Venom the Last Dance – who came up with this title?

Your Average Dude has watched all of the Sonyverse’s Marvel-adjacent movies (except Madame Web. I have my limits). The Venom series has been, from the very beginning, a marginally entertaining and very forgetable series. As a matter of fact, with the exception of the Into the Spiderverse animated movies, none of Sony’s Marvel movies have been memorable. Or highly reviewed by me. Venom the Last Dance is no different. And the way they shoehorned that unappealing title into this movie is…I really don’t have the right words. Confusing? Disconnected? Sure, okay.

The New Improved Spiderverse…now without Spiderman!

Venom the Last Dance is the third installment of the Venom series. For those who didn’t grow up invested in Marvel, Venom is one of Spiderman’s arch-foes. What nobody is really talking about is that Sony is trying to create a following for Venom, swinging from the Spiderman franchise without actually including…you know…Spiderman. Which Spiderman, you might ask? The Tom Holland version, I think. At least, that is the only wall-crawler that has even been casually referenced (in a post-credit scene in Venom 2).

Anywho…the basic thrust of the Venom series is that the Venom symbiote has joined with Eddie Brock (played by the talented Tom Hardy) and together become the ‘Lethal Protector’. Ah, okay. We’ll allow it, but that is radically changing the entire reason that the Venom of Marvel cannon was created and why it gained such popularity. But sure, we’ll go with it.

In Venom the Last Dance, the Eddie/Venom duo find themselves at odds with both a shadowy government agency collecting alien symbiotes and also alien symbiote-hunters with a healing factor that another famous (and more successful) movie duo would envy. Oh, and their shadowy Thanos-level boss named Knull, who dispatches his hunters all over the universe via transport portals. Why didn’t Knull just transport himself out of his prison dimension? Yeah, don’t think too hard about it. It’s not worth it.

Hardy’s portrayal of Eddie Brock can best be described as a man with a split personality who is deep in the grips of a long, hard tequila bender. And he does a good job of that, I’ll grant. But I am very hard-pressed to find any actual character development at all. And it’s been three whole movies. From even the trailers for Venom the Last Dance, it was obvious that they were continuing the same shtick. Oy.

If I’m being kind

The fact that Venom the Last Dance is the third Venom movie tells us that they’ve made money, though the series box office take has declined with each iteration. A profit is a profit, I guess. But it does raise the question in my brainbone…why? I mean, I get why I go to see it. I’ve already invested in the franchise to the tune of two movies.

This weekend, I was at a Chief’s watch party and one of my friends (he’s a bit on the younger side) told me he went to see Venom the Last Dance and loved it. What about the impossibly contrived story elements that made n logical sense except to move the characters to the next action scene? Or the inumeral plot holes? He agreed but clearly didn’t care. Okay, to each their own, and I was reminded that there are different generations, with different tastes. Which is fine. I know my folks would never have appreciated a movie like Pulp Fiction. Different strokes.

And that got me thinking that the frenetic, disjointed pace with which Venom the Last Dance slung Eddie/Venom into different scenarios with little if any explanation was the plan all along. Today’s youth are used to bite-sized nuggets of entertainment. That’s what Venom the Last Dance felt like. If I’m being kind, that’s what the plan was.

Jumbled and disjointed but not without its charms

For all its many MANY failings, Venom the Last Dance continued to highlight its greatest quality…the symbiotic relationship between Eddie and the symbiote. The voice and character of the symbiote are a high-octane, self-indulgent force that I think appeals to a young audience. Hardy’s counter-balance to the Venom symbiote acts as the ego to its id. Its fun, its chaotic…like a Halloween night sugar rush. And just like that face-full of Kit Kat, will be forgotten once the brief buzz goes away.

So, the Average Dude happily gives Venom the Last Dance a 3.1 out of 5. The fun factor is there, no doubt. But don’t expect to get anything remotely memorable. Or cohesive. Or sensical. And just like those tasty Kit Kat, ultimately its just a brief repast while we are waiting for something more filling. Looking at you, Gladiator II.

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