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Plot Summary: In Venom: The Last Dance, Tom Hardy returns as Venom, one of Marvel's greatest and most complex characters, for the final film in the trilogy. Eddie and Venom are on the run. Hunted by both of their worlds and with the net closing in, the duo are forced into a devastating decision that will bring the curtains down on Venom and Eddie's last dance.

Director: Kelly Marcel

Writer: Kelly Marcel

Runtime: 1 hour 49 minutes

• Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock / Venom
• June Temple as Dr. Payne
• Chiwetel Ejiofor as Rex Strickland

Review by: Samuel

What I Liked: 

Venom 3- like the others- is at its core a buddy film and the chemistry built over the last two films pays off big here. Eddie and Venom share comedic moments that genuinely made me laugh out loud and emotional moments that were surprisingly heartfelt. It all culminates to being a relationship I want to see more of, which was not the case after “Let There be Carnage.” 

The third act is bonkers, but in a good way. There is so much action on screen and I had a smile plastered on my face during all of it. I was worried when it did not seem like a lot of superhero stuff was occurring in this superhero film but they clearly had a plan to save the best moments for the climax. I won’t get into spoilers but trust me it’s one true fans of the franchise will love, and even indifferent viewers (like me) will have some fun with it. 

I wan to also emphasize Rhys Ifans role in this film. He plays Martin, basically a hippie on a road trip with his family to Area 51 hoping to find evidence of alien existence. He comes across Eddie, whom he is unaware harbors an alien parasite, and their time together is hilarious and kind of heartfelt. After the Eddie/Venom paring, I would said Martin is responsible for carrying most of the comedy found here. There were cheers, laughs and claps in my audience at some of his actions; and really just the fact that this alien conspiracy theorist is unknowingly hanging out with an actual alien is itself massively entertaining. 

What I Didn’t Like:

In my first draft of this review- this section was massive- we’re talking multiple pages long. However, I’ve narrowed my issues with this film to 3 areas: 1) Pacing 2) Narrative 3) Continuity Logic. Now this is extra frustrating for me because these were issues from the first two movies and thew studio hasn’t seemed to learn and improve. Although their movies have made tons of money- so they probably see no need to change the formula. 

But, let’s begin with pacing and narrative. We start the film with a straight-to-the-point exposition dump. Some dark ruler, older than the universe, was imprisoned by the symbiotes long ago and now wants to escape. In order to do so he needs to find the one symbiote with the key to his prison (Venom), and therefore sends these predators name Xenophages to find him. Excellent we have our villain, his goal, and the plot…or so we think. Immediately after this we catch up with Eddie who is now a fugitive after events in “Let There Be carnage”- he’s trying to make his way to the East Coast to find a judge who can clear his name. We discussed Ifans’ Martin earlier who runs into Eddie as he is trying to make his way to Area 51. We also have Chiwetel Ejiofor and Juno Temple as a military general and military scientist, respectively, who work at Area 51, and hunt down and study symbiotes- which brings Eddie into their point of view. 

If it feels like you read a lot, you did. There are way to many cooks in the kitchen here so that beginning exposition about this dark evil trying to be freed actually turns out to be plot 3 in a 4 plot film. It’s a mess and the fact that is less than 2 hours lets you know a lot of it is half baked. 

This gets to the pacing, because with all of this going on, an annoyingly large part of the film involves Eddie/Venom just meandering. Walking and talking, riding in an RV and talking, sitting at a barbeque and talking, and as the trailer showed dancing with Ms. Chen for some reason. I was checking my watch band shocked at how little time had passed. With all these different plots introduced, you would think there would be more happening in the first two acts. 

Which then leads to the characterization of some people. I loved Martin, but Ejiofor and Temple’s characters are completely irrelevant. That would be fine- if they were just generic people, but the film MAKES you think they matter by showing some backstory or implying some importance with a clandestine meeting- all of which is pointless. You can pretty quickly tell their character archetypes and it’s a shame the move tries to make you think they’re different than what you know. 

I could go on, but I think you get the point- the pacing and narrative are mid at best. 

The last thing I want to discuss is some of the continuity logic here. There are some things that happen that made me (and others I spoke with outside the theater) scratch our heads. I’ll give two examples. First, Venom uses a device in the film (won’t spoil anymore than that) – the thing is there is absolutely no way he would know the device exists or how it functions. Learning how it works on the fly it a little more forgivable, but they made it obvious he was nowhere to be seen when its existence was revealed. Second, the Xenophage that is hunting the symbiotes-it sees in black and white except for when a symbiote is fully transformed at which point they glow yellow. This means as long as he’s Eddie, it can’t distinguish him from other humans. 

BUT, it can still see! So it doesn’t make sense that sometimes it shows up and kills everything in sight as it searches for Venom while other times it shows up and does nothing to the humans before it as if it’s confused. It’s very inconsistent and had me scratching my head wondering whether the writers changed how it functions from scene to scene and literally forgot. 

These are just two examples and the best two I could give without going too deep into spoilers, but the point is logic went out the window with this once more than a few times.