Sony’s attempts to create their own superhero cinematic universe continue to be a disappointment: essentially a universe defined by Spider-Man but completely lacking Spider-Man—it’s a lose lose situation. After the commercial and critical disappointment of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the integration of Spider-Man into the MCU, and the redevelopment of Venom as a stand-alone film in its own universe, Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (SSU) was born from the scrapheap.
Venom: The Last Dance, while offering occasional mismatched buddy humour and anti-hero antics, continues the unfortunate junk pile trend. Meant to be the culmination of Eddie and Venom’s time together, it neither ends feeling complete nor satisfying. With that production history, though, how can it be?
While Morbius and Madame Web became the two biggest commercial and critical failures to come out of the genre (the memes outside the films having more cultural capital than the films themselves), Venom became a weird offshoot of popcorn entertainment, fuelled by the character’s hilariously crude and sarcastic remarks – some even branding the character icon status when looking at these films through the queer lens of them being rom-coms. ‘Symbrock’ fans will happily argue that the nightclub sequence in Let There Be Carnage is Venom’s coming-out party. Why else would he yell, “Free to be who we are!” whilst covered in rainbow glow rings?
In a prologue akin to a pre-game cutscene, The Last Dance opens with the backstory of Knull (Andy Serkis), a shady villain who created the symbiotes. His creations have imprisoned him, and the only thing that can release him is a McGuffin called a ‘codex’. The codex only exists when a symbiote resurrects its host and has a good, symbiotic relationship with its cohabitant. It’s not hard to figure out who now holds the codex. Knull sends out a CGI creature known as a Xenophage to hunt Venom down, kicking off a fight with an antagonist that exists almost entirely off-screen.
On the run after the events of Venom: Let There Be Carnage, the film catches up with Venom and Eddie (Tom Hardy) getting drunk in a Mexican bar. Wanted for the suspected murder of Patrick Mulligan (Stephen Graham), they set out to NYC to clear their name. While they are on the plane back, a Xenophage attacks them, leaving them stranded in a desert field in Nevada. Rex Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a soldier working for the government-operated group ‘Imperium’, is caught up in what’s happening, sending out a team to also hunt Venom down from an about-to-be-decommissioned Area 51. A whole lot of daft computer-generated nonsense ensues.
As a conglomerate of spin-off IP that has no way of associating with its original property (except through some mind-numbing post-credit scenes in Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Morbius), the first two Venom films found their audience through two main attractions – B-movie shenanigans, and Tom Hardy’s two-handed banter between Eddie and Venom. The best part about The Last Dance is when the film leans into these elements; however, it struggles to maintain them – providing a more serious tone in a film series whose most significant strength is leaning more into camp and juvenile absurdity.
When the film deals with those important plot beats, it completely grinds to a halt. A side-quest with Imperium researchers Dr TEddie Payne (Juno Temple) and Sadie Christmas (Clark Backo) are particularly trying, spending an exorbitant amount of time in the laboratory trying to understand symbiote intentions that are more likely to make the audience nod off. Throw in a backstory for Payne’s brother, who died from a lightning strike, and most of it amounts to dull padding, adding very little intrigue to a plot that is supposed to be Eddie and Venom’s swan song. The pacing is wildly imbalanced, often throwing large chunks of time at these barely defined characters – taking away from whatever the leading duo are doing.
The primary attraction of The Last Dance is the relationship between Eddie and Venom. Their banter remains the most endearing part of the franchise: the quirky and crude gags generate the entertainment value. The film is alive when it plays on their goofball behaviour – a sequence at a Las Vegas casino with Mrs Chen (Peggy Lu) will have some eye rolling and some cackling with laughter. A better section of the film also has the pair hitch a ride with alien enthusiast and hippie Martin Moon (Rhys Ifans), whose family bonds with Eddie as they sing the entirety of David Bowie’s Space Oddity on the way to Las Vegas. If only the buddy-buddy road movie stood out more than the pedestrian super(anti)hero affair.
While Tom Hardy enjoys playing both these characters, his voice work as Venom stands out much more pronounced than his live-action performance as Eddie. Like most of his ties to previous films, his identity as an investigative journalist remains lost. Hardy has little insight left to give, ultimately leaving him running on autopilot. The culmination of their arcs is so lazy that a sizzle reel and a phoned-in narration tie it up.
Venom: The Last Dance has reached entropy. While people will enjoy the goofy moments like horse venom riding across the desert, symbiote hopping into creatures such as frogs, and other crazy moments between Eddie and Venom that feel far more in tune with a hammy B-movie than any previous Marvel property, the final product is dull, repetitive, and barely features an antagonist. Thus ending Venom and Eddie’s journey without any foreseeable closure for the SSU.
With Kraven the Hunter next on the horizon, Sony must evaluate its plans for this fractured universe if it is to improve. It’s screaming for a team-up with Spider-Man, but how can everyone’s favourite friendly neighbour turn up if there’s nothing friendly to come to?
Director: Kelly Marcel
Cast: Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple
Writer: Kelly Marcel, (Story by Tom Hardy & Kelly Marcel)
Producers: Avi Arad, Tom Hardy, Kelly Marcel, Hutch Parker, Amy Pascal, Matt Tolmach
Music: Dan Deacon
Cinematography: Fabian Wagner
Editor: Mark Sanger
