Takes a while but “Venom: The Last Dance” eventually kicks in
Venom: The Last Dance
Where: In theatres
What: Movie, 109 mins.
When: Fri., Oct. 25
Genre: Action
Rating: NNN (out of 5)
Why you should watch: Third installment in the Venom series remains an entertaining showcase for star Tom Hardy’s eccentricities.
THE PRETTY TOUGH-GOING first act of Venom: The Last Dance makes the viewer a little worried. That may sound strange, being that the film belongs to Sony Pictures’ “In Association with Marvel” brand, which has been tagged by fans and critics alike as probably the most cynical ploy in the recent comic-book movie craze. After all, needing to make what are essentially Spider-Man films without actually including Spider-Man, thus turning to his B- and C-list villains, seems like something nobody — not even the most die-hard comic readers — was asking for.
That’s why it feels somewhat remarkable that the Venom franchise has managed to be somewhat successful, now spawning its third, and supposedly final (if the title isn’t lying) entry. It helped that both 2018’s Venom and 2021’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage seemed somewhat in on the joke that it was likely silly to be making a movie based on the ’90s comic-book villain (who spawned his own line at one point but always needed the counter of Spider-Man to be an interesting character) in the first place. Those two films seemed to remind you that, every once in a while, a lowbrow comic book film could still be unpretentious fun. It helped matters that these movies are showcases for star (and now series producer and co-writer) Tom Hardy, who perhaps seemed overqualified for such a silly, to reveal himself as a Jim Carrey-like comic actor.
The new film picks off where the second ended, with series hero Eddie Brock (Hardy) in hiding in Mexico after being framed for murder. He’s at least kept company (not to mention nagged constantly) by Venom, the black alien goo attached to his body. Venom acts as both a humorous bully to Eddie and a representation of his id, often pushing him to act on bad impulses, which range from mean quips to crushing heads.
The jokes don’t seem to initially land at the beginning of The Last Dance, and there’s the additional problem of it introducing things too common in other bad comic-book movies: chiefly boring antagonists. There are two separate strands of characters pursuing Eddie: Area 51 agents monitoring symbiote activity on Earth who see him as the key to a scientific breakthrough, and Knull, an alien baddie who sends monsters to Earth to retrieve a Codex (classically unoriginal superhero movie plot device of a glowing orb) that can remove the Venom symbiote from Eddie. The former consists of flatly shot scenes of good actors like Juno Temple and Chiwetel Ejiofor delivering bad dialogue, and the latter is full of uninspiring visual effects that, at times, look generated by artificial intelligence.
That being said, the film does begin to grow on the viewer with the introduction of a quirkier subplot: Martin Moon (Rhys Ifans), the patriarch of a sunny family on a road trip who crosses paths with Eddie by chance. The emotional stakes become more apparent with Eddie realizing he missed out on his chance to be a father and while the humour doesn’t totally pick up, the film attains a strange kind of sweetness, if represented by a brief detour in Las Vegas that makes time for a surprising ABBA-scored dance number.
Carrying everything is Hardy, whose macho charisma and method-actor intensity in his heyday drew comparisons to Marlon Brando. Having been toiling away in mostly Venom movies since 2018, it’s likely nobody will maintain that comparison, but he, regardless, still impresses in the role with his oddball energy, not to mention his lack of vanity.
Certainly, this is far from a great film though; the use of IMAX-enhanced photography is among the least impressive the large-screen premium format has ever seen, and many scenes seem to lack connective tissue that imply heavy tinkering in the editing room. Yet, by its end, Venom: The Last Dance maintains the charm of the series as the off-kilter buddy movie between man and alien.