The Wasteland Reviewer

Venom: The Last Dance (2024) Written Review

Could The Last Dance truly be accurate? Is this really the last go around for Venom and Eddie? The Sony universe filled with Spider-Man villains has been mostly a collection of bad films. Some are just atrociously bad. Some people find them fun and nostalgic to the early 2000s when most comic book movies were lackluster and dumb. Venom is the epitome of that. The first Venom was a big dumb fun time. Let There Be Carnage was a mess…but also big dumb fun. The steam has finally evaporated on this franchise, and we have a seriously unsatisfying conclusion. 

What does work in Venom: The Last Dance? Tom Hardy is still trying his best no matter what. His chemistry with himself (as Venom) is a lot of fun…at times. Their act gets stale because they needlessly make jokes that make no sense when they have been together so long. There are some solid emotional moments that should really hit but everything around those moments distracts from how important this was supposed to be. There are plenty of new characters added into this third film, but Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Strickland is the only one that feels authentic and meaningful. There are plenty of new symbiotes as well which are good to look at and there are some fun bursts of action in the third act. But for everything that works, there are about five to six things that don’t. 

Speaking of characters…what are the other elements that get thrown in this time? Juno Temple’s Dr. Paine is added in as what feels like a replacement for Venom (and that feels obvious by the time the credits roll). She has a forced “tragic” backstory that never gets enough depth to feel important. Rhys Ifans leads a family trying to find aliens and they feel like the most needless and random collection of characters ever put in a comic book film. They add nothing and just feel like distractions from the main conflicts of the film. They also keep coming back and distracting the audience with their annoying antics. The biggest waste is the antagonist Knull (voiced by Andy Serkis) who has no sense of danger. There is nothing interesting about this character and the MacGuffin centered way to free him from his prison just makes zero sense. The logic behind this “key” is ridiculous and hard to follow because it has zero logic. Since Knull cannot do much of anything, he sends giant mindless and personality-less monsters. 

How does first time filmmaker Kelly Marcel handle this big picture? Not well. Her writing contributed to the last two films, but her direction lacks any personality or voice. The tone of the film is all over the place and legitimately changes every few minutes. There are downright silly and stupid moments that bookend emotional moments that are supposed to be the heart of the film. The bipolar tones just give the audience whiplash. The film is awkwardly paced as well with so many scenes being skated over so quickly to the point of them having zero impact. Then you have 15-minute stretches without Eddie or Venom, and you can feel those holes. The action and effects are not convincing at all and leave you wanting so much more. 

Does the story deliver at all? There are just way too many story elements going on in this film to keep track of. The screenplay is filled to the brim with not only too many narratives but plenty that have zero depth and add nothing to the drama or conflict of the story. When you look at the main conflict, there is not a lot of substance to it and leaves few story beats to keep it going. All the extra storylines feel like they are there to just fill out the runtime. Nothing makes sense logically about the film and the screenplay does it few favors distracting the audience with bland characters, half-hearted stories, and an anticlimactic “closure” to the franchise. Maybe this will mean the end of these villain films as well (but we doubt it).