Movie Review: VENOM: THE LAST DANCE

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: October 25th, 2024 / 05:22 AM

VENOM: THE LAST DANCE movie poster | ©2024 Sony/Columbia/Marvel

Rating: PG-13
Stars: Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Stephen Graham, Rhys Ifans, Alanna Ubach, Clark Backo, Cristo Fernández, Peggy Lu, Hala Finley, Dash McCloud
Writer: Kelly Marcel, story by Kelly Marcel & Tom Hardy, based on the Marvel Comics by Todd McFarlane and David Michelinie
Director: Kelly Marcel
Distributor: Sony/Columbia/Marvel
Release Date: October 25, 2024

Who is VENOM: THE LAST DANCE for? It’s certainly for fans of Tom Hardy, who is back as Eddie Brock and the voice of his alien symbiote Venom. It’s even more for those who enjoy watching all sorts of CGI monsters battle it out with humans, machinery, buildings, and mostly each other. Because of some bits of information embedded in the storytelling, it’s also for fans of the general Marvel Cinematic Universe, as it looks like some of what’s here will come up in later films.

VENOM: THE LAST DANCE picks up more or less where 2021’s VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE, with erstwhile San Francisco reporter Eddie and the stretchy, bendy, adaptable, sometimes homicidal alien symbiote Venom, who lives inside Eddie, getting along with one another comparatively well.

This is all for the best, since Eddie/Venom is wanted by the authorities for a hugely destructive rampage in San Francisco caused by another alien symbiote, and that symbiote’s serial killer human host. The real culprits are dead, but this doesn’t help Eddie.

Then we visit some strange dimension where super-evil intergalactic menace Knull has been trapped by the symbiotes he created. Knull is seeking a means of escape.

This escape mechanism is called the Codex and, as Venom explains to an unhappy Eddie, it’s within the two of them. As long as Eddie and Venom are alive and joined, the Codex exists and can be retrieved and taken back to Knull by one of his monsters.

Sure enough, Knull sends along one monster and then more. Eddie and Venom flee.

At the same time, Area 55 (think Area 51, but more secret) has a military laboratory that’s doing some investigations.

The plot is briskly easy to follow. Screenwriter Kelly Marcel, who has written on the other two VENOM films and co-created the story for THE LAST DANCE with actor Hardy, has the director’s reins this time.

Marcel has toned down the angst – Eddie is starting to adjust to his odd condition, and stopped pining over his old love – which allows the effects-laden story to barrel ahead. VENOM: THE LAST DANCE does have a couple of subplots, but these are whirled into the main narrative pretty quickly.

We are helpfully reminded that (although the first VENOM came out in 2018) only a year has gone by since Eddie and Venom first merged. This answers a whole lot of “why hasn’t X already happened” questions.

Despite where all of this is heading with the Codex, the tone is more what-will-we-see-next comic book adventure, as opposed to portentous gloom. There are also a lot of shot compositions that honor VENOM’s comic book origins, while taking great advantage of the kinds of fluid movement that CGI makes possible and that we can readily attribute to aliens.

Hardy has honed Eddie’s resigned attitude well enough to provide humor in almost all situations, and has even better comic timing as Venom. He also has convincing gentleness in the quieter moments.

MCU fans will note a deviation in casting practices, which is that, until now, actors who show up in one role in the franchise aren’t then cast as someone else. It can be argued that this stopped being the case as soon as Chris Evans was cast as 2011’s CAPTAIN AMERICA after having previously played Johnny Storm in 2005’s FANTASTIC FOUR, but at that time, FANTASTIC FOUR wasn’t formally part of the MCU.

Now, however, FANTASTIC FOUR has been brought into the fold, and Robert Downey Jr., the MCU’s Iron Man, has been announced as the next Victor Von Doom, so maybe all bets are off.

Chiwetel Ejiofor, who has appeared in 2016’s DOCTOR STRANGE and 2022’s DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS as the sorcerer Mordo, and Rhys Ifans, who played Dr. Curt Connors/the Lizard in 2012’s THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN and reprised the role in 2021’s SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME are both on hand in sizable supporting roles in VENOM: THE LAST DANCE.

While this reviewer cannot see any circumstances under which the casting of Ejiofor and/or Ifans should not be applauded (they do their customary wonderful jobs), it does raise some meta-verse issues.

It may be that the greater portion of VENOM: THE LAST DANCE is meant to be taking place in a parallel universe (that’s become a big thing in the MCU) where people who look like Ejiofor and Ifans have entirely different identities. After all, Eddie and Venom disappear through an interdimensional gateway in a Mexican bar early in the movie, only to return to the bar immediately, where the bartender now has long hair.

But it’s hard to tell if this is a space jump or just a time jump, since Eddie and Venom are in exactly the same trouble here as they were before, they encounter characters they know from the past, and they don’t run into alternate versions of themselves.

This mainly matters because the mid-end credits sequence and the post-end credits sequence both point to later big doings in the MCU mythology. This means that viewers who want to stay on top of the franchise really should watch VENOM: THE LAST DANCE. The good news is that it’s energetic and fun.

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