If this is truly the last we'll see of this iteration of Venom, then good riddance. The Tom Hardy-led Spider-Man spin-offs - which of course cannot mention Spider-Man in any way - have been Sony's only successes since agreeing to share custody of the Web Slinger with the MCU. Morbius and Madame Web have been memed and mocked, and the long-delayed Kraven the Hunter will likely join their ranks this holiday season.
But they all have one thing in common: they stink! Despite the investment of hundreds of millions of dollars and the talent of well-respected actors and directors, there's a bottom-of-the-barrel quality to all of these. The Venom movies have been big hits and have gotten a pass from some critics thanks to Tom Hardy's committed performance and occasional slides into silliness. Those have never been enough for me, and they're certainly not enough here.
The film's problems start immediately, and they never get better. Motion capture maestro Andy Serkis plays Knull, a new big bad from another dimension. He spends the first several minutes dropping some truly eye-rolling exposition. Then he unleashes an army of alien dogs - who can somehow teleport out of the prison he's stuck in - to find a MacGuffin on Earth that will free him. Of course this previously unknown doodad is only found within Venom. This is all meant to raise the stakes for the final outing of this trilogy. But this is a new character who's practically faceless and has zero connection to anything that's come before. That makes it extremely hard to care about anything that comes next.
But is this movie anywhere near done introducing new characters with poorly written backstories? Oh my, no. Former Marvel villains Chiwetel Ejiofor (Doctor Strange) and Rhys Ifans (The Amazing Spider-Man) pop up as a ruthless special ops leader and an alien-obsessed dad, respectively. And then there are Juno Temple (Ted Lasso) and Clark Backo (Letterkenny) as two scientists who have nothing to do until the film's final act.
Along the way, there's only one scene that rises to the level of "enjoyable." It takes place in Vegas, and gives the film its title. Venom and Mrs. Chen (Peggy Lu) share a reunion and choreographed dance to ABBA's classic "Dancing Queen." Such a joyous moment stands in stark contrast to a dark, gruesome movie. To say The Last Dance fails to mix these tones well would be an understatement.
If you've seen the last two entries, you know the big finale is going to be a poorly lit battle between one CGI monster and another. And if that's what fans want, then it certainly delivers. There's also a "heart-tugging" coda that just serves as a reminder of how hollow this whole endeavor was. If this film's also a hit, then we're bound to see at least one of these characters again. But hopefully this will be thrown on the scrap heap with the rest of Sony's superhero movies without Spider-Man.
