The Last Dance Review – Venom’s Finale Fizzles Out
It’s concerning; however, knowing that Eddie Brock and Venom have always been creatures of chaos, particularly when they’re at their most extreme. In Venom: In Let There Be Carnage, the two brought their unpredictable enthusiasm, which was fun to watch. But the third and final installment, Venom: Unfortunately, The Last Dance, does not produce that same drive and frenzy. However, both, Eddie and Venom are tamed, and thus we get that low-yield, inconsistent pacing and no excitement film.
The only way to enjoy the misadventures of the characters in Venom (2018) and its sequel released in 2021 was because of the over the top charm and campy absurdity that the entire film was,err…”lavished” in. However, The Last Dance, which is supposed to be a final hurrah for Eddie and Venom, isn’t quite as electric. Tom Hardy gives a rather passionate performance, but even he cannot carry a movie which languishes due to a slow moving script. The original story by Hardy and the screenplay by Kelly Marcel thrust the movie into a rather joyless send-off which erases the very joy that the movie sets out to portray as its message.
Unlike its predecessors, Venom: The Last Dance has no motivation characteristic was once thrilling. Rather than owning the silliness, it bounces haphazardly between silliness and melancholic, earnest closer looks at soldiers and scientists. These far too often feeling as if they’ve been awkwardly grafted on to the movie, and do more to jar than they do to enrich.
Marcel, who previously worked as the screenwriter for the earlier Venom films, is featured here as the sole scriptwriter – still, the finale is vastly anticlimactic. But even with Süskind CGI action scenes, Eddie & Venom on the run from the police, Xenophages, and the military, there are dead spaces in between.
In the plot of the movies Eddie and Venom become criminals on the run from both the FBI and from another force named Knull who is the maker of the Symbiotes. After LE closer called Let There Be Carnage, a new Venom movie superhero duo, Eddie and Venom, go to a universe-saving mission alongside eg soldier Rex Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor) from a decommissioned Area 51 lab and scientist Dr. Teddy Payne (Juno Temple). The experiments conducted by Payne unveils the truth about the symbiotes and their intentions of destruction for the universe since Knull is seeking for the Codex so as to be released from his cage.
Still as Venom and other symbiotes flash their fangs in isolated threatening scenes, the movie never tries to go deep enough to be interesting. While switching between Eddie/Venom, Strickland, and Payne, the story only occasionally focuses on one character that would give the viewers interest. Payne has obvious tragic background while Strickland is obsessed with eradicating Codex to the extent that he ignores direct command to close shop and bury the whole thing cleanly. However, these backstories are not detailed enough, to create that kind of impact.
One of them is about two aliens (Joel and Lavender) who are lovers, but they are also trying to make their bosses from a hippie musician Martin (Rhys Ifans), his wife Nova Moon (Alanna Ubach) and their two children happy. These are just mere side plots that only contribute to the notions and take the viewer away from the movie’s topics.
The movie has a few bright scenes: one of them acts on the background of a passenger aircraft, another – a musical battle with Venom and Mrs. Chen (Peggy Lu). But such moments of interest are far and between and thus fail to sustain the movie to being interesting throughout.
Ultimately, Venom: While The Last Dance does come close to matching the modern grittiness of its predecessors, the tone of the piece is far too dark and the reckless abandon that made Eddie and Venom so attractive is absent altogether. For the final act in the trilogy it’s a fitting conclusion: it dispels the crazed excess of the first film with heavy-handed earnestness.
Cast: Tom Hardy, Alanna Ubach, Juno Temple.
Director: Kelly Marcel