Venom: The Last Dance has arrived and there has been a lot of theories and opinions about the future of the Venom character and the Sony Pictures universe he belongs to as well. While there have been suggestions from Tom Hardy himself that, despite The Last Dance being billed as the final Venom film, he's not done with the character of Venom (and that there's still so much to do with the Venom character that hasn't yet been explored on film).
However, for the purposes of this review, I'm going to do a review on the last film, plain and simple, and leave the theorizing to a future article or two (wink, wink!) So, let's tango through the chaotic and confused world of Venom: The Last Dance. Beware of massive spoilers!
To give a brief overview of where things stand with the Venom franchise, after the defeat of Carnage at the end of Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Eddie and Venom are on the run from the law - especially now with the existence of aliens and symbiotes known to the world. The end of that film sees Eddie and Venom relaxing on a beach in an undisclosed location, cementing their relationship (which fans are convinced may or may not be a romantic relationship). A mid-credits scene featured the pair being transported to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where they see a newscast of J. Jonah Jameson reporting the real identity of Spider-Man.
The next time audiences see Venom is during a post credits scene for Spider-Man: No Way Home, where Eddie was being told about the new world he inhabited along with the other Marvel heroes. Suddenly, they are whisked away through a mysterious portal, but not before a piece of the Venom symbiote is left behind at the bar they were taken from. Just to clear the air, the opening of Venom: The Last Dance takes place directly after Eddie and Venom are taken back to their world through that mysterious portal, and the plot goes from there. So, with you guys caught up, let's begin!
*** This article contains MAJOR SPOILERS from Venom: The Last Dance. Don't read on if you would prefer the movie wasn't spoiled for you. ***
The plot of Venom 3 feels restrained
The overall plot of Venom: Let There Be Carnage is centred on the fact that Eddie and Venom are still being pursued by the law. But now they have to contend with the forces of the God and creator of the symbiotes, Knull, who makes his live-action debut in this film. As a result, the whole film sees them being chased either by Knull's minions or a band of the military/scientists hellbent on understanding the symbiote race, led by Teddy Payne (played by Juno Temple). Knull wants Eddie and Venom is because the duo possess something called a Codex, which is unique to their bond... and the key for Knull's release from his imprisonment.
Along the way, Venom and Eddie meet a family who's patriarch is hell bent on going to Area 51 to see aliens while dragging his family long. Eddie and Venom are then kidnapped by the military/scientist team in Vegas, where not long into his capture the agents of Knull arrive, killing many in their path. After realizing there can be no hope for their future since Knull's forces will never stop, Venom sacrifices himself by bonding with the agents of Knull, which Eddie uses a huge vat of acid to kill both agent and Venom in the process. The film ends with Eddie going to New York to start his life again without Venom in his life.
That was a very bare bones breakdown of the overall plot, but that shows a huge problem with the film; nothing felt accomplished or gained throughout. The whole film was essentially a prolonged chase scene that had way too many stops until the climax. But what really made it suffer was it's connections to the other Marvel movies. Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that the MCU is getting bigger and bigger with new characters and stories coming at us in the near future, but this film presents the hallmark of why shared universe films are getting a bad rap in the entertainment industry. For this film in particular, it didn't feel like an ending to the Venom franchise, rather, something that was designed to lay the seeds for future movies and their potential plots that may involve character(s) in this one.
In a sense, when most major film studios want to make a shared cinematic universe, too many think they can run before they can walk. Marvel Studios dedicated years of storytelling to various movies before they let their characters interact with each other in crossover films like the Avengers franchise, but we've gotten to the point now where most other studios rush to the finish line to try and match Marvel's success without doing any of the hard work that would've made it successful. Venom: The Last Dance felt like it was just another movie setting up more movies without having an engaging and engrossing story all its own.
Most of the new characters were wasted
Venom: The Last Dance introduced many new characters to the Venom franchise, alongside returning supporting characters from the previous films such as Mrs. Chen and Detective Mulligan. While there were a variety of characters, in my opinion, they were all pointless and expendable. Peggy Lu (who plays Mrs. Chen), the only other cast member alongside Tom Hardy who has been in all of the Venom movies, only got a few minutes of screen time. And some of that felt very out of place, such as that forced dance number with Venom. Once Venom was taken captive by Teddy Payne's forces, she's not seen again throughout the rest of the film.
And don't get me started on Mulligan. It was teased at the end of Venom: Let There Be Carnage that Mulligan had bonded with a symbiote, and while he does become one in this film, he only appeared to spout exposition about information the audience already knows. But the worst part is that he gets killed off by Knull's forces while trying to save Venom. I'm not joking, he says some things, then gets eaten alive.
As for the new characters, every one of them felt like a cliché or copy of a character that has been portrayed far too many times before. Chiwetel Ejiofor's Rex Strickland (whose name I could not remember for the life of me) was your typical uptight general who wants to run things his way, while Juno Temple's character was given a tragic backstory that didn't really feel necessary to the plot. Temple's character was also very inconsistent with how she wanted to achieve her goals, because during the middle of the movie she let soldiers die, and didn't seem to care that they did, but during the climax of the film she wants to save everyone she can while her base was being attacked. Very confusing.
But in my mind the worst offenders when it comes to totally useless characters are the alien-hunting family. Sure, there were some moments that were marginally touching with Eddie connecting with them, but the problem with this family is that they were shoehorned into the movie to give Eddie and Venom some semblance of character growth. The family never felt like organic characters that fit into the larger tapestry that is this movie; instead, they felt like just plot devices used to further along Eddie's and Venom's character development. Plus, they too felt very generic and formulaic along with the other new characters introduced in this film.
Major villain problem
When Knull was revealed to be a part of this film in the trailers, I and many other fans were super hyped. Knull's a very recent addition to the Marvel Comics Universe, and while his character hasn't had decades of stories attached to him in the same way that villains such as Doctor Doom and Magneto have, he was a very deadly threat to everyone in the Marvel Universe, and his design wasn't that bad either.
So, how was the live-action version of Knull in Venom 3? Well, he was in the movie for around five minutes. Yes, I wish I was kidding, but that's the sad truth. That might have been forgivable if he had been used correctly. But how were those five minutes with him in it? Underwhelming, to say the least. Yes, it was cool seeing him in live action, but due to the lighting of the scenes in question it was hard to actually see the character in all his "glory."
Among the many problems I had with this film, one of the most glaring is that there never was a present big bad in the whole film. Sure, Knull was there, but he never once came to Earth to battle any of the characters. Instead, the main threats of the film were a bunch of Knull's monstrous minions known as Xenophages that aren't nearly as cool as they were presented in the comics. They came across as very ineffectual and not very threatening in the grand scheme of things.
The human threat had no central big bad either, because Juno Temple and Chiwetel Ejiofor weren't nearly engaging, compelling, or evil enough to be even considered the big bad of the film, and this ties into why I believe that the whole cinematic universe thing can be a real pain to both filmmakers and audiences. Studios are not giving enough creative control to their filmmakers to make the best thing they can, while audiences are forced to endure a poorly executed film that's just setting up films years in the future. It's just all around bad.
The whole Venom trilogy of films aren't good films by any stretch of the imagination, but they are entertaining. Well, at least, the first two are in my opinion. If I were to rate these films from worst to best it would go like this: Venom: The Last Dance, then Venom, and finally Venom: Let There be Carnage. The whole trilogy suffered from many problems, but the latest one to me was the worst example of a studio trying to build a cinematic universe without taking into account the stories they're trying to tell.
What do you think? Was my review of Venom: The Last Dance on point or was it too negative? How would you rate the Venom movies?