Venom: The Last Dance (2024) Theatrical

Tom Hardy’s Venom series of films comes to its conclusion with 2024’s VENOM: THE LAST DANCE. We see lovable loser Eddie Brock and his alien symbiote friend Venom on the run from the authorities following the events of the last movie LET THERE BE CARNAGE. Hunting this duo is also a threat from beyond the stars: a creature known as a xenophage which is the predator of Venom’s species. 

Blindingly fast, able to leap into the stratosphere in a single bound and with a literal woodchipper mouth, this CGI mass of teeth and tentacles is only the first in an invading army. Something about venom having something in his genetic code that was never known before, that is needed to free some Knull character who we never heard of before. Which is kind of weird since this Knull is supposed to have been the creator of the symbiotes and Venom helped imprison him. 

 This is just one of the many frustrations I have with this “trilogy” as a whole. Each new entry was done by a different creative team and it shows with its numerous leaps in logic. New concepts and characters and revelations are thrown in seemingly at random instead of building on those previously introduced. Even the type of world they inhabit seems to shift back and forth between a grounded real world and a comic booky one, with the only constant being Hardy’s two characters of Eddie and Venom. 

 But let us look at THE LAST DANCE on its own first. It is ok. It is not boring, though definitely cliched in many elements of its overall plot. Another clandestine group with ties to the government want to capture Venom, another team of scientists, another journey that takes our leads across America, we have seen it all before.

 From a technical standpoint, THE LAST DANCE does not have the clear steady camerawork of LET THERE BE CARNAGE. Thankfully it does not carry on the first VENOM movie’s issue of action scenes being messy and hard to follow thanks to the CGI being much more polished. 

 For me this movie was best when focusing on Eddie and Venom’s relationship. Cast aside the big threat from space, the shady government organization, the monster chases and such and this at its core it is about the wildest bromance ever. 

There is a particular sequence where Eddie and Venom meet up with a family on a road trip and they see the happy life Eddie could have had if Venom had not entered the picture. It is emotional yet bitter sweet especially in their realisation that there was no going back for Eddie. 

 Upon reflection, perhaps the mistake is on me to expect that MCU level of coherence. The world building is serviceable, the dialogue is serviceable, the supporting characters, the VFX, the action, all serviceable BUT are not the main draw here. 

Instead it is Eddie and Venom and the quirky little relationship that drives the movie. And everything else, including the head scratching leaps in logic, happens in service of that relationship and the finality that this movie gives to it. It is not a big MCU style “event” movie but A fun and heartfelt good time that I do recommend.