It’s somehow appropriate for a film about symbiotic creatures that the third and, for the time being, final instalment of Marvel’s Venom saga should be largely populated by British actors playing Americans. Aside from leading man Tom Hardy, who plays investigative journalist Eddie Brock, there’s Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Rhys Ifans (Welsh, to be specific), and a return for Stephen Graham, coming back for more (but not much) after Venom: Let There Be Carnage. It’s a great cast for sure, and the Venom franchise has always delivered on that front. But there’s a bit of Dunkirk spirit here, and it’s the poker-faced commitment of the supporting players — not to mention the surprisingly focused and largely unfussy direction of first-timer Kelly Marcel — that holds the fort in a film that struggles, much like Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3, to justify its existence.
The original Venom followed two years after Deadpool broke away from the mostly PG-13 Marvel tradition, its dark, adult-skewed, self-aware humor leading to the studio’s first R rating. It was a genuinely surprising move from a company that talks more about the concept of taking risks than actual taking them, and the gamble paid off. Six years later, this conceptually similar franchise — a hapless hero possessed by a wise-cracking symbiotic alien — clearly feels emboldened by the public’s embrace of Wade Wilson and his sardonic alter ego. But, as much as Venom: The Last Dance tries to persuade us otherwise, it soon becomes clear that superhero movies are going to need much more than a post-modern kick in the pants to maintain their supremacy at the box office.
It’s to the film’s credit that it doesn’t really waste much time wooing newcomers, kicking off in a creepy Stygian prison planet where Knull (Andy Serkis) is being held captive. Something of a backroom operator in the MCU until now, Knull is finally ready for his close-up, holding court to an audience of inky insects and barking out ominous, bombastic nonsense like, “I AM NOW GOD OF THE VOID!” In true Marvel fashion, Knull is planning the end of the known universe (having been around long before it) and needs to get his hands on something called a codex in order to achieve it. To this end, he sends a xenophage — basically a giant bed bug that eats alien symbiotes — to go out find one.
Eddie Brock, meanwhile, is hiding out in Mexico. There’s no recap; you just have to know, or at least very soon figure out, that Brock is host to a shape-shifting alien creature that speaks to him telepathically. That all plays out in a bar, where Brock succumbs to a wretched hangover that will dog him for the first half of the movie, a cute little motif that recurs much like his quest to find a decent pair of shoes. A comedic and splashily violent vignette involving Mexican bandidos sets out what Venom (i.e., Brock under the aegis of the alien) can do. But Brock is a wanted man, framed for the alleged murder of detective Patrick Mulligan (Graham) in the last instalment, and, after planning a vague blackmail plot that’s never mentioned again, vows to go to New York and clear his name.
The scene then switches to the state of Nevada, where we find Dr. Payne (Temple), a scientist haunted by the death of her little brother as a child. The boy was obsessed with aliens, and, to honor his memory, Payne is now a scientist and works at Area 51, the famously classified U.S. Air Force base (references to “Roswell 1947” and cult TV show The X-Files abound throughout). Payne works hand in glove with the military, forming an uneasy partnership with Gen. Rex Strickland (Ejiofor), whose attitude to alien life forms is a lot less sympathetic than hers (“Science is sacrifice,” she insists). The General is after Brock, unaware that Brock is coming to him, having caught a lift to nearby Las Vegas from Martin (Ifans) — a conspiracy theorist and UFO nut — who is driving his family in a camper van to Area 51, hoping to catch a glimpse of it before it’s gone for good.
By now all the elements of a Marvel movie are in place, the traditional treasure hunt for the thing that will either destroy the world or save it, depending on whose hands it falls into. In this instance, it is the codex, a kind of organism formed when a symbiote bonds with its host and which only disappears when one, or both, is killed. Quite what use it will be to Knull is sure to be explained in another movie, and, in that sense The Last Dance sticks to the Marvel formula yet again; though it affects to close the book on Brock’s story, it leaves the door wide open for any number of sequels, prequels or reboots.
It’s not the best of its kind, but by no means the worst, and even when the inevitable war breaks out between humans, xenophages and symbiotes, Marcel orchestrates the action in a surprisingly comprehensible style that’s more reminiscent of Ang Lee’s underrated Hulk than the ultra-Michael Bay chaos that comes with most CG smackdowns. It’s small recompense, however, for the sight of Venom disco-dancing to ABBA in a Vegas penthouse; surely no one will ever take the threat of a symbiote invasion seriously after that.
Title: Venom: The Last Dance
Distributor: Columbia Pictures
Release date: October 25, 2024
Director-screenwriter: Kelly Marcel
Cast: Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Rhys Ifans, Stephen Graham, Peggy Lu, Andy Serkis
Rating: PG-13
Running time: 1 hr 50 mins