunctory necessity it is without letting it derail the Hardy show, The Last Dance flails under the weight of Sony's future architecture.
Turns out Eddie isn't just being chased by the law. He's also being targeted by a shadowy military outfit, operating out of a base hidden beneath Area 51, that contains and analyzes Symbiotes. Juno Temple plays Dr. Teddy Paine, a scientist who is very sympathetic to the alien cause, while Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Strickland, a soldier who is decidedly not. But that's not all! Eddie's also ALSO being chased by some crazy woodchipper aliens who are looking for a codex, which only forms when a Symbiote has a very special bond with its host and naturally Eddie and Venom have the only codex in the universe. The codex is the key that will release a bad dude named Knull from his prison, but when I say "bad dude" I need to you picture a Thanos-level threat. Apparently, his evil plans are basically "kill everything." Sony even roped in Andy Serkis (who directed Venom: Let There Be Carnage) to play him even though all you see of him is some stringy CGI hair, so you know they mean business with this Knull guy.
Knull created the Symbiotes, who rebelled and locked him away before setting out across the stars to find a new safe haven, and Venom: The Last Dance spends a lot of time explaining all this backstory via the scientists and their Symbiote samples - time that we'd all rather be spending with Eddie and Venom.
Sure, Venom takes over a horse (and a fish! And a frog!) and even meets up with Mrs. Chen in Vegas for a dance set to ABBA, and Eddie has this thing where he keeps losing his shoes and has to wander barefoot through his various misadventures. Rhys Ifans turns up as a hippy with a family and a vintage Volkswagen bus to give them a ride, and Venom gets all misty about what a good dad Eddie would have made. It's all there, the weird wacky stuff that we want to see in a Venom movie, but the balance is off. The narrative weight keeps getting pulled to the heftier, spacier goings-on, as everything converges in a big showdown where Eddie leads an army of Symbiotes that apparently are all now good guys protecting humanity. The evolution of Eddie and Venom's relationship takes a backseat to the plot.
What the first two movies understood is that the bizarre chemistry between Eddie and Venom, which leads to so many delightfully oddball moments, is what makes this particular corner of the Sony Spidey Universe cook. They were never concerned with faithfulness to the source material or Sony's grand designs - this was just a chance for Tom Hardy to do his little voice thing. The first movie was a buddy comedy, and the second was an inexplicable rom-com. The Marvel references and climactic battle brouhahas were merely camouflage for the series' other more interesting genre leanings. Kelly Marcel, who wrote the previous installments as well as this one, slides into the director's chair this time around, and Tom Hardy continues to receive a story credit, so I'm curious how hard they had to fight to protect the amount of good left in this movie against all the studio duff.
So what is Venom: The Last Dance? Ostensibly it should be the breakup. The goodbye. The end. And it is (I cried!), in that very comic book-y way that leaves a window cracked while the door closes. Can Eddie and Venom save themselves and the universe when their very existence is the key that unleashes mass destruction? In a better Venom movie, this would be fodder for the exploration of whether love can persevere against all odds. It'd be one of those sick teen YA movies, only with a shoeless stud and his glop. Instead, we're given something far more banal and insulting by comparison.
- Sony is exploiting its connection to Marvel's unraveling multiverse in the weirdest way possible: with the repeat casting of Ejiofor and Ifans. Ejiofor remains Baron Mordo over in the MCU, and Ifans already returned as The Lizard in 2021's Spider-Man: No Way Home. Don't get me wrong, they're great and deserve the paycheck, but the roles they have could have been played by any number of actors. Does this choice cement Venom in a siloed corner of the franchise, with no further crossover potential to either Spider-Man or the MCU?
- How come Eddie can hear Venom speak inside his head, but he has to reply out loud? And more importantly: Why did it take me three movies to question that?
- There is a mid-credit sequence and an end credit sequence. They are pointless.
- Ted Lasso's Cristo Fernández returns as the Mexican bartender explaining The Snap to Eddie, and Venom does leave a little goo behind... and then it gets scooped up by the military. My dreams of a Dani Rojas Symbiote are officially dashed.