The ultimate superhero odd couple goes out how it came in: odd, sincere and singular.
Within the world of superhero films, the Venom franchise has always been something of a black sheep. It was the launch of Sony’s attempts to make their Spider-Man films, sans Spider-Man, and was initially met with mostly tired shrugs. In a world where we were absolutely overrun with superheroes on movie screens, the first Venom always felt like an also-ran, a cheap knock-off of the glitzy prestige of the franchises that ran the box office. A little too shaggy, a little too off kilter and self-serious to really feel like a tent pole. They became something of a punching bag of the superhero bloat problem.
But there was always a core fanbase (including my wife) for these movies that embraced them, especially Tom Hardy in the dual role of the titular Venom, the symbiotic alien entity that bonds with living hosts, and Eddie Brock, the hapless investigative journalist who Venom finds himself attached to. While the rest of the films may feel a bit slack compared to other capes and tights flicks, Hardy was always clearly locked into something special. It is a career-defining role for a guy who was always on the just the outside of being a marquee talent. And at the core of the films was an anarchic buddy movie wanting to bust out. Even with the louder and less coherent second outing, Let There Be Carnage, Hardy as the center of the film always held. It was special chemistry of role and actor that both seemed made for each other.
The Last Dance is the newest, third outing for Eddie and Venom, and as the title suggests, it appears to be the end of their journey together. (Of course, we have heard these kinds of statements before.) But if this is where the story ends, it goes out on its own terms: strange, chaotic and filled with well-earned sweetness.
Just like the Eddie and Venom dynamic itself, this is a clear product of passion and friendship: first-time director Kelly Marcel takes the helm of the franchise, after serving as screenwriter for the first two installments and being championed by Hardy for the directing roll. Hardy as a story credit of helping craft the form of this final chapter. And it maintains all the heart and oddball goofiness that draws some in and pushes others away. In many ways it is the purest, best version of what a Venom movie should be, but if you aren’t on that wavelength yet, this likely won’t convert you.
Last Dance opens with a re-hash of the disjointed Spider-Man: No Way Home post-credit sequence, and more or less rolls the story along from there. Eddie and Venom are on the run after the events of Carnage, with no money and no real path forward. They decide to just get away to New York City, but that is complicated on two fronts. One, scientists and the military assigned at Area 55 (the secret actual extraterrestrial lab below Area 51) have been researching the other symbiotes that arrived with Venom, and are trying to track down Venom now as they see him as the key to understanding the mysterious aliens. Chief among these are Dr. Teddy Payne (Juno Temple) who survived being struck by lightning while he twin brother didn’t, and Rex Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a no-nonsense soldier who is wondering if the symbiote-research is worth the trouble.
These characters are introduced via an early scene that is heavy-laden with the stiffest comic book dialogue imaginable, chugging along as they speak in endless reems of exposition. It is an early worrying sign that the film isn’t quite tapped into the magic the franchise is best at, but luckily that doesn’t drag the movie down. Rather, it just takes these characters a while to get into the rhythms of the larger narrative they find themselves in.
The other threat is far more cosmic: the god-like creator of the symbiotes Knull (Andy Serkis in what amounts to a cameo role) has released monstrous symbiote hunters that look like the bugs from Starship Troopers but toothier, to hunt down the Catalyst, a key within some symbiotes that will unlock him from an eternal prison. Venom of course carries the Catalyst, meaning the hunters and Area 55 are now in a race to collect him, when both Venom and Eddie just want to be left alone. Thus we are set in motion for a Southwestern tinged adventure for the titular hero.
All of this is settled in pretty briefly, with the first act of the film working as establishing stakes, the middle section (the strongest) giving Eddie and Venom time to reflect on their crazy lives together, and the final act giving way to the inevitable big fight. None of the film is especially surprising; it doesn’t so much foreshadow its next movement as roadmap them for the audience. But the magic is in that middle section, when the movie slows down some to give us genuine pathos for Venom and Eddie as characters. For as intentionally silly and broad as the movie can be at times (there are giant vats at Area 55 labeled “HYPERACID”), there is a sincere heart at the center. Most that comes from Hardy; when Eddie/Venom (Veddie? Ednom?) isn’t on screen, the movie loses some steam, but never terminally. Perhaps he strongest portions deal with Eddie’s interactions with Martin (Rhys Ifans) as an alien obsessed hippie who is dragging his family on a roadtrip to Area 51. Eddie’s melancholy of seeing a domestic life that was denied him, in part due to his bonding, draws out a genuine sense of empathy and pathos that is lacking in less curious superhero films.
Perhaps the most welcome surprise is how well Marcel equips herself as a director. The film balances it’s tones well for the most part, save for some of those exposition heavy scenes. But the action is always legible while still remaining chaotic, and the quieter moments are given the space and intimacy to feel effective. Like most of The Last Dance, there is a clear gulf between the emotional heart and the whiz bang action, but Marcel nails the former and doesn’t fumble the latter. It is a pure expression of the oddity.
And that is ultimately what has set a Venom film apart: they march to their own beat, dance to their own tune, and to a degree this final chapter underlines that remarkably well and puts a potential bow on the trilogy. There are strange detours that lead to nowhere, but it never fully loses its heart on the journey. It is perhaps one of the least cynical major movie franchises currently, and that has to be worth something.
