Venom: The Last Dance Review

“We’re home. I’m so done with multiverse shit!” – Venom

This is, reportedly, the last film in the Venom series starring Tom Hardy. Sadly, I have to report that the trilogy ends with a whimper rather than a bang. This isn’t really surprising, as I have never felt that the films reached their true potential. Not even when they introduced Carnage in the last film. From the first film released six years ago, in terms of plot, they’ve pretty consistently fallen short of the mark, and have vastly diluted the source material.

It might sound like I’m just griping for the sheer hell of it. But consider this. In the Spider-Man comic books published by Marvel Comics, Venom was a major supervillain. He was introduced as an alien substance, which configured itself as Spider-Man’s new suit when the original red and blue one was wrecked during the original Secret Wars event of the mid-eighties. The black alien gloop could create any kind of clothing for Peter Parker, was self-cleaning, it would generate its own inexhaustible supply of webbing, and so on. It even, as I recall, enhanced its powers. Problems arose when it was discovered that the black gloop was a sentient alien organism and was influencing Parker’s behaviour and had to be disposed of. It soon found another host in Eddie Brock, a luckless, ruthless and unscrupulous reporter, jealous of Parker.

As I said, the entity was sentient, and knew Spider-Man’s identity, who his loved ones were, all his secrets – and now, so did Eddie Brock. So, Venom immediately became one of Spider-Man’s most dangerous villains, right up there with the Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus. But that’s not what we’ve seen in the films is it? Nope – we’ve seen the menacing Venom reduced to a clown. A joke.

The problem is that Marvel sold several of their Spider-Man characters to Sony/Columbia, but over the last few years, Sony/Columbia have entered into an arrangement that allows Marvel Films to produce Spider-Man movies as part of their Marvel Movie Universe, leaving Sony/Columbia to produce weak, second-rate films featuring characters from the Spider-Man comics like Venom, Madame Web and the upcoming Kraven the Hunter without featuring Spider-Man himself.

This leaves us wading through films about characters which omit the thing that made them relevant in the first place. So, we have Spider-Man villains with no Spider-Man to face off against. And that’s as crazy as, say releasing a film about the Joker without Batman as his opposite number. Even worse, making it a musical, just to piss everyone off. (I guess the REAL equivalence of that would be to have Venom perform a dance number in the middle of the movie – but they do that. To Abba’s Dancing Queen, no less. It hurt to watch.)

How did we get to this sad state of affairs? Is the film a serious misfire, or am I just burnt out on superhero films?

Well, call me biased, but I don’t think it’s me being grouchy. I really think it’s that bad. We kick off with Venom/Eddie (Tom Hardy) on the run after the events of the previous film. Meanwhile, on the Venom Symbiote’s home planet, a creature known as Knull, the creator of the Symbiotes (Andy Serkis) sends its Xenophage emissaries to Earth, looking for Venom. Meanwhile, Area 51 (yes, THAT Area 51) is being decommissioned but that’s where the government have been keeping all the other Symbiotes they’ve caught over the years but haven’t been mentioned up to now – and the chase is on with Earth’s survival at stake, and a military unit involved.

The only relief from this misguided, chaotic script is an interlude where a hitchhiking Eddie is picked up by a family of alien enthusiasts, led by Martin Moon (Rhys Ifans – who had previously played The Lizard in The Amazing Spider-Man and Spider-Man: No Way Home, but this character bears no relation whatsoever to that one, go figure.)

There are attempts here to try and make Venom cool. And they all misfire really badly. For example, down and out Eddie wants to upgrade his dirty and dishevelled clothing, coming across an obnoxious bully in a tuxedo, Venom knocks him out so Eddie can take his clothing. But why? The Venom symbiote can replicate ANY clothing that Eddie can imagine. So, a well-established part of Venom’s ability is overlooked so the producers can include a cheap laugh for the audience.

Really, between this and Joker: Folies a Deux, I’m at a stage where I’m weary of visionary (pretentious) directors and producers excreting their precious versions of beloved, long-standing comic book characters with no regard for the source material or the readers whose devotion has kept them in print.

I’ll admit, I’m dreading the release of Kraven the Hunter in a few weeks, my Spider-Sense tells me it’s going to be another Sony/Columbia hack job. 2024 has been a lousy year for comic book movies, apart from Deadpool and Wolverine.

As for the rating, this is the best I could muster, make of it what you will…

Rob Rating = 4