By Lucas Castillo ’25
Venom 3, The Last Dance, being the third installment in a franchise known for its mediocrity, in the midst of a dying cinematic universe littered with flop after flop, would surely break the mold and be a fantastic and thrilling piece that would leave audiences enthralled and awestruck, right? No. Its just mid by live action Sony-verse standards, and bad by almost any other standard.
It wasn’t a well-made film, but what it did do well, much like its predecessors, was give the audience a good time. Any time that Eddy Brock and Venom are on screen, the film is one hundred times better, as Tom Hardy carries every scene he’s in with his comedic charm. Couple that with an amusing cast of side characters and some cool CG fights and creatures, and you have a fun, mindless romp that you can turn off your brain and enjoy.
This film’s shtick as “the final chapter” of the Venom franchise is almost comically played up in its premise and is, thereby, hamfistedly baked into the main plot. The characters started acting as if it was the end times even before things start going very wrong. When they do discuss why it is the end of the line, not only is the main overarching threat that they’re facing both bland and tepid, but we have very little reason to actually care about any of the characters in the movie barring that of basic human empathy. Empty stakes and empty and stilted characters make the story emotionally boring.
Ladies and mostly Gentlemen, I present to you all the themes of Venom: The Last Dance: don’t judge an alien by the sharpness of its teeth, and enjoy life while you can. At least, that’s what I got from my first viewing. I don’t know if this was intentional, but I’m going to roll with it.
In the film, they’re trying to say that the symbiotes are on Earth to peacefully take refuge from their creator’s violent persecution. But in the first film, Venom said that the symbiotes were there to eat everybody and take over the planet. Venom was the outlier before, being the only symbiote that actually likes humans, but now all the symbiotes want to suddenly coexist with people and not bite their heads off. This change of heart and loyalties comes completely out of nowhere and is one of the core themes. On top of this, while Venom is being hunted by one of Knull’s creatures, and he knew that transforming would lead the creature right to them, he decided to “live a little” anyways and paid the price for it. That conflict could have been completely avoided if the characters just didn’t make a frivolously stupid decision.
The characters in this film are flat, but fun. The family that Eddy meets on his journey are funny and charming, but not much else. The writers tried to flesh out the two scientists, Dr. Payne and Dr. Christmas, and Chiwetel Ejiofor’s character Agent Strickland, but did a poor job at making us feel for the characters. Eddy Brock’s character in this installment was just kind of there, getting thrown around and beaten by the plot. Trauma isn’t the same as growth, and the only reason why people care about this version of Venom is because of Tom Hardy’s performance and basic human empathy. Tom Hardy always carries these movies hard with his comedic charm, as both Brock and Venom, respectively. The other actors, like Chiwetel Ejiofor in particular, really did try to make something of the material that they were given, but good acting can’t mask bad writing and flat dialogue.
This movie loves to waste characters. Detective Mulligan, who was set up to be a symbiote antagonist in the second film, was relegated to being a mouthpiece for the writers to spew extra exposition that was already delivered to the audience twice by that time. Speaking of exposition, the first minute or two of the film is literally just Knull explaining the plot and his plan to destroy everything in the universe. No one cares yet! The writers haven’t given the audience time to either get their bearings on what is going on, or time to find a reason to care about what’s going on: the writers just threw the viewers into the deep end and expect them to swim out of your dense exposition. Then, after that scene, we jump right into Eddy’s situation, without any time to get our bearings on the world and understand why these events matter.
One part of the Venom franchise that I will always praise are the effects. Most of the time, the symbiote characters, like Venom and Carnage, are very visually appealing and well-rendered. With this installment, barring Knull, I hold that same sentiment. The new symbiotes, while not being too interesting, had cool and creative designs, respectively. One that stuck out to me was a symbiote that had no legs, just a snake-like bottom half. Like I said, nothing crazy, but it was something. Knull’s minions also had a unique design, with cool and imaginative powers and abilities. I think the bar for good CG has been set so low by some of these comic book films lately, that any competent designs and renders are refreshing in some way.
Venom: The Last Dance isn’t a masterpiece by any means, but I would still watch it any and everyday of the week over either Madame Web or Morbius, and that’s something. Despite all of its various problems, this installment of the Venom franchise is still a fun watch if you want to not think for an hour or two. And if you like the sound of that, then I highly recommend this film!
Still, in my personal and all but factual opinion, I give Venom: The Last Dance an unceremonious 6/10.