With the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)’s inexorable slide into pop culture and commercial irrelevancy, the future looks less than bright for the Sony Spider-Man Universe (SSU), a licensed collection of Marvel characters loosely associated with the Spider-Man figure currently on loan to the MCU. Audiences met the release earlier this year of Madame Web with justifiable contempt, mockery, or (worse) indifference, leaving only Venom: The Last Dance and the thrice-delayed Kraven The Hunter on SSU’s slate for the foreseeable future. They might just be the last entries before Sony gives up the superhero ghost.
Arriving three years after Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Venom: The Last Dance concludes the shockingly commercially successful, Tom Hardy-led trilogy that began six years ago with Venom. In Venom time, however, only a year has passed since Hardy’s character, Eddie Brock, a failed ex-journalist, inadvertently merged with Venom, a black, goo-based symbiote–an inorganic, shape-shifting extraterrestrial parasite. Stubbornly, smugly self-centred, Venom not only shared Brock’s body, effectively becoming a permanent co-owner or co-tenant, but he also provided Brock with something his human host severely lacked: a buddy, a compatriot, a partner, if not in crime, then in life. Together, they defeated a potential invasion of alien symbiotes in the first film and a Venom offshoot, Carnage, in the sequel.
Brock’s collaboration with Venom has been anything but orderly. Instead, it’s been chaotic, leaving a long trail of broken bodies, massive property damage, and Brock’s exile from a reasonably stable, productive life. On the run from San Francisco authorities, Eddie/Venom find themselves drifting aimlessly somewhere in Mexico. It doesn’t take long, though, before the un-dynamic duo give into their inner code, interfere in a dog-fighting ring (the dogs go free, their owners don’t), and are back on the lam. Running isn’t really an option, especially as Eddie/Brock regularly loses his footwear.
Not content to continue the dynamic of Eddie/Venom versus the world, The Last Dance ups the stakes, introducing the deathless Knull (voiced and mo-capped by Andy Serkis), a former symbiote creator and mad scientist who became a prisoner of his own progeny. Trapped in an inter-dimensional prison (or something), Knull plots his escape using “xenophages,” which are monstrous, multiple-legged beasties with rows of razor-sharp teeth and a preferred diet of symbiotes and their hosts. His aim is to hunt down the only symbiote carrying the the key to his prison and, therefore, means of escape. That symbiote, of course, is Venom.
After a brief, unconvincing conversation to discuss their predicament, Eddie/Venom decide on a trip to the Big Apple and the Statue of Liberty, likely because Venom, as an undocumented immigrant, wants to see the symbol of American freedom, equality, and liberty. Whatever the rationale, they don’t get far. An encounter with a xenophage leaves Eddie/Venom somewhere in the Nevada desert, conveniently close to the soon-to-close Area 51 and a not-so-secret, underground research facility co-led by Dr. Teddy Payne (Juno Temple), a xeno-biologist, and Rex Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a U.S. general in charge of something called the Imperium program.
Returning for the third time as writer or co-writer and making her directorial debut, Kelly Marcel offers a loosely structured, episodic screenplay. It sees Eddie/Venom repeatedly cross paths with a family of well-meaning UFO enthusiasts somehow time-warped from the 1970s. It’s only a matter of time before the family’s patriarch, Martin Moon (Rhys Ifans), leads a sing-a-long of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.” It’s meant to be a half-touching, half-humorous moment and it almost succeeds, right up until Marcel overindulges her Bowie love and lets the scene stretch into several minutes.
Later, Eddie/Venom encounter fan-favourite Mrs. Chen (Peggy Lu) in Las Vegas proper, signalling another opportunity for a lightweight set piece before the not-quite final segue to the obligatory sound-and-fury set piece back at Area 51. Pitting Eddie/Venom and his allies against not one, not two, but three xenophages, it’s about as engaging as any of the climaxes of the last half-dozen MCU-related films–so, not at all engaging.
Ultimately, the set pieces matter far less than the central, possibly only, reason to watch any entry in the Venom series: Tom Hardy as the put-upon, losing-at-life ex-journalist and his permanent houseguest. Their repartee remains as humorous or outright hilarious as it was the first and second time around, although it’s hard to argue that we need, let alone want, to see an Eddie/Venom reunion anytime soon.
Venom: The Last Dance is now playing in theatres.
