Venom: The Last Dance' briefing

1 ½ (out of 4)

            I can’t really say ENCORE when I wouldn’t even bother to stay for some severely superfluous post-credits moments put there to undo any sense of a sendoff this Last Gasp feigns commitment to. At least it wasn’t a fucking jukebox musical, and from that title it very well could’ve been. No, the third Venom is hardly anything at all — Andy Serkis’ Let There Be Carnage felt incomplete and underwhelming (just as it proved we were out of the worst of COVID times with its impressive haul in early fall 2021) but I’m already longing for that far less testing trifle, as at least the first sequel to 2018's Venom kept the B-movie charms in check and was ruthlessly cut.

Even with silly symbiote horsepower, personally my goodwill is too used up to call this a pleasing parting in a run of anti-heroics that never had critics on its side but always the audiences — with consistent budgets of only just over 100 million, for putting up the lowest numbers of the trilogy the profits of The Last Dance still could have easily secured a needless future for Sony’s only non-Spidey attribute, regardless of Morb- or Madame-sized flops. Frankly this was worse than Morbius, which is insane given how likable the Eddie-Venom bond remains in their least lovable showing.

Tom Hardy looks bloated, unhealthy and as Brock he’s just getting that paycheck but secretly voicing Venom in addition this whole time is mighty admirable. Michelle Williams, understandably, wouldn’t touch this franchise with a 10-foot pole at this point, I don’t believe there’s a single reference to her love interest, Eddie lost the girl in the origin story. Rhys Ivans as the hippie Dad scoping out aliens, Chiwetal Ejiofor playing generic hardheaded sergeant, an almost unrecognizable Juno Temple and her co-star Clark Backo as the caring scientists — at least no one became some last-minute hero or villain but the characterization is crazy bad, and it's not like the last one made you fall in love with Carnage and Shriek. Peggy Lu as the clerk Mrs. Chen from the first two movies maybe is the highlight returning character, how very sad.

Anyway when this Last Dance drops the pretense of some grandiose bit of blockbuster science fiction, it only becomes acceptable putting the plot on the backburner for hippie family shenanigans and Las Vegas revelry. Cutting back to desert government facilities will take you right back to some bastardized 'big finale' like any other movie masked under resolution, about to bust out plenty of sequels coming off their Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare or The Final Destination or whatever fleeting finish can be immediately ignored if necessary. So if the throwaway leisure time is the good stuff, it make sense how slight each installment and now the whole pathetic trio has been — Venom is still funny and Hardy’s dynamic with his better half still makes up for so much of the man on the lamb nonsense this “movie” has to offer. Why not entirely ignore the tacky mid-credits tease in Let There Be Carnage that our pair had somehow landed in the MCU, since you just play it off here. The technical stuff probably shouldn't be so buried in this case, as this is one of the most poorly edited major movies I’ve seen in some time, not nearing Sony’s barrel bottom worst, Madame Web, but getting darn close.

Freaking Kelly Marcel (who clearly met Hardy during her emergency rewrite of Nicolas Winding Refn’s Bronson) has been writing and producing these movies the whole time, and otherwise has dipped her pen in schmaltz (Saving Mr. Banks sentimental, sanctimonious take on Walt Disney acquiring Mary Poppins), sultriness (Fifty Shades of Grey’s fundamentally not-so-freaky foolishness) and even a story credit for the long-winded, crudely indulgent Cruella (Emma Stone at her most unbecomingly exaggerated) before stepping into the director’s chair for the first time. Serkis and Ruben Fleischer might not have been hosts to so much more coherent, quality escapism, but they sure didn't offer regularly crumby, callous whiplash where the sum feels about as cacophonous as it is careless. This is low-rent moviemaking that still can’t handle its wide audience for mainstream, gutless,  body-horror buddy-movie hijinks, and for its few full comedic moments it’s just not enough to offset wanting to be taken seriously enough while also refusing to outdo what little was memorable about the first two installments — although how could I not enjoy when a separated Venom hops from fish to frogs in a desperate running river chase to get back to Eddie.

When you have to edit and write around your titular character's gruesome head-snacking for some edgy teenage dollars, you end up with movies that feel too screen-tested or not enough, where you can’t tell if shit was added or chopped or anything at all because it’s such a clusterfuck mess. With so many story inconsistencies and moments of excruciating expository excess it really becomes a challenge to settle into The Last Dance and not treat it all like a chore. God willing Kraven the Hunter isn’t perfectly putrid, which would make Sony three for three in 2024 comic book movie calamities — please just whip those animators into shape and complete the Spider-Verse trilogy so I can forget all this sinister sub-cinema.