Venom: The Last Dance ~ Review

Two movies are fighting for attention inside Venom: The Last Dance. One is a buddy dramedy about two best friends saying goodbye, and the other is a bog-standard alien invasion movie. The film which clocks in at just two hours doesn’t give enough time for either story to breathe. When both stories make their eventual collision it happens so fast that you might miss it. It seems to me, and I’m just speculating here, that large chunks of this film were removed in post to keep the runtime short.

When we last saw Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy), he and his alien symbiote best friend Venom (the goo blob with razor-sharp teeth also voiced by Hardy) had found themselves in Mexico in the MCU, in Spider-Man: No Way Home’s post credit scene – don’t worry about this as this movie cares about the multiverse as much as you care about the multiverse, which is to say…not at all. Anyway, Brock/Venom return to their universe and find themselves with not only law enforcement hot on their tail but also a U.S. special forces unit led by Rex Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who are trying to capture the Venom symbiote and bring it to Dr. Payne (Juno Temple) so she can study it along with a bunch of other symbiotes housed in Area 51. 

If that wasn’t bad enough, an interdimensional god named Knull (Andy Serkis) has sent his reptilian bug creatures to kill Venom. You see, Knull created the symbiotes, but they imprisoned him on some planet, and now he needs to find a thingamajig called the codex which is embedded in Brock/Venom’s spine for some reason. So, Brock/Venom are trying to get to New York but keep getting waylaid by either, cops, bug creatures, or the special forces, until everyone ends up at Area 51 for the big climax.

The middle stretches of this film are a road movie, where Venom and Eddie reflect on their relationship, and they are far and away the best sequences in the movie. The film becomes a mediation on the nature of friendship and what it means to be a best friend. All the stuff involving Area 51, Knull, and the Symbiotes feels like the script a thirteen-year-old would write after having just seen Independence Day and it just doesn’t work. Look, I’m a sucker for stories involving interdimensional creatures’ hell-bent on destroying the Earth, and even I have to admit that I could not follow this film’s plot to save my life. 

The film feels like giant chunks have been removed, giving the discombobulating feeling that the movie was edited in a woodchipper. My hunch is that there was a whole lot more involving the Knull/Area 51 story, and was played as a satire of 1950’s b movies, but studio executives balked at the tone, so what you get are two great actors in Ejiofor and Temple doing nothing more than delivering exposition at each other. 

I don’t think any of the film’s problems are the fault of Writer/Director Kelly Marcel. It feels like a studio did a lot of tampering with this one, as there are several obviously ADR’d lines of dialogue telling us that Area 51 is set to be decommissioned. Marcel steps into the director’s chair after writing the last two Venom movies, and she acquits herself nicely. Staging the action with panache – particularly fun is a chase where Venom has to take over a horse. 

Hardy always seems to be having a blast as Venom. Hardy’s strange accent and quirks are back and they’re always fun. It makes me sad that this might be the last time we see him in the role, but never say never! As for the rest of the cast, well…they’re fine. Chiwetel Ejiofor and Juno Temple are always reliable, but it just feels like whatever interesting work they were doing in the movie has been removed.

All in all, Venom: The Last Stand is a mixed bag -- fun and entertaining, but mostly a standard action movie. On the other hand, I hope they keep making more of these, so…make of that what you will.

Two out of four stars