“Til death do them part” is the tagline for the newest Venom film and with that, the Sonyverse’s main drawing card has parted ways with us. Venom: The Last Dance is third film in the Venom trilogy and is the final swan song for Tom Hardy’s versions of Eddie Brock and Venom. For context on what the Sonyverse is, it’s a cinematic universe created by Sony that focuses on characters from the Spider-Man franchise with the only cavoite being that they weren’t allowed to use Spider-Man. This cinematic universe first started when they released Venom (2018) and it was a massive hit at the box office. It was then followed up by its sequel Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021), a film that while funny and also a success, made a lot of poor and questionable writing choice. After that it was followed up by two famous box office bombs in Morbius, a film so boring that people had to make up things about it just to make fun of it, and Madame Web, a film so forgettable that nobody remembers seeing it. They’ve released their most recent film with Venom: The Last Dance and so now the question is does this film end the trilogy on a high note or is it another dud in the Sonyverse?
To give a short summary of the plot, our main characters Eddie Brock and his symbiote Venom, both played again by Tom Hardy, are hiding out in Mexico when they find out that a nationwide manhunt for has been conducted for them because of the events of the last film and for the supposed “death” of detective Patrick Mulligan, once again played by Stephen Graham. Eddie figures that they could go to New York and blackmail a judge he knows into clearing his name and so they hitch on a plane heading to New York. Only for their trip to be made more complicated when they’re attacked and hunted by an alien creature called a xenophage. Venom explains that the creature was sent by the entity who created the symbiotes called Knull, played by Andy Serkis, who is looking to get out of the prison the symbiotes put him in after they rebelled and Venom holds the key to it. Since Venom revived Eddie in the first movie, it created an object called the codex which is the key to setting Knull free. It’s now a race against time for Eddie and Venom as they try to get to New York while avoiding the U.S. government and the xenophage. There’s also a subplot between the film’s other antagonist Rex Strickland, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Teddy Paine, played by Juno Temple, as each of them struggle for control for the Imperium Project and how to capture the symbiotes, more specifically Venom. Mulligan and his symbiote complicate the situation by giving cryptic messages to the scientists warning them of Knull. There’s another subplot about a family of hippies traveling across country to go to the soon to be decommissioned Area 51 in the hopes of seeing aliens while unaware that the real site is hidden next door.
Already, here’s problem number one in this film: the plot is all over the place. There’s a race against time plot, a battle for control plot, a family road trip plot, it’s a little too much. The main plot is fine, it’s about on par with the plots of the previous two Venom films but the other plots are kind of deadweight. The family plot is pure filler: they could cut it out and nothing would change aside from how Eddie gets to Las Vegas. The other two plots are at least more relevant two the main plot despite it feeling like filler sometimes. The film also has a pacing issue, sometimes it feels like it doesn’t know when to speed up or slowdown in some scenes. Not to mention it has a bit of a tonal issue as well. It feels like it can’t decide if it wants to be a comedy, a buddy action film, or a thriller. And then there are the characters.
The characters in this film are in a weird place because none of them are bad, but they’re not particularly good either. The best of them is obviously Eddie Brock and Venom, Tom Hardy has been playing these two characters for three movies know and he slips back into the role like a glove. Eddie at this point of the story knows his life has gone to hell so he might as well roll with the punches and Tom Hardy plays that aspect pretty well. He is also pretty good as Venom, and ironically expresses more emotion in his performance through him instead of Eddie. The writing may not always be there sometimes, but both are funny and most of their comedy is pretty well timed. If there was a weakest character in terms of writing though, it would definitely have to go to Knull. The main problem with this character is how he’s presented. They do what I like to call the Kang effect because like Kang from the MCU, they keep saying how dangerous he is and how he should be feared, but they don’t actually show the audience why they should be afraid. He just looks dark and foreboding and that’s it. I wouldn’t mind it so much if they had showed us why we should be intimidated. Say what you will about Carnage and Riot as antagonists, but at least they did stuff aside from look cool. As big of a villain as he is in the comics, it kind of feels too late stage in the game to introduce a villain like him now. The other characters in the film are a mixed bag. Stephen Grahm reprises his role as Mulligan and to be honest, I almost forgot he was in the film as he’s only there to serve as exposition. Teddy Paine can get a little annoying, but she’s overall fine. Then there’s the secondary antagonist Strickland, who’s probably the most generic of the cast and I’m sad about that because they brought in a great actor in Chiwetel Ejiofor to play him only for the writing for his character to fall flat. There’s also Martin Moon, one of the hippies, who is also one of the most boring characters in the film; he just acts like a generic hippie and it seems like kind of a waste of Rhys Ifans.
Even with all these negative aspects, surely there are some positives to film, right? Well yes, there is some good stuff about this film. The special effects are good: all the CGI characters and models actually look like they could be there and they move fluently. The final act was the best action piece of the film; it was fun seeing the other symbiotes and Venom use their abilities to fight off the xenophage. As stated before, Venom and Eddie were the best characters in the movie and their relationship throughout the film is both funny and kind of heartwarming. Despite what I said about the characters not being the best written, you can see that everyone is putting in effort with their roles and trying to make some of the dialogue work. Some of the cinematography is good and the movie is overall fun to watch at least. Not to mention Venom dancing to “Dancing Queen,” which was probably the funniest part of the movie.
After all this being said, time to get back to the original question. Does Venom: The Last Dance end the trilogy on a high note or as a dud? To be honest, I think it’s a bit of both. There are good and memorable aspects about the film and as stated before, it is fun to watch. But on repeated viewing, the bad stuff is hard to ignore, such as the writing, tonal issues in some portions of the film, and how lackluster of an antagonist Knull is. It’s at least better than Venom: Let There Be Carnage and a majority of the other Sonyverse films, but it’s still not as good as the first film: its somewhere in the middle. But I can definitely say that Sonyverse’s future is not looking that bright since its main drawing card is now gone.
