This is not your average superhero movie, this is not trying to be. This is violent, this is cringe, this is silly, this is fun. This is Venom.
Hinted to be this iteration of Venom’s last hurrah, Venom: The Last Dance is co-written by director Kelly Marcel and lead actor Tom Hardy. Marcel has been the lead writer for the past two Venom movies and she maintains the same incredibly unique tone while making her directing debut with The Last Dance. Typical of a Venom franchise movie, this most recent instalment has opened to a rather lacklustre response from reviewers but is being widely praised by audiences and fans. This is the classic Venom way – it’s not here for high art or theatrical acclaim – it’s here to be big, loud and fun.
The film begins with protagonist Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and Venom (also voiced by Tom Hardy) the symbiote drinking in a bar in Mexico, recovering in hiding after their recent battle with Carnage in Let There Be Carnage. While there, they see on the local news that Eddie has been charged with the murder of Patrick Mulligan (Stephen Graham), and decide to make a last ditch attempt to clear his name by travelling to New York in order to exhort some favours from Eddie’s old ‘friend’. However, they never get there. Waylaid instead mid-flight by a Xenophage (an alien creature from Venom’s home planet) who is in search of the ‘codex’ – a mysterious key that is locked away inside Eddie. It’s been lying hidden and dormant, a secret known only to Venom, much to Eddie’s horror.
The film’s plot is complicated further by a third party coming to the fray. After Eddie and Venom escape the clutches of the Xenophage, they are pursued by a team from Imperium, headed by Rex Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor), intent on capturing and studying the pair. The shadowy Imperium operates from underneath Area 51, which is ironically being decommissioned just as this particular alien conflict ramps up. The underground laboratory is home to a number of imprisoned symbiotes and humans, who are being studied by Dr Teddy Payne (Juno Temple) and her assistant Sadie (Clark Backo).
With so many parties at play, the storyline does ramble a bit. There’s just a lot going on – hippies with a classic Kombi van, small skirmishes across both vast natural settings and packed cities, Venom embodying a fish and a horse, a dance scene with Mrs Chen and of course lots of dramatic internal monologue between Eddie and Venom. Oh and the ever present threat of a galactic Big Bad potentially being freed and destroying all life as we know it. It all culminates in an all-out battle, with the humans of the Imperium teaming up with Eddie, Venom and the previously trapped symbiotes to fend off the Xenophages and keep their master in chains.
The success of a Venom movie will never be a fantastic plot, or its gritty realism. It’s intended to be a bit of a B-movie romp, with an almost unbelievable plotline, elaborate churning visuals and a sprinkling of internal conflict. If you suspend your critical mind for a moment, and relax into the melodramatic and camp world of Venom: The Last Dance, you will find yourself swept along on one enjoyable ride.
8/10
