Eddie and Venom, on the run, face pursuit from both worlds. As circumstances tighten, they're compelled to make a heart-wrenching choice that could mark the end of their symbiotic partnership. (from IMDB)

In 2018, Tom Hardy helped Sony bring the famous Spider-Man villain, Venom, to the big screen for his own movie. The character debuted in the movies in 2007 when Topher Grace played him in the Tobey Maguire-led Spider-Man trilogy. While Grace's take didn't exactly bring with it the bite you'd expect from the menacing long-tongued, sharp-toothed monster, his reinvention in 2018 was an attempt to make the villain a likeable anti-hero. When the alien symbiote took over the body of reporter Eddie Brock, there wasn't a heroic webbed-wonder for him to face. Instead, a greater, more evil villain was the force for the creature to war against, and this again became the template for the series' first sequel, 2021's Venom: Let There Be Carnage. The sequel, directed by Andy Serkis, was considerably darker with its central villain being a serial killer played by Woody Harrelson, but in an attempt to balance that out a bit, the humor was amplified as well. Enter Venom: The Last Dance, 2024's third and final entry in Tom Hardy's own Venom trilogy. With Eddie Brock basically on the run from authorities, where does the story go from here?

The 2018 movie was directed by Ruben Fleischer, the sequel by Serkis, and now the franchise is handed off to first-time director Kelly Marcel, who actually served as co-writer on all three films. From the start, Venom: The Last Dance feels rather disconnected from its predecessors. It opens in space, sharing the origin story of the symbiotes and introduces the "god" of the symbiotes, Knull, who sits imprisoned on his throne. He sends several of his minions, called Xenophages, to earth in search of a "codex" that some symbiotes might carry, and it's the only thing that can free him. The intro feels a little convoluted for this "Venom-verse," which takes us to another world for the first time in this series. We then find Eddie back in the bar we found him in during the end credits scene of Spider-Man: No Way Home, before he's warped back to his own universe. The ending of Carnage teased Venom going out to find Spider-Man, but that idea seems to have been entirely nixed. Furthermore, the No Way Home scene shows a smidge of Venom being dropped and left in Tom Holland's Spider-Man's universe. In this film, it seems to have been retconned, and the "drop of Venom" gets left on the bar top in his own universe. As we see Eddie and Venom start a long trek eastbound, we flip back-and-forth between subplots introducing new characters (and sort of lightly involving a familiar character or two). Let's be honest, the audience is filling the seats for Eddie and Venom, so for the movie to spend such a strangely drawn-out amount of time on subplots involving characters most of us could care less about seems really odd. But that's exactly what happens in this movie. First, we're introduced to Juno Temple's eccentric scientist character, Dr. Teddy Paine, who just so happens to be dreaming her backstory at the very moment we meet her. It doesn't add a ton to her character, and we find ourselves following her around, wondering why this character should matter to us. We're then introduced us to Chiwetel Ejiofor as a government agent of sorts named Strickland, and we soon learn there's a secret underground facility that's currently studying symbiotes. We eventually flashback to Eddie who has a run-in with a hippy family - led by Rhys Ifans playing the father of four, Martin - who just want to make it to Area 51 for a chance to catch a glimpse of aliens. Again, way too much screentime is given to these characters (actually, imagine any number of annoying human characters from the live action Transformers movies and you'll catch my drift), and it takes away from the film's main focus.

My biggest beef with the film has a lot to do with its erratic pacing. Scenes with Venom and Eddie seem to be rushed, while scenes introducing Dr. Paine, Stickland and their fellow scientists move at a crawl (I mean, almost literally. There are awkward moments when you're wondering why on earth a the camera is still following a character around as they do nothing). It's like Marcel was making two entirely different movies here and just stitched them together like Frankenstein's monster. There are also a couple scenes, like Eddie's van ride with the hippies, that swing for the fences in an attempt at deeper, more serious moments, but they don't feel earned, necessarily. As the family breaks out into a folksy singalong of David Bowie's "Space Oddity," which is only saved by Venom's strange enthusiasm for the song, Eddie sits there bummed out and wishing he could have a family of his own. Throughout the trilogy, it's mainly been Eddie wishing to be back with his ex-fiance Anne, who he tries on a couple occasions to get back together with. But here, at the end, not only is her name not even mentioned once (not even in an epiphany of closure for Eddie), but he's suddenly exhibiting a desire to be a father? It's a pretty strange turn for the character. A final film in a trilogy should really be tying up loose ends and bringing threads established in the first film to a close. If I didn't know that Marcel and Hardy had been involved in the stories for each film, I'd swear someone completely outside this franchise had decided to take on the last entry without much insight into the existing overarching story.

I could go on, to be honest, but the movie isn't all that bad. Yes, I can see it being one of those movies I'd rewatch and enjoy chunks of while being downright frustrated with other parts, but there is juuuusstt enough here of what made the first two movies enjoyable to warrant tuning in for the finale. The film's last act, while it arguably ignores something very crucial about symbiotes and their compatibility with hosts, delivers on symbiote-driven action that is mostly lacking for much of the movie that precedes it. Hardy eases back into the sandles of Eddie Brock - and Venom - pretty nicely for this last outing, and its their scenes together that make the movie worth any kind of attention. (However, I'd argue that if you haven't seen the first two movies, or did and didn't enjoy them, you'll want to steer clear of this one as well.) Many moviegoers acknowledge that franchises tend to weaken with each additional sequel, and sadly, like a few other Sony properties (Ghostbusters and The Amazing Spider-Man quickly come to mind), Venom falls prey to this as well.

The content for these movies have, at times, been relatively "hard PG-13," and Venom: The Last Dance follows suit, but with a different tone. The first Venom had a darkness to it with the symbiote/host tests often going awry in gruesome ways. It had some horror elements that reminded me a tad of World War Z (and Ludwig Göransson's creepy score added to this). In Let There Be Carnage, the film was arguably even darker given its focus on Carnage being born from a sadistic serial killer -- the very nature of the villain alone is quite dark. For The Last Dance, we venture more so into sci-fi territory than specifically horror. The monsters - or Xenophages - that Knull sends to earth look like a cross between the beasts from The Tomorrow War and the ones from Edge of Tomorrow (sans the dread-like tendrils of the latter). There is plenty of creature violence and even some creature gore, but it feels less gritty than the previous entries. Still, an early scene shows Venom clear-as-day biting the heads off of four bad guys in succession, with a little bit of bloody results spraying out. A terminal human is saved by being infected with a symbiote, but his possession is shown in a pretty creepy way (as the symbiote communicates through him). Knull's minions frequently get blown apart or dismembered, but then the camera returns to the carcasses to see the aliens pull themselves together almost as if the violence is being undone by the Time Stone in reverse. There are also a couple scenes where these creatures consume a human in one bite and a mist of blood sprays out the back of the creature as if the person was quickly ground to a pulp inside. Other notable moments of violence include a person being impaled at a distance, a flashback to Eddie having been impaled in the first movie, and a brief glimpse at a nasty wound on a human's side shown in dim lighting. Otherwise, a hefty battle makes up the grand finale involving mostly alien and creature violence, with some human casualties not shown too explicitly. Profanity includes a pretty prominent "mother f---" from Rhys Ifans' character, as well as about 15 uses of the "S" word, and quite a few other colorful words and phrases, including a few uses of blasphemy (like Jesus' name).

I was definitely concerned about how Venom: The Last Dance might be after seeing the first trailer for it. Sadly, it isn't better than the trailer let on, and the movie ends up being the lackluster finale to what otherwise was a pretty decent and entertaining series. The Last Dance might not be the grand finale fans hoped for, but it's also not the worst. Fans should lower their expectations considerably, and might then find The Last Dance to be more of a slow dance to the finish line, and not the spastic "little kicks" of Elaine Benes that it otherwise feels like.

By the way, there is a mid-credits scene that teases more possibly coming involving Knull (but it's really vague). There is also a very short post-credits scene that reveals the fate of a very random, very minor side character (but it's probably not worth sitting through the overlong credits to get watch).