VENOM: THE LAST DANCE (2024)
Hunted across the USA, Eddie and Venom face a desperate choice. As the net tightens, their last stand will bring their partnership to a cataclysmic end.
The unexpected success of Venom (2018) is to blame for Sony’s misguided belief that audiences care about their so-called “Spider-Man Universe” —that ironically doesn’t feature Spider-Man himself. Venom has been the only successful element of this ridiculous idea, as both Morbius (2022) and Madame Web (2024) flopped amidst awful reviews, and I predict the same fate awaits their upcoming Kraven the Hunter. And now Sony’s cash cow is being put out to pasture, as Venom: The Last Dance is allegedly the final instalment in this bad trilogy of films.
Picking up after Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021), Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is on the run as a murder suspect, so must travel across middle America to New York City to prove his innocence. Unfortunately, a monstrous alien called a Xenophage has been sent from Venom’s homeworld to capture him because the Eddie-Venom union has resulted in their DNA now containing a “Codex” that can release the imprisoned creator of the symbiotes, Knull (Andy Serkis). I don’t know why, or how. Things get even more complicated thanks to Eddie also being tracked by Rex Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a military leader who wants to capture the symbiote for study inside Area 51 with scientist Dr Teddy Payne (Juno Temple).
Venom: The Last Dance continues the trend of these movies, which lean heavily on the charisma of Tom Hardy and the supposed hilarity of his interactions with Venom; full of bickering and pratfalls. I’ve never been enamoured by Hardy’s performances as Eddie, but will admit those are easily the best parts of a Venom film, and The Last Dance gives us more than our fair share because there’s little else going on. It’s a stream-of-consciousness screenplay from sole writer Kelly Marcel, who co-wrote the previous two and is now rewarded by making this her directorial debut. Marcel is a longtime collaborator and friend of Tom Hardy’s, having met him while he was running an acting workshop in London. She had an uncredited role re-writing his film Bronson (2008) and has worked on all the previous Venom movies, but it’s worrying whenever a first-time director is handed the reigns of a $120M blockbuster. It always feels like the executives devalue the job of a director, and just want someone who knows the story inside-out to shoot what’s on the page and appease their lead actor.
While not an unmitigated disaster, The Last Dance is nonsensical hokum that coasts on the appeal of seeing Tom Hardy argue with a CGI gooey head in between some action set pieces that are sporadically imaginative but never wholly successful. Interestingly zany ideas are given short shrift — like Venom bonding with a horse, then a frog—and sometimes the visual clarity is lost amidst the visual noise of too much VFX.
It’s perhaps slightly more entertaining than Let There Be Carnage, moment to moment, but there’s less of a cohesive story and instead of Woody Harrelson we have a giant cockroach. It’s a downgrade. It also leaves you scratching your head at the stupid decision-making or random coincidences. Using this movie to set up a Thanos-style supervillain also seems misguided, seeing as this story brings Venom’s arc to a close and he’s the only character in the franchise audiences would care to see go up against Knull. But maybe that’s evidence Venom will return in some form, either with a cheaper Hardy-alike playing another character, or when Hardy himself can negotiate a ridiculous fee to be re-bonded with this head-eating extra-terrestrial.
The Last Dance feels like a movie in service of its star, Tom Hardy, who was a confessed fan of the comic-books before accepting the role and was instrumental in making the bad idea of making Venom an anti-hero work despite itself. So we now have his close friend promoted to director, despite no evidence she has the chops to lead a big-budget superhero movie, and there’s an opening sequence where Eddie murders a gang of thugs who abuse dogs (Hardy’s a famous canine lover). A moment near the end even has Eddie crack a joke about being voted ‘Sexiest Man’ after swapping his casual attire for an expensive tuxedo, and it’s a definite nod to Hardy’s status as a fixture in such magazine polls. The line between Eddie Brock and Tom Hardy continues to blur. I’m surprised they didn’t make Eddie an actor instead of a journalist, not that he uses any journalistic skills in this film whatsoever.
All of these Sony superhero movies feel antiquated too, despite excellent VFX and a few modern flourishes. They can’t help but feel very “1990s” in their approach, which was perhaps something that appealed to audiences when Venom came out. For older fans, it felt like a throwback to a more innocent time before the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) turned these projects into things that dominated pop culture, and have arguably trained a younger generation of filmgoers to only see the cinema as a place to go when they need a fix of a particular type of movie. Venom at least had a darkness and silliness that felt “fresh” to Gen-Z, too, in the sense that’s how superhero movies often looked around the turn-of-the-millennium — from Blade (1998) to X-Men (2000).
This throwback feel continues in the casting of amazing British actors in roles that are beneath their talents (Academy Award-nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor as a generic soldier type), cheaper UK actors who have juice thanks to other roles recently (Ted Lasso star Juno Temple), or other Brits you can rely on to do good jobs in thankless roles (a returning Stephen Graham, or Rhys Ifans as an alien-obsessed hippie). I’m sure the pay is excellent. And to be fair, Ifans does a credible job and is the most likeable performer on screen.
Venom: The Last Dance may have had something to say about immigrants and people learning to co-exist with others from a different culture. In that sense, Venom is like Superman arriving on Earth, but with Eddie forced to live alongside someone who’s not the easiest to be around. The entire movie involves them trekking across the USA, hoping to set eyes on The Statue of Liberty, a historical beacon for immigrants. But whatever slim outline of a theme and subtext we have gets bludgeoned to death by unfunny “comedy scenes” (a sing-along in a hippie van being the worst offender), or loud action that becomes steadily more tedious because we’re not invested in anything.
It’s a movie that feels like it’s throwing ideas at the wall to see what sticks, like a ludicrous song-and-dance number in Las Vegas with Mrs Chen (Peggy Lu) that comes out of nowhere to make your toes curl like pig’s tails. Tom Hardy continues to give these silly movies a calm centre and amusing moments arguing with “himself” voicing Venom, but three movies in and the “Odd Couple” joke has worn too thin. I doubt it’s truly the last dance, but it’s certainly a welcome fade-out to the music.
USA • UK • MEXICO • CANADA | 2024 | 109 MINUTES | 2.39:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH
Cast & Crew
director: Kelly Marcel.
writer: Kelly Marcel (story by Tom Hardy & Kelly Marcel; based on Marvel Comics).
starring: Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Rhys Ifans, Stephen Graham, Peggy Lu, Clark Blacko, Alanna Ubach & Andy Serkis.
