★★☆☆☆
Venom: The Last Dance, the final installment of Sony’s Venom trilogy, maintains the comedic dynamic of its protagonists while upping the film’s stakes to new universal heights. While jam-packing the movie with fan service and CGI fights so inherent to modern superhero flicks, Venom 3 becomes susceptible to the pitfalls of a weak plot and cringe-worthy humor despite its occasional creativity.
Venom 3 follows disheveled ex-reporter and fugitive Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) shortly after the events of Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Brock’s brief post-credit scene in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Brock and his symbiote, who is a liquid-like alien creature that attaches itself to Brock, are hunted by their respective species. The military is searching for Brock and a new threat is looming for the symbiote: the god of darkness and father of the symbiotes, Knull (Andy Serkis).
The film’s focal point is the dynamic relationship between Brock and his symbiotic partner, who are together known as the titular “Venom.” Most of the narrative’s comedic and emotional impact comes from the discourse between the two, and although they are often frustrated with each other, their connection ultimately shines when the chips are down.
Fans of the Marvel comics will quickly recognize the name Knull and just how formidable of an antagonist he can be. Subsequently, fans would ask how the movie could handle the “Lord of the Abyss” on the big screen with such an obvious power gap between Venom and Knull.
The answer is that Knull takes a backseat role as the primary, overarching, and imprisoned antagonist. In his place, Knull sends his powerful CGI minions called Xenophages after Venom, who possesses the key to freeing Knull.
The plot is basic, with very little character development occurring throughout the film. The movie glosses over morally gray moments to keep the story rolling. Side characters, like Dr. Teddy Payne (Juno Temple), are given enough screen time to develop a side plot, but not enough time to be compelling or impactful.
The humor, on the other hand, is plentiful throughout the movie, but mostly falls flat. The symbiote is the main source of humor, either directly in its bickering with Brock or indirectly through its strange affinities for singing and dancing. The jokes make a futile attempt to alleviate the dark spirit of the story and result in a severe dissonance of tone.
Moreover, most of the comedy only makes the audience cringe. One scene at the beginning of the movie shows Venom incapacitating a group of bad guys. As Venom lifts his symbiote shell to reveal Brock’s human face, he says, “We … are …” before he is interrupted by the eager symbiote who yells, “We are Venom!” The duo attempts to synchronize but continuously fails before giving up.
“We need to work on that,” Brock said to the symbiote.
There is more comedic value in how bad the joke is than the joke has on its own feet.
On a positive note, the action scenes are undeniably creative. Chock-full of CGI, the picture presents its action with a level of corniness and over-the-topness that viewers have come to expect from the symbiote fights of its predecessors. It brings a lot of charm to what would otherwise be a fairly boring and typical superhero movie.
One particular scene sees Brock chased by the military in a river, separated from his symbiote. The symbiote bonds to anything it can find, from fish to frogs, to catch up to Brock. Scenes like these, combined with the more tender connective moments between Brock and his symbiote, were the clear highlights of the film.
The best moments of Venom 3 were few and far between, and could not save the story and characters from mediocre writing and uncompelling, contrived plot points. The film marks itself as yet another unremarkable superhero story shown to an audience already weary of the genre.
