Venom: The Last Dance (2024)
Venom: The Last Dance is the concluding chapter in the Venom trilogy, which began with this Marvel comic book character in 2018's appropriately titled Venom and then continued with 2021's Venom: Let There Be Carnage. This final installment runs hot and cold, and it's a good thing that this is the last one.
Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and his alien
symbiote pal Venom are hiding out in Mexico because Eddie is wanted for the
murder of a New York cop. Unbeknownst to them, Eddie and Venom are being
stalked by a Xenophage, a creature from Venom's home world. The boys are also
being pursued by an aggressive military man (Chiwetel Ejiofor), as well as a
scientist (Juno Temple) who wants to study the symbiote.
There's always a spark when Hardy is on
screen, because he is obviously having a good time with the character, and
isn't just phoning it in. Sure there is some eye-rolling goofiness in some
scenes with Brock and Venom, but there are occasional laugh out loud moments
between the two. One of the best moments is when the duo find themselves in a
Volkswagen van with a family of hippies doing a sing-a-long to David Bowie's "Space
Oddity."
What drags Kelly Marcel's movie down
are the serious scenes with the soldier and the scientist, because these
uninteresting characters and their long scenes of dull exposition are the
cinematic equivalent of flat cola.
The Venom films are nowhere near
the worst comic book adaptations. In fact, the first one has a quirky charm to
it. However, this third one just peters out.
