Venom: The Last Dance (2024): A chaotic mess

Oct 25, 2024

3 min read

Venom is back! Although I did not like Let There Be Carnage, I did enjoy the first movie in the series and was hopeful this final chapter in the trilogy could recapture some of that magic. Nope. This is just as bad as Carnage, if not worse. Frankly, it’s a mess and if this is truly Venom’s last dance, it is not a good sendoff.

The story picks up from the conclusion of the previous movie, with Eddie (Tom Hardy) and Venom down in Mexico. They realize that they are now fugitives in the U.S. and are being chased by both the authorities, and a secret government operation studying the symbiotes. If that isn’t enough, there’s a new villain, Knull, another alien who has dispatched an army of monsters to locate Venom who is the key to freeing Knull from his prison.

The story is a complete mess. It’s essentially a setup for an Eddie/Venom road trip that leads to a battle between the alien monsters and the symbiotes. The road trip portion is fun (with some great banter) for a while but takes up too much of the movie. It rambles along, mainly killing time, introducing unneeded characters, along with some bizarre scenes, such as a Venom dance routine (I mean, really?)

And the new villain is useless. After a large exposition dump to introduce the character and provide plot details, he does nothing. Other than dispatching the monsters to find Venom, he has no affect on the plot. There is no character development at all. The monsters themselves, while interesting to look at, are just mindless, rampaging beasts, and are not engaging as villains. Other than Eddie/Venom, there are no engaging characters at all.

The story just isn’t cohesive, with a bunch of subplots that never come together as a whole. Plot holes are everywhere you look, and the tone is all over the place, making the viewing experience extremely frustrating.

As with all the Venom movies, Tom Hardy is the best part. There is some great banter and fantastic physical comedy. He also has a few emotional scenes that are equally impressive. Everyone else, however, is wasted. Chiwetel Ejiofor and Juno Temple have nothing to do and could have been named Army Guy and Scientist as generic as their characters are. Rhys Ifans isn’t bad as the hippie dad looking for aliens, but he’s in the movie far too much and not really needed.

One area where Venom: On My Last Nerve does improve over the previous movies is with the CGI. It’s not a leaps-and-bounds improvement, but everything with the effects looked top notch. The symbiotes all have their own look and personality, and the action sequences show off their abilities. It’s too long in between action sequences, but for the most part, they are entertaining.

It should be noted that there is both a mid-credit and end-credit scene. In my opinion, you can skip them both. Perhaps there are some easter eggs that fans might see, but I saw nothing of note, other than leaving the door open for more movies. I hope this is the end though. Sony should continue with the animated Spider-verse stuff as they’re great. But for live action, they’ve made one good Venom movie (which seems like a fluke), two Venom movies that are trainwrecks, the even worse Madame Web, and the impossibly bad Morbius. It’s time to give up unless Marvel is involved.

Obviously, I did not enjoy Venom: Please Be the Last Dance. The action is good, and Tom Hardy is brilliant, but the story is a chaotic mess. I get the sense that the movie was just rushed through production without ever having a completed script to work from, with some scenes feeling completely random. Fans of all the Venom movies will probably enjoy this. It isn’t going to win new fans though. And for those, like me, who only enjoyed the first film, this is a disappointment. Venom deserved better, a graceful last dance. Instead, he got this mess. Such a waste.