There was only one way the Venom trilogy could end and that's with Maroon 5. The final thing audiences hear before the credits begin rolling on Venom: The Last Dance is Adam Levine's grating voice. Nothing like being reminded of the phrase “that body of yours is absurd” while watching a silly comic book movie. Finishing up this trilogy with “Mambo No. 5” or “Ten Rounds With Jose Cuervo” would’ve been less inexplicable. Then again, maybe it’s the needle drop the Venom movies deserve. This has not been a good trilogy. These Venom features were incredibly disjointed experiences running on creative impulses simultaneously erratic yet deeply commercial.
In that regard, an out-of-nowhere Maroon 5 song is the “perfect” way to close out this incarnation of the Lethal Protector. This series was throwing stuff at the wall to the very end. At least those tendencies resulted in a more consistent and enjoyable Venom movie compared to the last two installments.
Finality is deeply on the mind of writer/director Kelly Marcel’s Venom: The Last Dance. Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is on the run in Mexico with The Symbiote (Hardy). How did we get here? Turns out the pair were framed for all the grisly San Francisco chaos that transpired in Venom: Let There Be Carnage. As they evade the authorities, Brock keeps telling his alien companion that he can’t do this forever. The duo quickly also finds themselves chased by a Xenophage. Knull, the figure responsible for creating the symbiotes, sent this relentless alien monster to Earth. To finally free himself from his prison, Knull needs a Codex that Brock’s Venom alter-ego has in his head.
This monster is willing to destroy Earth to get that fateful Codex. Brock, The Symbiote, and their planet aren’t the only ones in jeopardy. Area 51 is being steadily decommissioned as The Last Dance begins. While various parts of the base are blown to smithereens, scientists like Dr. Teddy Payne (Juno Temple) and "Christmas" (Clark Backo) study the other symbiotes that came to Earth. The end descends in many forms on The Last Dance’s various characters.
As Venom: The Last Dance began, I could feel myself stifling a groan in the theater. A lengthy comic set piece of The Symbiote controlling Brock’s body to make an elaborate alcoholic beverage behind a bar continues the middling comic track record of the last two Venom movies. These broad physical comedy exploits just aren’t my cup of tea. Plus, they last too long, presumably to defer to Hardy’s love for improvisation. A follow-up “intense” sequence involving Venom confronting a quartet of villainous, heavily tattooed Mexican gangsters also inspired eye rolls. The racial caricatures Xavier: Renegade Angel spoofed decades ago are just served up here in a straightforward fashion.
An endless string of exposition tied into those Xenophages and Knull, not to mention an unintentionally comical flashback to Payne’s childhood, just solidified the dread in my stomach. Another middling Venom movie was unfolding before my very eyes, devouring precious minutes I could've spent rewatching Bottoms or Sonic Destruction: Episode One . Eventually, though, my stomach loosened up and dread largely dissipated from my psyche. Miraculously, Venom: Let There Be Carnage finds something resembling solid footing. For one thing, Marcel's screenplay wisely doesn't keep adding characters after the first act. The bloated ensemble casts and scope of recent superhero movies like Black Adam and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania are wisely eschewed here.
The Last Dance also finally improves on some fatal flaws of its predecessor. For one thing, it’s so good to see these movies freed from that blue-tinted dim version of San Francisco. Marcel and cinematographer Fabian Wagner instead emphasize brightly lit practical outdoor locations. This extends to a skirmish between Brock and some soldiers in a rushing river. Even a nighttime exterior backdrop for a good chunk of the climax doesn’t suddenly turn everything on-screen into incoherent mush. The Last Dance’s lighting isn’t especially exceptional in the grand scheme of things. However, it’s a welcome stream of water after the visual desert that was the last two Venom titles.
Without getting into spoiler territory, The Last Dance also provides a satisfying enough finale for this kind of superhero fare. I’m a sucker for emphasizing saving ordinary people and that’s just what Marcel and company do here. This climax involves endless showdowns with the Xenophage. That generically designed critter looks exactly like one of the Cloverfield monster's parasites or a Tomorrow War beastie. What the Xenophage lacks in an idiosyncratic appearance, though, it makes up for in its fun way of disposing of enemies. After eating foes, blood spews from the back of the Xenophage’s face like the other side of a woodchipper. That trait proves shockingly enduring in entertainment during the last big showdown.
It doesn’t hurt that The Last Dance also drastically improves on its predecessor in providing a decent ensemble cast for Hardy to bounce off of. Prior installments wasted Jenny Slate and Naomie Harris. At least here Temple, Blacko, and Rhys Ifans leave something resembling an impression. Major props to Temple especially for her dialogue-free acting in portraying Payne’s response to seeing a symbiote and human converge for the first time. Her gaze upon seeing this creature exudes awe, shock, and maybe a tiny pinch of Shape of Water lust. All that communicated with just the windows into her soul. At that moment, she becomes the personification of Tumblr Venom fans everywhere.
Unfortunately, Hardy’s work as Brock and The Symbiote remains a mixed bag. The biggest problem is that there are still too many hastily ADR’d “funny” lines from The Symbiote that sound cribbed from any 2000s DreamWorks Animation movie. Hardy’s dazed and confused Brock performance is more consistently amusing. However, he also produces some truly strange line readings that are trying too hard to be “silly”. The effortlessness underscoring the best maximalist Nicolas Cage, Al Pacino, or even other Hardy performances just still isn’t there with Hardy’s most offbeat Brock moments. Marcel’s weird stabs at pathos involving these 110% bisexual creatures also mostly land flatly. Venom has been such a silly saga leaning on Cat Stevens songs to jostle up tears feels manipulative, not natural.
To the very end, the Venom trilogy was a messy creation with more warts than charms. Thankfully, Venom: The Last Dance echoes Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire more in modern blockbuster cinema than its immediate predecessors. Like that Adam Wingard feature, The Last Dance is perfectly serviceable blockbuster mayhem in the moment hampered by a tedious screenplay and an overdose of digital effects work. That outcome means fans of the previous two Venom installments will no doubt lap this one up like Venom chowing down on tater tots. For folks like me that didn’t, The Last Dance is a better creation (this one features an ABBA song, for one thing) that’s painless to sit through. Just be prepared for that Maroon 5 jump scare at the very end…