“Venom: The Last Dance” is a wonderfully campy, action-packed send-off to the “Venom” franchise.
Columbia Pictures’ “Venom: The Last Dance,” released in theaters on Oct. 25, follows journalist Eddie Brock (played by Tom Hardy), who is still bonded with the extraterrestrial symbiote Venom. On the run after the events of the previous movie, Brock and Venom must also evade Area 51 black-ops officer Rex Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor).
My favorite part of “Venom: The Last Dance” is the humor. Brock and Venom’s banter has always been a highlight of the franchise. That continues to be the case here. The scene with the Venomized horse is absolutely hilarious. The scene with elderly convenience store owner Mrs. Chen (Peggy Lu) and Venom dancing to ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” also works because it is campy.
The other part of “The Last Dance” that absolutely works is the action. The “Venom” movies are known for their off-the-walls action sequences, sometimes literally, with aliens bouncing off of the walls. “The Last Dance” takes this to a whole new level, with the addition of the villainous symbiote-hunting Xenophages making for some truly bonkers-looking action sequences.
The script in “The Last Dance” is a bit simplistic, but that is part of the charm of this franchise. At the same time, though, I want something more from a superhero movie than the hero running from something, being found, running away and being found again.
Some ideas in the script also seem half-baked and Strickland’s redemption arc is one of them. It would have been great if they committed to that fully, but instead he switches from wanting to kill Eddie to suddenly being willing to sacrifice himself to stop the alien invasion.
Strickland’s workplace banter with symbiote scientists Dr. Teddy Paine (“Ted Lasso” star Juno Temple) and Sadie (Clark Backo) is also one of these. Workplace banter only works if you develop the characters, and then you have to commit to it. “The Last Dance” refuses to commit to the banter; by the end, there isn’t even any banter at all.
Aside from humor, two things that I look for in a movie, especially a superhero movie, are heart and high stakes. The first two “Venom” movies were lacking a little bit in heart, but “The Last Dance” surprisingly has a lot of it, especially at the end. It really makes you feel for Brock and Venom as characters. Martin Moon (Rhys Ifans), an alien enthusiast Brock encounters on the journey, and his family also help here.
The stakes are also appropriately high in this movie, more so than in the first two. The creator of the symbiotes, Knull, is teed up as a threat that will require all of the symbiotes, not just Venom. However, the end-credits scene had me confused. It seemed like the movie ended one way in regards to Knull, but the end-credits scene seemed to point in a different direction.
This didn’t really surprise me as much as annoy me. Sony’s Spider-Man-adjacent movies have been known to have weird post-credit scenes, like the one in “Morbius” that seemed to contradict the plot of “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”
Overall, “Venom: The Last Dance,” despite its shortcomings in the script, is a great way to end this weird franchise.
