When I heard there was going to be a third movie added to the “Venom” franchise, my first thought was “but why?”
The previous two movies were just boring. They were impossible to sit through. It didn’t make sense why they bother with another one.
But, “Venom: The Last Dance” couldn’t have been more different from its predecessors. It’s not fabulous by any means — I’d be shocked if the film made an appearance at the Oscars — and will never come up in a discussion about the best superhero movies. It’s still 110 minutes of cheap, fun action.
And that’s ok.
The movie is exactly what a comic book movie is supposed to be. It doesn’t need to make you think about what the meaning of life is.
The most lively scene in the movie is when Eddie Brock and Venom, both played by Tom Hardy, run into Eddie’s friend Mrs. Chen, played by Peggy Lu. They randomly meet up in a casino and promptly head up to her suite, before she and Venom perform a perfectly synced dancing duet to ABBA’s Dancing Queen.
The scene was incredibly weird, but not in a good way.
The movie without a doubt has its moments, but it still has some flaws.The problems start right after the first scene.
The first scene depicts the villain “Knull,” played by Andy Serkis, ominously sitting on a throne of mysterious black ooze, surrounded by more mysterious liquid – which is later revealed to be his prison. He goes on to threaten to annihilate the universe as we know it. Just standard evil alien warlord stuff.
He also says that he needs a “Codex,” which is the key to his prison that is later revealed to be embedded in both Eddie Brock and Venom, and it can only be destroyed if one or both of them dies. So he sends his hoards of alien monsters to prevent them from destroying it. The whole plot follows Venom as he tries to defend himself — and the rest of the planet — from said aliens.
You would think that after such a chilling introduction that Knull would be massively important throughout the film. After all, he’s the main villain.
But you’d be wrong.
After the first scene, he doesn’t appear again until the last 15 minutes of the film for only about 10 seconds, as well as in a post credit scene.
Still, I thought the main plot was decent. But if you’re going to give a character such a dramatic introduction, they should get more than a minute of screen time for the rest of the movie.
On the other hand, the subplot, which revolves around doctor Teddy Payne played by Juno Temple and general Rex Strickland played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, doesn’t work nearly as well as the main plot does.
The two characters are both trying to solve the same issue of the impending alien invasion, but they have extremely differing approaches — Payne wants to reach a solution through peace, while Strickland attempts to stop the invasion through violence. Neither actor was particularly compelling, so it was hard to be invested in the subplot.
The two characters have to put aside their differences to prevent the universe from being totally annihilated.
If that sounds familiar, it should. It reuses the script from hundreds of previous superhero movies. It’s boring, it’s been done 500 times before, and that makes it almost impossible to actually care about it.
Nonetheless, the main plot finds a way to make up for what the subplot lacks.
The movie isn’t perfect. But it’s entertaining, which is everything a movie about aliens and superheroes should be.