Ven­om: The Last Dance review – air-head­ed escapism

The Hol­ly­wood tru­ism that, some­times, peo­ple like to have unfil­tered trash fired into their eyes is dou­bly, triply, quadru­ply true in the case of the sur­re­al­ly chaot­ic Ven­om fran­chise, head­ed up by Tom Hardy as the most piti­ful inves­tiga­tive reporter on the plan­et, Eddie Brock. Hardy plays Brock as if, in each new scene, he’s just been released from soli­tary con­fine­ment and is con­fused about his future prospects; he doesn’t know where he is, what he’s doing, and is lean­ing on his sens­es for quick answers. As a char­ac­ter Brock is com­plete­ly inco­her­ent and extreme­ly unlik­able (which is not to say he’s dis­lik­able, more that Hardy makes it near-impos­si­ble to extend any gen­uine warmth towards him). 

In this hashed-togeth­er third instal­ment, Brock and the smack-talk­ing, Tom Waits-sound-alike alien sym­biote that nests inside him known as Ven­om are sign­ing things off in a hap­haz­ard blaze of glo­ry, attempt­ing to elude both the author­i­ties and a race of time-hop­ping alien hell­beasts with mouths that dou­ble as wood chip­pers. For Venom/​Brock have implant­ed with­in them a ​“codex” that will unlock the shack­les of a real­ly angry lank-haired dude who pro­fess­es to be able to destroy every­one and every­thing, and of course wants to do just that.

The direc­to­r­i­al reigns of this third and (hope­ful­ly!) final film have been ced­ed to series scribe Kel­ly Mar­cel, who duti­ful­ly drags things across the fin­ish line. The film trades on groan-wor­thy wise­cracks and the bud­dy-bud­dy schtick between our hero and his par­a­sitic pal, and Hardy is clear­ly very open for being the butt of sundry humil­i­a­tions in an attempt to cur­ry favour with an audi­ence. Yet for all his tal­ents as a unique­ly com­mit­ted dra­mat­ic per­former, a com­ic enter­tain­er he is not, and so in order to arrive at the start of the sto­ry prop­er, we have to endure painful mon­tages of, say, Brock going full Looney Tunes while rid­ing a Ven­om-ised nag, all (bad­ly) synched to Queen’s ​‘Don’t Stop Me Now’.

The film is, for the most part, a litany of bad, embar­rass­ing or low­est-com­mon-denom­i­na­tor choic­es, and it’s unsur­pris­ing that the love inter­est from pre­vi­ous films, Michelle Williams, has opt­ed to cut and run with this new one. Dog-lover Hardy gets to kick things off by uncov­er­ing an ille­gal dog fight­ing ring and giv­ing the per­pe­tra­tors a taste of their own med­i­cine, and his escapades take him through the Neva­da wilder­ness and on to Area 55 (the ​“real” Area 51) via a pent­house suite on the Sun­set Strip.

This being a Mar­vel-adja­cent title (based on their comics but not part of the offi­cial MCU canon), there’s the usu­al thing of action occur­ring in com­plete­ly depop­u­lat­ed areas and aes­thet­i­cal­ly unlove­ly com­put­er graph­ics used to paste over many of the plot holes. Chi­we­tel Ejio­for and Juno Tem­ple turn up as side play­ers rep­re­sent­ing the clash between unchecked mil­i­taris­tic might and eth­i­cal­ly-shaky sci­en­tif­ic endeav­our, but they’re not giv­en enough screen time to real­ly blossom.

As slip­shot and lazy as it all is, it pass­es the time as air-head­ed escapism, and does man­age to save all its vague­ly-orig­i­nal moves for a bulky final act that deliv­ers some decent spec­ta­cle. Part two of the fran­chise deliv­ered on its rit­u­al promise that ​“There Will be Car­nage”, yet it will ulti­mate­ly be the sound of the box office bells that will deter­mine whether this is tru­ly The Last Dance. 

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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