Venom: The Last Dance Review – It’s Time For Sony To Pass This Franchise Back To Marvel

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The Last Dance, the marketing suggests we say goodbye to Eddie and Venom. We already know this is the final film in the franchise that Sony will be putting out. Of course, Sony still undeservingly has the rights to the Spider-verse so we are to expect further content there but this is suggesting Tom Hardy and Eddie Brock are done.

Over the last couple of days, reviews from critics have come out, and it’s thrown me off. Typically, as a critic myself, I understand that the masses can sometimes get it wrong (at least for me anyway). However, I saw on Metacritic yesterday that 30 critics reviewed it, and the score was 4.2/10. It’s worrying, that’s for sure.

Sony hasn’t had a game time with this franchise. Except for their animated Spider-Man films centered around Miles, it’s been miss after miss after miss and it appears as though Venom 3 may be following the same path as the others.

Overview

When the first Venom film came out, we at Only Comic Universe defended it across the oceans because we liked it. I’ll be honest, I don’t think there’s much anybody can do to defend this film. It felt lazy from the beginning. It’s beginning to feel like Sony is pumping out whatever they can to protect the Spider-verse IP from Marvel.

I mean, let’s look at it. Morbius, Madame Web, and three Venom movies, only one of which was decent. It’s miss after miss, so what else is left? Kraven? I mean, come on.

We’re left to enjoy what should be the end of a movie run with little to get excited about. I mean, how can we get excited when it’s consistently poor? The Last Dance offers nothing of excitement or that feel-good feeling you get when you’re in the cinema.

The first half of the movie is incredibly boring and offers no value at all. We’re watching Eddie and Venom attempt to get back to New York, but they’re unable to combine as one because the Codex Knull needs to escape. That’s literally all the first half is, with a side story based on scientists understanding all of the symbiotes they’ve caught.

Sony has all of the potential in the world when it comes to this universe simply because they’ve got the entire Spider-Man IP at their disposal. The catalogue of heroes and villains alike within the Spider-Verse is bigger than most, there’s so much they can use but they don’t. The title of this article suggests passing Venom back to Marvel and I believe this is exactly what they should do.

Venom works all right by himself but he’s always been a side piece for Spider-Man, at least that’s what it’s mainly been. The fact we’ve had 3 Venom movies without a single interaction with Spider-Man is exceptional. It’s even worse considering they were both in the same universe at a single point which was the end of No Way Home and the beginning of this film. You’re telling me Sony and Disney couldn’t work something out here? They even have Tobey or Andrew to use and they opted against it for reasons unknown.

To put it bluntly, The Last Dance is not a movie I’m eager to watch again, and couldn’t care less if I never watched it again.

Story

The story centres around Venom and Eddie being a Codex which is the key to releasing Knull from the prison the symbiotes created specifically for him. Knull sends xenophage’s after him. This is further impacted as Eddie/Venom are on the run from the police at the moment as well. It’s only when Eddie and Venom are caught after Vegas does the story becomes interesting.

The xenophage’s infiltrated the newly created Area 55 where all of the symbiotes began taking any human they could find to fight against them. The final scene is where it’s all at. The fight scene here is very good but that’s the only saving grace for the entire film if I’m being honest.

Where it goes wrong is the lack of Knull, the family searching for alien life, and no real structure. I felt let down and didn’t really care for what was going on. I went to the bathroom as I watched it, when I returned I asked my wife if I missed anything and she nodded no. That was 5 minutes of nothing. That’s all it was.

There were some small fun elements to it but in terms of a Hollywood-level movie, I’m disappointed.

Characters

There were NO special appearances at all here. No cameos. No decent Easter Eggs. That alone I feel has hurt this section in a big way. I say that because this was the third and final Venom film, Sony does have a plethora of characters to use within their catalog but they chose not to. We didn’t even get Anti-Venom.

Don’t get me wrong, Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock is a delight and it always will be. I don’t believe he’s enough to save this though and that’s the issue. You put Tom Hardy’s version of Venom in a Spider-Man film and you automatically have a hit. That’s what is so disappointing above all else because Tom Hardy would fit into the MCU so ridiculously well but he’s underutilized by Sony.

One special mention I’d like to give out of the characters here is Juno Temple who played Dr. Teddy Payne. I loved her in Ted Lasso so it was nice to see her in this and once she smashed her vial to become a symbiote was one of the better scenes of the movie.

Besides that, there’s not a lot more to like here. Knull was a complete waste of time. When you have a villain of this capacity and you use him in such an underwhelming way is crazy. He doesn’t do anything except tell the xenophage’s what to do. Understandably if Knull is to be used in the wider universes such as the MCU then fine but in this, he felt dull.

For the full cast list, you can visit IMDb by clicking here.

Hype

If I’m being honest, I was initially looking forward to this until the critic reviews began to come out. The night before I watched this, 30 critics had reviewed it on Metacritic and it had an average score of 4.2. I’m never one to forge an opinion based on critics but it spoke volumes. It turns out, they were right.

This hurt me going into the point I felt like canceling my and my wife’s cinema tickets but I was obligated to go due to my commitments to Only Comic Universe and the fact I do love the cinema. However, despite the marketing attempts from Sony, the hype was hindered by reviews that were not bombed but in actual fact, true (in my opinion of course).

5 Favorite Moments

1. Dr. Teddy Payne smashing the vial to become a symbiote
2. The moment Venom places the big metal door on Eddie to protect him he sacrifices himself
3. The Vegas dance between Mrs Chen and Venom
4. After Eddie is exonerated, seeing how much Eddie does miss Venom. It tugs on the heartstrings because Venom asked Eddie not to forget him, so we see Eddie going to places Venom wants to miss
5. The moment on the tower with the little boy who was scared of aliens and Venom makes him feel at ease

5 Dislikes

This section is going to be rough. I’d be here all day if I began typing out all my dislikes so TL;DR:

1. The story
2. No cameos
3. No Easter Eggs
4. Knull
5. Finishing the film on a cliffhanger despite it being the last one

Recommend?

I don’t. I think this is one of those movies that you could easily for to be released on streaming. If you are desperate to go to the cinema and there is nothing else on, then fair enough but I wouldn’t waste any money on this.

Verdict

This film needs to Last Dance its way back to Disney. Sony has tried and attempted multiple times to create an engaging film, unfortunately, the third installment for Venom joins the list of movies that are not executed very well. After coming from a largely uninspiring sequel, we expected this to be an emotional rollercoaster and if anything, I couldn’t wait for this particular rollercoaster to end. It’s a shame. There are still some fun moments but it’s not enough to save this.

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Rating 5.3/10

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Venom: The Last Dance is available in cinemas worldwide. You can visit here for more information on IMDb or your local cinema.