We started out this month with a less-than-stellar comic book sequel with Joker: Folie a Deux and we finish it with Venom: The Last Dance. It’s the best of the trilogy, but that’s faint praise.
Tom Hardy is back for this final outing as both Eddie Brock and Venom, and this time around, they’re on the run after Eddie’s accused of being the prime suspect in the murder of Patrick Mulligan (Stephen Graham).
Spoiler alert: Mulligan survived his encounter with Carnage and is now being held at Area 51, which is about to be decommissioned.
Chiwetel Ejiofor plays a soldier who captures and investigates other symbiotes that arrive on Earth. Juno Temple plays a scientist who gives him the lowdown on what will happen if the symbiotes fall into the wrong hands.
Like in most movies, the military shrugs off the warnings because there’s not much of a plot if they don’t. A creature known as the Xenophage is on the trail of Eddie and Venom, and it is somehow connected to the other symbiotes.
Meanwhile, Eddie and Venom come face to face with a hippie family on their way to see Area 51 and Eddie bonds with them. Their chemistry is one of the bright spots of The Last Dance.
The movie works well with Eddie and Venom’s banter, which could’ve livened up the movie a whole lot more. It does have some funny moments, such as when the two are in Las Vegas and Eddie tries to play the slot machines. Another scene is when they run into the convenience store worker Mrs. Chen (Peggy Lu) and Venom and her dance to a rendition of “Dancing Queen.”
Other funny moments include the movie’s opening scene with Eddie and Venom beating a few criminals and running from the military when Venom transforms a horse into a symbiote and falls into a river.
However, the ending feels somewhat anticlimactic and perfunctory. When the movie doesn’t focus on Eddie and Venom, there’s not much to care about, and the other characters are not even marginally interesting.
Venom: The Last Dance is built up as the conclusion to the trilogy, but instead of an entertaining waltz, all we’re left with is a mediocre mamba.
Grade: C+
(Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, bloody images and strong language.)
