Man, I really hated Venom: The Last Dance. Everything about this movie bugged the heck out of me. And I’m not some hater. I actually mostly enjoyed the first two films, and even gave them positive reviews on this same blog. So I went into Venom 3 with relatively OK expectations. Those very same expectations were very quickly dashed.

Movie Rating: 2/10 – Very Bad

Something went wrong with this movie. Was it edited to within an inch of its life? Did nobody care? Did SONY throw in the towel immediately after Morbius and Madame Webb and just not bother with Venom 3, despite the box office success of the earlier films? Why was the editing so sloppy? Why was the script so terrible? Did anyone actually care about making this franchise work? Ugh.

Anyway, join me after the jump for my thoughts and full review of Venom: The Last Dance. Expect FULL SPOILERS for the whole film because I’m just going to ramble on about it however I feel like.

6. Aggressively bad

In my personal opinion, Venom: The Last Dance has no redeeming qualities. None. The story is bad. The villains are bad. The normally enjoyable banter between Eddie and Venom is bad this time around. The side and supporting characters are all bad. The plot is bad. Nothing worked for me at all.

The story sucks and builds on nothing from the previous two movies. Out of nowhere, they decided to hang everything on Knull, a comic book villain who debuted in 2018, the same time as the first Venom movie. Obviously, they couldn’t put Knull in the first movie. But they didn’t bother mentioning Knull at all in the second movie. And now he’s the driving force of this third one (more on Knull later). And they clearly just make up the rules as they go along. The key to Knull’s cell is a codex that is created when a symbiote brings its host back from the dead. What specific god damn rules. So any symbiote in the entire galaxy who has brought its host back from the dead now has this codex in them? Did the symbiotes not realize this would be the key to unlocking Knull from the prison they built? That’s poor planning.

So the plot of the movie is all about monsters chasing Eddie Brock and Venom, with the government vaguely on the side hunting symbiotes for their own purposes. None of that builds from the first two films or is really much of a climax for a trilogy.

The villains suck. There’s no singular villain. I realize they can’t just use Carnage again, but you don’t even try to come up with somebody bigger and badder than Carnage? The bad guys of the film are just a bunch of scary dogs. That’s it. They don’t talk, they don’t have arcs or motivations of their own. And they have the magical ability to just fully rebuild themselves upon destruction. Granted, the symbiotes have magical healing powers, but it’s not the same. And it’s not like we were ever told that an acid shower would kill them permanently. Also, why the hell is the military using giant acid showers to destroy their equipment? Surely that’s not how that sort of thing is really done in the real world. I’m pretty sure real world acid doesn’t even work like that.

Lemme just rapid fire stuff. Scenes are over quickly. That big airplane fight from the trailer? Finished in 5 seconds. That big moment where Venom takes over a horse from the trailer? So important that they brought Venom Horse into the comics? Finished in 5 seconds with a terrible record drop. What was the family about? Why did they reuse the same shot of a security camera for a bar in Mexico as on the Las Vegas Strip? Did anybody else notice how they reused that shot? And then in the ending, during the acid bath, it cuts to the two women fleeing from flaming debris falling from the sky. Where did that come from? Oh, it comes from an explosion that happens after the scenes of them running from the debris. Just piss poor editing and scene continuity.

And worst of all, the relationship between Eddie and Venom just wasn’t as big of a deal in this movie. Eddie is constantly in a state of having a hangover, so he can’t really contribute. And they just don’t do enough buddy buddy comedy for me. That was the biggest highlight of the previous films, but it’s totally gone in The Last Dance. There’s some, obviously, but there’s too much else going on for Eddie and Venom to just vibe. And that’s a damn shame.

5. Didn’t seize any opportunity it gave itself

The movie sets up so much potential and then just doesn’t see it through. Knull is a big one. They tease him at the very beginning of the film, setting him up as this huge threat…and then he never gets off his ass to contribute to the movie. Then there’s a bunch of new symbiotes in captivity and a bunch of new supporting characters…and none of them really come together. The family don’t get symbiotes. The main soldier guy doesn’t get a symbiote. They all go to nobodies in the lab, other than Christmas Tree Symbiote.

Juno Temple gets a symbiote for about five seconds. She has this entire story arc, with a dead brother and a limp arm and an overwhelming curiosity about aliens…but she doesn’t get a meaningful bonding with a symbiote. She gets a symbiote for 5 seconds, somehow develops super speed because of the lightning strike, and then saves her friend. How does that make for a character arc? Why doesn’t she get to spend any meaningful time with the symbiote? Why don’t any of them?

Juno Temple was wasted just like Jenny Slate in the first film. Damn shame!

4. Didn’t earn any emotion it gave itself

Really, movie? An emotional music montage of scenes from the trilogy to try to pull at the heart strings? You really think you earned that? The death of Venom is a dumb way to end his trilogy. Everything the characters have been through and it all comes to an end when Venom sacrifices himself to kill the nameless angry dog bad guys? The script writers invented the silly rule that the death of either the symbiote or the host would erase the codex. So it’s a forced rule leading to a forced sacrifice/death. And then they want us to get all sad for this dumb, silly trilogy. No way, movie. You didn’t earn any of that ending.

3. Waste of bonus symbiotes

The movie gives us half a dozen new symbiotes and none of them are from the comics. And don’t try to tell me that the white one is Anti-Venom or the purple one at the end is Agony. Agony doesn’t have electricity or super speed powers. And none of them are named. I think the name “Toxin” showed up in the closed captions for the trailer…but that’s not Toxin from the comics. Speaking of which, why the hell did they throw in an offscreen line about Mulligan’s first symbiote abandoning him? How does it change anything if Mulligan has the symbiote he got from Carnage or the military gave him a random green one? Are they saving the Carnage spawn for something? This is the Last Dance! Why save anything? Make this movie awesome!

And yes, I’m bitter that we didn’t get Scream, my favorite symbiote. I’m bitter that Jenny Slate didn’t get to play Scream in the first film. I’m bitter that they hired Juno Temple for a role in this movie, and she also didn’t get to be Scream. Damn shame.

2. Knull sucks

I say this having never read the original Knull storyline or anything really connected to King in Black. I’ve only heard good things about the storyline, so I’m sure it’s great! But Knull in this movie sucks, and Knull is not some great comic book character worthy of Thanos levels of movie attention. Knull is just some edgy dark super god who has zero depth and was cleanly defeated in his original storyline, with all superheroes moving on with their lives immediately. Yet I see people talk online about Knull being so awesome that he needs to be treated like Thanos, teased and grown over the course of several movies. Nah, that’s dumb. Knull isn’t that cool and doesn’t have the depth of Thanos. Knull couldn’t even get out of his chair in The Last Dance. And a quick mid-credits scene where his clearly CGI face snarls at the audience doesn’t mean jack. I never want to see him in a movie again…unless they do Venom 4 and actually have him show up in the film.

1. Never crossover with Spider-Man

Once upon a time, I was excited to see Tom Hardy’s Venom interact with Tom Holland’s Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. No more. I never want these movies to crossover and do anything to spoil the excellent Spidey films. I keep hearing rumors online that Spider-Man 4 — which has been greenlit and has a release date — is going to feature a crossover as both Spider-Man and Venom take on Knull. Dear lord, I cannot think of a worse choice for the next Spider-Man movie. I’m all for introducing a new Venom for Tom Holland’s Spider-Man and perhaps doing something with that dollop of Venom left behind at the end of No Way Home. But this Venom trilogy should never impact the Spider-Man movies. Never ever.

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