From the outset, parsing these Venom movies has been a game of “Go With It.” A film series starring Marvel’s most gnarly Spider-Man foe without Ol’ Web-Head himself? Go with it. When the Venom symbiote chomps on a human head, as he is wont to do, wouldn’t the head go into the stomach of his jittery human host, Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy)? Nah, just go with it. And what, exactly, was the deal with Eddie drinking tequila in a Marvel 616 bar during the end credits of Spider-Man: No Way Home? What did we just say?! As the final level in this game of go-along, Venom: The Last Dance is still figuring out what a Venom movie needs to be, a tricky juggling of tone and spectacle that will be amusing enough for those tuned into this series’ squishy, uncomplicated rhythms and a numbing headache for folks bewildered by the chaotic and often rudderless existence of a Venom trilogy.
There is something to be admired about how these quasi-superhero movies, directed by Ruben Fleischer, Andy Serkis, and now Kelly Marcel (making her feature debut), jettison the universe-building prickliness that often weighs down other Marvel movies in the name of having a good time. Of the three, Venom (2018) and now Venom: The Last Dance are the most “Marvel-like” in their design, which puts the series’ easygoing vibes at odds with Sony’s fumbling franchise ambitions. (Another Spidey-adjacent villain movie, Kraven the Hunter, is expected to drop on Dec. 13.) The red-headed middle child, Serkis’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021), was perhaps the ideal project for the character as he (they) exist in this incarnation: a caustic and bizarre buddy movie with a willingness to wreak havoc at the deliberate expense of nerdy comic book gravitas. V3nom, meanwhile, channels the same frenzied energy as its most immediate predecessor but also has a mind to offer some sobriety to this maybe/maybe not finale, effectively making the third Venom entry feel like two movies in one.
The first half is a buddy road flick featuring Eddie and Venom, now fugitives on the lam somewhere in Mexico following the deadly events of Carnage. Their mission, such as it is, is to travel to New York City, where Eddie plans to blackmail a judge to clear his name of the wrongfully brought charges against him (them!). This takes the pair on a squirrelly traipse through the American desert, where they encounter a hippie family (Rhys Ifans, Alanna Ubach, Dash McCloud, and Hala Finley) and make a pit stop in Las Vegas for some neon-soaked shenanigans. (It’s an acceptable excuse for a shameless/harmless cameo and for Hardy to flex a James Bond tux.) The second bit shifts into a foreboding alien invasion movie set in Area 51, where Dr. Payne (Juno Temple) manages a covert lab of lost symbiotes while grizzled soldier Rex Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor) hunts Venom on behalf of a shadowy government organization that never truly takes substantial shape.
These divergent plotlines, with their own distinct if wildly contrasting moods, eventually collide just before the cacophonous, effects-laden madness that makes up the film’s final stretch, which involves Venom, a multitude of symbiotes, and their Satanic alien creator, Knull.
That name will have significance for the comic-reading Spidey-Heads out there. Created by writer Donny Cates and artist Ryan Stegman, confessed acolytes of Venom co-creator Todd McFarlane (with David Michelinie), Knull casts a conspicuous shadow over Venom: The Last Dance. However, his sinister plan—hunting down a cosmic whatsit called “The Codex” that will aid his escape from an eternal prison (nested, inconveniently, inside Venom/Eddie)—feels tacked on to the film’s other concerns. Although Knull (a looming computer-generated fusion of Lovecraft, Giger, and Elric of Melniboné boosted with a bowels-quaking voice), is a notable leveling-up for a movie series that has thus far been inclined to take it easier than what we’ve seen from recent multiverse-threatening MCU entries, his presence remains, for the most part, peripheral.
That said, Knull does unleash a screeching, spindly alien monster called the Xenophage that homes in on Eddie and Venom’s Codex signal whenever this ink-blot Hulk takes over his best buddy’s body. (A reasonable conceit that allows Hardy more screen time to flex his action chops.) This development disrupts the boys’ trip to NYC and is the impetus for the movie’s many wild detours—one of note is set atop a soaring airliner—culminating with the bleak suggestion that this bond between our dysfunctional anti-hero duo might be nearing its end.
It must be said that the most surprising part of Venom: The Last Dance is its flirtation with mortality, with Hardy’s leathery mug projecting a stoic yearning whenever he and his symbiote friend voice their hopes for a happy ending, should the chips fall that way. That traveling hippie family contributes to this sense of longing Marcel (sharing story credit with Hardy) aims to establish before the alien action pops off, buoyed by a disarmingly sweet car ride singalong to David Bowie’s “A Space Oddity” halfway through the movie. Marcel also bothers to flesh out characters like Payne, Strickland, and a whimsical doctor (Clark Backo), though their function in the wider story is purely mechanical. It’s a laudable attempt to mature the Venom series, even as Venom continues to revel in flapping muscle-tongued hurly-burly and his penchant for cutting a rug whenever the film drops a good beat.
This makes one puzzle over what space remains for the Venom character and the gentle beast this post-Endgame superhero bust has freed him to be. Born amid the edgy scuzzlands of Nineties superhero comics, this “lethal protector” and his wily leading man co-star have enjoyed the leeway to discover what kind of gross symbiote head-muncher they want to be in this kinder, more accepting modern sphere. If they should ever cross webs with the amazing Spider-Man, will they meet as enemies, or buds? That last bit probably doesn’t matter. (The jury’s still out on Sony’s function in the MCU; just don’t tell Sony.) Although this enjoyably capricious version of the character doesn’t quite resemble his vicious, violent comic counterpart, there’s a reason why Venom resonates with filmgoers—this spud wants to party and, when it counts, knows how to put on a good one. Just go with it.
Director: Kelly Marcel
Writer: Kelly Marcel
Stars: Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Rhys Ifans, Peggy Lu, Alanna Ubach, Stephen Graham
Release date: Oct. 25, 2024
Jarrod Jones is a freelance critic based in Chicago, with bylines at The A.V. Club, IGN, Polygon, and any place that will take him, really. For more of his mindless thoughts on genre trash, cartoons, and comic books, follow him on Twitter or check out his blog, DoomRocket.
