[5]
The Venom trilogy stumbles in its finale, but it has some nice moments. Tom Hardy returns as journalist Eddie Brock, exiled to Mexico after events of the previous movie and still hosting Venom, a shapeshifting alien symbiote, in his body. When a terrifying creature begins stalking Eddie/Venom, the two brave a journey back to the States where they’re soon embroiled in a government effort to contain and control symbiotes at an Area 51 facility. When the creature finds the facility, the imprisoned symbiotes are released to help Venom destroy it.
What works with the third Venom movie is what has always worked in Venom movies: the character moments and the grace notes. Eddie and Venom share some poignant inner dialogues with each other that foreshadow a tragic ending. When Venom explains to Eddie that the pursuing creature won’t stop until one of them is dead, we know that’s how the movie has to end. And the film is wise to hang it’s narrative on this presumption.
But then the film does its damndest to undermine itself. Sony and Marvel, as they have with nearly every movie for the past fifteen years, tries to set up spinoff characters and new storylines instead of focusing on what matters: the Eddie/Venom relationship in the movie-at-hand. Who cares about Juno Temple’s or Clark Backo’s scientist characters and the symbiotes that inhabit them? And who the hell is the weird archvillain at the beginning and end of this movie, and what does he have to do with Venom? The script spends time with this nonsense only to establish new characters for other hopeful movies. How many times have Marvel and Sony superhero movies introduced new characters and storylines that never come to fruition? Answer: They always do. And the planning amounts to nothing, the films are never made, and the studios learn nothing from this idiotic behavior. They do a considerable disservice to every movie they stuff with this extraneous bullshit.
There’s enough of the Eddie/Venom relationship here to recommend to fans of the previous two films. The Last Dance does offer up a somewhat satisfying resolution for its principle characters, and there are some fun moments involving a traveling family of hippies that Eddie hitchhikes with, as well as another wacky appearance by franchise regular Mrs. Chen (Peggy Lu). But if you’re not a fan of the first two films, it’s a safe skip.
Directed by Kelly Marcel. With Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rhys Ifans, Stephen Graham, and Alanna Ubach.