Growing up in the ’90s, like most kids, The X-Men and the Spider-Man books were the most popular comics Marvel put out. Much like Gambit and Cable instantly became hot characters in the Spidey part of the world, Todd McFarlane and David Michelinie took the alien black costume. They created one of the most significant new supervillains of the era – Venom. A character that’s a duo of beings that hate Peter Parker more than anyone besides them, Osborns. Much like in Professional Wrestling, when a Villain is that hot, it’s time to turn him Face, and so Venom went from terrorizing Spidey to being a sometimes ally and a hero in his own right. Venom, the lethal protector, was his thing in the later 90s books. Venom has become a Marvel mainstay. In 2018, Sony made a film for Venom by himself, with no Spider-Man. Here, Tom Hardy plays Eddie Brock and voices the symbiote, whom they call Venom.
So now, in 2024, we are at our third Venom movie, Venom: The Last Dance, a bonding road movie about two friends having one last adventure together before one has to move on with his life. They then add random alien monsters, the military, scientists, and more symbiotes. Eddie and Venom open where we last saw them in the post-credit scene from Spider-Man: No Way Home and learn they’re on the run for murder from the events of Venom: Let There Be Carnage. Venom tells Eddie, let’s go to New York, as it’s something that’s been hinted at in each of these movies. We then learn that a powerful being who I won’t spoil is looking for something, and Venom and Eddie are the ones who have it. They send these weird-looking monsters after them, and our odd couple duo peel out to not get caught. At the same time, there’s a useless part of the story where Chiwetel Ejiofor plays General Rex Strickland, who’s in charge of Area 55 underneath Area 51 that’s being commissioned. Juno Temple plays Dr. Payne, a scientist studying all the symbiotes they’ve caught.
Somehow, all these plotlines come together in a very haphazard way and don’t make much sense. Still, Hardy does so well as Eddie, this sad man who, through his relationship with Venom, has gotten over a lot of his depression and anxiety in some way. Their journey connects them with a road-traveling family and Mrs. Chen (Peggy Lu), the best bodega owner in the Marvel Multiverse. He does so much acting against his own vocal performance, and the VFX animators also do very well in what they do with Venom, which helps sell the scenes that are just Hardy and Venom. Some of the big action scenes in the last act are pretty cool to watch and well done, even if it’s just a bunch of D-List symbiote character easter eggs.
So, while this sounds like I’m trashing this movie, I was very entertained the whole time. It was so funny, and Hardy kills with his weird, quirky performance with his body language and facial expressions. For me, I’ve like all these movies as they capture the charm of the character and the earlier comics more than later ones. Venom: The Last Dance will be trash for some folks and a joy for others, just like the previous two movies. For me, this was a very delightful theater experience.
Score: C+
