Over the course of three films, Tom Hardy has turned Jekyll and Hyde into one bizarre, slimy two-person play. In a Marvel universe filled with alter egos masking stealth superpowers, investigative reporter Eddie Brock doesn’t transform. He shares his body with an all-black alien symbiote (voiced by Hardy in a baritone growl), who sometimes swallows him whole, sometimes shoots out a tentacle or two, and always takes over Eddie. interrupting his inner monologue.
These have been consistently messy, almost intentionally bad movies, but Hardy’s performance makes them oddly convincing all-in-one buddy comedies. It’s one thing to wear a cloak and fly. It’s another to run madly through the desert while roaring your inner alien voice, as Eddie’s inner alien does in the new Venom: The Last Dance. “Let’s do it,” “Nice Horsey,” and “Tequila!”
But the biggest dichotomy in these movies isn’t the split between Eddie and the symbiote. It’s the contrast between Hardy’s funny and sometimes strangely touching performance and all the CGI chaos that surrounds him. The first two movies had their fun moments, but if “The Last Dance,” which opens in theaters Thursday, is the swan song for this spinoff, half-formed series, it’s the “Venom” movie proves that it is by no means perfect. I understood myself.
The Last Dance joins Andy Serkis (2021’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage) and Ruben Fleischer (2018’s Venom), who co-starred in the first two Venom films. Screenwriter Kelly Marcel will take over as director. We are reunited with Venom (Eddie’s fusion of his alien soulmate) in Mexico. There they are on the run from the law. However, new threats are also emerging.
The movie begins with the symbiote’s creator, Knull (Serkis), sending aliens from a remote, dark corner of the universe to retrieve the “codex” inside Venom’s spine. Masu. This codex, if obtained, will destroy both humanity and humanity. Symbiote.
To me, bringing in a typical comic book style apocalypse plot is the last thing a “Venom” movie needs. The best sequences in the first two movies are no more complicated than Venom eating lobster or ordering pizza. The lower the stakes, the better the twisted comedy is. The touchstone for these movies shouldn’t be Marvel scripts, but old episodes of “The Odd Couple.”
Instead, we’re immediately thrown into a boring Area 51 setting. There, an elaborate laboratory led by Dr. Teddy Payne (Juno Temple) studies captured symbionts with the help of a military branch led by Rex Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor, Loan) . It feels more weighty than the movie deserves). When the alien insects arrive in search of the codex, they’re joined by a family of UFO enthusiasts (played by Rhys Evans as the father) in a Volkswagen bus, leading to a lot of running and fighting. As the title promises, the ensuing battle ultimately threatens to split Venom forever.
But really, the promise of the “Venom” series is that the mainline Marvel stuff won’t intrude too much here. This is the realm of multiverse B-movies, not really interested in gravitas, sublimity, or two-and-a-half hour runtimes. They can feel a bit like tossed-off imitations, but that’s both their charm and frustration.
I wish the surprisingly lackluster “The Last Dance” would pull back much more on the world-saving plot (and its CGI) and lean more into its most powerful effect: the dual acting of Hardy’s dual personalities. I continued to support them. If this is a last hurray, even something bordering on “Spider-Man” is a questionable idea, of course, but it’s a shame we didn’t get to see more of Venom in everyday life. Eddie is a journalist after all. One can only imagine how he and the symbiote, like the Oxford comma, debated matters more pressing than the fate of the universe.
Columbia Pictures’ “Venom: The Last Dance” is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for intense sequences of violence and action, gory footage, and strong language. Running time: 110 minutes. 2 out of 4 stars.
