Film Review: VENOM: THE LAST DANCE (2024): A Flat Superhero Movie Occasionally Redeemed by its Comical Touches

Venom: The Last Dance Review

Venom: The Last Dance (2024) Film Review, a movie directed by Kelly Marcel, written by Tom Hardy and Kelly Marcel and starring Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Rhys Ifans, Stephen Graham, Peggy Lu, Clark Backo, Alanna Ubach, Cristo Fernandez, Jared Abrahamson, Hala Finley, Dash McCloud, Reid Scott, Jack Brady, Ivo Nandi, Jake Allyn, Otis Winston and Jacob Tomuri.

Kelly Marcel directs, perhaps, the last entry in the Venom franchise, Venom: The Last Dance. This third film in the series is easily the least watchable of the three Venom pictures. Perhaps, that has to do with the flat storyline and very annoying portrayal of Venom this time out. Venom was always a frustrating screen presence, but the second movie benefitted from Woody Harrelson’s near-perfect villain turn and actually worked. No such luck this time around. Venom merging with a horse is probably the most exciting thing that happens in the movie other than the occasionally humorous comic relief that sporadically makes the film tolerable.

As the film opens, we see some monsters from another dimension before joining Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and his best friend alter ego, Venom, in a bar where they’re being served by the bartender played by Cristo Fernandez. Eddie is on the run from the law and he and Venom decide they want to try to flee to New York City.

There is a scene where some goons with caged dogs confront our heroes and talk to Eddie just long enough to allow him to become Venom and kick their butts. It’s implausible that these bad guys wouldn’t have just killed Eddie and the fact that they dilly dally just long enough for him to let Venom take over is sheer cinematic implausibility at work.

However, implausibility is a small flaw with Venom: The Last Dance when compared to the performance by Chiwetel Ejiofor as Strickland who is in pursuit of Eddie/Venom. Ejiofor has never been bad in a performance before this one, but he telephones his role in here. We never really get to connect with Strickland as a character which could have more to do with the lackluster script than with Ejiofor, himself.

The addition of Juno Temple to the franchise works out a tad better. Temple plays Dr. Teddy Paine who has nightmares about her past and – spoiler alert – transforms into her own pink female Venom later in the picture. Temple tries hard to make her character work and she’s fighting against the problems with the threadbare story line. Temple works diligently to make up for the problems in the script that are stacked against her.

Rhys Ifans pops up as a character named Martin who, along with Alanna Ubach (the former teen actress from Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit)’s character, have a couple of kids with them (Dash McCloud and Hala Finley). Ifans feels like he enters from another movie altogether and is another example of the unstable developments that drive the plot and make it feel uneven and unstructured as a film.

The saving grace in the film is a dance number with Venom and a series favorite, Mrs. Chen (Peggy Lu). Watching the pair dance to ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” has its many joys even though the scene is short and sweet in a film filled with things blowing up and characters transforming. By the time the movie reaches its climax, there is an emotional plot development that puts a key character’s life at risk with results that, in any other movie, would create tears from the audience but, here, will just cause frustration.

Tom Hardy really doesn’t do much to help the film this time out. He lacks charm here that was present in the second picture. Even worse than the new Joker picture, Venom: The Last Dance has no respect for its central characters and does them a disservice at the movie’s disappointing ending.

Michelle Williams from the previous entries was smart to stay out of Venom: The Last Dance. It was easy to walk out of this new movie after the first mid-credits sequence which feels pretty pointless in itself. Maybe Williams comes into it after the credits but, hopefully, she doesn’t. Venom: The Last Dance needed a strong love interest for Eddie to make the picture more accessible but that’s missing here too, unfortunately.

See Venom: The Last Dance, if you must, for its scene with Peggy Lu’s character mingling with Venom but you could probably just wait a few months until that scene appears on YouTube. Venom: The Last Dance is ultimately a cheat. At the end, it robs the audience of the very reason they enjoyed the Venom pictures to begin with.

Rating: 5/10

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