Venom: The Last Dance (2024)


There is no question that Sony has done everything they can to destroy the Spider-Man legacy.  Every complaint against Disney for how they handle franchises, including their own, is valid.  However, when looked at objectively, many of Disney's decisions on where to take the Marvel Cinematic Universe have been valid.  It was just in recent years that they have run out of ideas and started spinning their wheels.

Sony should have had plenty of ideas, having three different Spider-Man franchises and a jump on the whole multiverse concept.  While Venom was nothing phenomenal it was at least fun and it used the character better than Spider-Man 3.  Venom: Let There Be Carnage was still enjoyable despite being a lot lighter in plot than the first so, despite the mess that Sony made with all the other movies in the Spider-Man universe, I was hoping for something good from Venom: The Last Dance.

We join Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy), who has been brought into the regular Marvel universe due to the events in Spider-Man: No Way Home.  While he gets drunk a portal opens and sucks him back into his own dimension, where he is wanted for the death of Detective Mulligan (Stephen Graham).  Deciding to hide out in New York Brock and Venom run into a new problem en route: a creature from outside the universe is seeking the Codex, a key that is embedded in Venom that will unlock the prison where the Symbiotes locked away a being called Knull (Andy Serkis).  The Codex sends a signal to the hunters every time Venom takes his full form. 

The duo ends up in Nevada and are picked up by Martin (Rhys Ifans) and his family who are on their way to Area 51, which is being decommissioned under the watchful eye of General Strickland (Chiwetol Ejiofor).  The true complex is Area 53, hidden underground at the site and run by Dr. Teddy Paine (Juno Temple), where they are trying to communicate with the Symbiotes.  They soon learn about the threat from Knull.  Unfortunately, Strickland's plans to take over the facility play right into Knull's hands. 

I was a little upset that we didn't just move over to the normal MCU for this movie.  It's not a surprise since Sony has taken pains in each of these movies to avoid even mentioning Spider-Man.  It turns out that there is no big mystery behind it other than how they could have been so stupid as to build that in as a rule.  Somehow, they thought an entire Spiderverse without their main character would attract an audience.  The truth probably lies more in keeping ownership of the villains and the characters so that Disney can't have them.  It makes all these Sony superhero films the cinematic equivalent of a spite fence. 

Despite that, and despite the fact that a lot of critics and fans will think differently, the Venom series somehow delivered.  Like the other two The Last Dance is not perfect.  There are constant tonal shifts, CGI doesn't always work and, once again, the movie is PG-13 when it should have been R.  Despite that it works.  Tom Hardy isn't phoning it in, everyone else seems to be having a good time, and like the first two films the finale is pretty much non-stop action.  The best thing is the rating didn't ruin seeing how the hunters kill when they get the chance. 

I don't think at the time this was made that it was clear that Sony was going to close the book on this whole idea of building movies around, but not containing, Spider-Man.  There are scenes at the end that leave it open for more movies and, when Andy Serkis directed the second, he definitely had ideas of where to go.  In good hands there seems like a lot of material that could be mined from Brock, Venom and Knull, but all the other poor entries in the series have pretty much destroyed any hopes of a return to these characters or for them to get better.  

Venom: The Last Dance (2024)
Time: 110 minutes
Starring: Tom Hardy, Rhys Ifans, Juno Temple, Chiwetol Ejiofor
Director: Kelly Marcel

 

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