Venom: The Last Dance review – Another lacklustre outing for Tom Hardy's symbiote
Fans of the first two will find aspects of the Eddie/Venom friendship storyline to enjoy – but by now it's all a little tired.
The Venom films have always occupied rather a peculiar place in the superhero movie landscape. The flagship films of Sony’s Spider-Man Universe – which has also produced such maligned flops as Morbius and Madame Web – they exist largely separately from most other superhero fare, both in terms of the universe they are set in and in the slightly madcap tone and style they attempt to adopt.
Both previous films – the 2018 original and 2021 sequel Venom: Let There Be Carnage – have fared poorly with critics but performed admirably at the box office, and the series has built up a sort-of cult following based largely around the odd couple dynamic between journalist Eddie Brock and the titular symbiote to whom he plays host (a dual role for Tom Hardy).
The latest film – fittingly titled Venom: The Last Dance – seems to mark the conclusion of this particular saga and by and large offers more of the same.
Following the explosive events of the previous film, it finds Eddie and Venom on the run from the authorities (notably including some army scientists operating out of Areas 51), which allows for plenty of opportunities to lean into the silliness that fans of the franchise have always responded to as the pair hit the road.
Meanwhile, it soon becomes clear that law enforcers are far from the only enemies on their tail. They must also do battle with a minion of the symbiote overlord Knull, who is after a device that will free his leader from the prison he currently languishes in.
For complicated and not entirely sensical reasons, that device – referred to as a Codex – is held within Eddie's body, but is only visible when Venom takes his full form. And so, he must spend most of the film resisting the opportunity to unleash himself in order to avoid attracting the attention of their villainous tracker.
For all their many flaws, these films have always been able to count on impressively A-list supporting casts, and that's no different this time around.
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Previous entries have boasted the talents of such well-regarded actors as Michelle Williams, Riz Ahmed, Naomie Harris and Woody Harrelson, and this time Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Rhys Ifans and a returning Stephen Graham are all along for the ride.
But of course, the film is still headlined by the always committed Hardy.
It's almost instantly evident that six years on from the first film, the actor – who also has a story credit – is no less relishing his dual role. But the issue is whether the prospect of another Venom adventure is quite so appealing to almost anyone else.
As with the previous entries, Venom: The Last Dance is a tonal jumble that essentially amounts to two completely different films. One is a buddy-comedy following Eddie and Venom's life on the road, including all their usual bickering antics and lighthearted hijinks, such as an encounter with a family of UFO obsessives desperate to feast their eyes on some aliens.
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The other is a more po-faced, incredibly generic sci-fi story about a mismatched pair of army scientists hunting down and experimenting with symbiotes, one of whom has a tragic backstory and the other of whom has links to a character from the comics. But neither of these two disparate storylines – which eventually collide in a high-octane but underwhelming finale – especially pass muster on their own, never mind awkwardly stitched together.
Fans of the first two will certainly find aspects of the central Eddie/Venom friendship storyline to enjoy. A moment when the latter is far more invested than the former in a camper van sing-along to David Bowie's Space Oddity provides some minor laughs, and there is a fun sequence where Venom takes the form of various animals, including a frog.
But for the most part, the relatively one-note chalk-and-cheese relationship between the central pair has become tired, and Venom himself is often more irritating than he is amusing. In the film's final sections, it attempts to tug on the emotional heartstrings, but only the most ardent fans of the franchise are likely to be particularly moved.
On the whole, it's another lacklustre, poorly written adventure.
Venom: The Last Dance is in UK cinemas from Friday 25th October 2024.
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