Venom: The Last Dance, in theaters from October 24, is the fifth film in Sony's Spider-Man Universe as well as the third chapter - who knows, maybe even the last - of the trilogy that began with Venom (2018) and continued with the sequel Venom - Let There Be Carnage (2021). The director is Kelly Marcel, already screenwriter of the first two films, making her debut behind the camera.
The stakes, for her, are not bad at all. She has been talked about insistently, in recent weeks, as a possible director of the new incarnation of James Bond - if we manage to have one by the end of the century, it is not a given - and in this sense it is ironic that the protagonist of the film (of which she is also screenwriter, estimated budget 120 million dollars), as well as co-author of the story, is one of the most famous "almost-Bonds" of recent years, Tom Hardy.
Here he is in the company of an important cast because there are also Chiwetel Ejiofor (another potential 007), Juno Temple, and Rhys Ifans. The mystery is all in the title. It is called Venom 3 and we have to understand how to interpret it. It could be – envelope number one – a last dance to be understood in the literal sense, the word end for the franchise, the definitive one, final, without return.
Or maybe it is a clever diversion – envelope number two – to stimulate the curiosity of the public and stun it with the unexpected surprise that Venom, after all, still has something to tell us. If you want – envelope number three – it could be a more opaque and ambiguous game; the end to which the title alludes without margins of subtlety can be interpreted in the hopeful and optimistic sense of change, innovation, and rethinking. For Eddie and the symbiont, in fact, the winds of change are blowing.
The union between man and symbiote is a strength
In reality, Tom Hardy anticipated something, of his intentions and of the future of the character. Venom was born in Marvel comics but at the cinema it does not appear in the repertoire of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), participating in a collateral universe, less considered by the public and critics, but no less important. Tom Hardy likes it anyway. He said that the film concludes the series, but he would like to be Venom again, in other stories and in other contexts.
It is the type of ambiguous statement that leaves room for more than one interpretation because nothing excludes that Venom could return with a fourth chapter, despite the air of a long farewell that pervades Kelly Marcel's film far and wide. After all, Hugh Jackman had categorically denied the possibility of wearing Wolverine's fangs and grumpy attitude again and we saw how it ended: bad for the character's endurance and the artist's integrity, very good for the wallet. Venom: The Last Dance sets the stage for the beloved/hated/feared resolution by asking a question. What is the current state of the relationship between Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and the alien?
Together they are Venom, the lethal protector: ferocious hunger, will to destroy, heroism, incorrectness, and generosity. Separated they are Eddie, an earthling who doesn't know what to do with his life, and a symbiote, a parasitic alien entity that chooses a human, takes him, gives him extraordinary abilities, and doesn't leave. Eddie and the symbiote have had three films to define their relationship and seem to have reached an acceptable point of adjustment. They complement each other, support each other, and adjust each other, in their strengths and weaknesses. The term relationship is not used by chance.
Venom: The Last Dance uses the form and structure of the buddy movie - the chemistry, the misunderstandings, the humor, a hint of melancholy - going as far as possible to tell a pure, sticky, and beautiful love. They can’t do without each other, Eddie, and the thing from the other world: unity is strength and so is Venom. The key to the film is to show how disruptive elements that come from the outside world can compromise their relationship.
A painful lack
The breaking point is a giant extraterrestrial killer lizard that hunts symbiotes, unleashed by the big boss and creator of the entities, Knull, to track down and capture Venom. Among the terrestrials, however, the most significant threat to the couple comes from General Strickland (Ejiofor), who works in the basement of Area 51 and has a big problem with the very idea of extraterrestrial life. In the reassuring geometry of Kelly Marcel's screenplay, alongside the protagonists, there is the scientist with a cumbersome past, Dr. Payne (Temple), her colleague "Christmas" (Clark Backo), and a family of friendly hippies, led by dad Ifans, who reaches Area 51 in the hope of discovering the truth about the extraterrestrial presence on Earth.
At a basic level of structure, Venom: The Last Dance is a reassuring, frenetic, and pyrotechnic confrontation between Good and Evil encapsulated in the story of a special friendship. Each character is given a clear moral position to balance the ambiguity of the Eddie-symbiote duo, predators, and protectors much more complex than a hasty and superficial reading of their relationship would suggest. They must decide what to do with their destiny and, superficially, Venom: The Last Dance, with its flavor of inevitability and without the worry of defining mythology already drawn by the first two films, would have the credentials to calibrate an interesting cocktail of sentiment, action, science fiction, humor and the shadow of a tear. Instead, everything or almost everything that would be needed to give the film depth, credibility, and coherence is missing.
If there is a story, it does not know what its horizon is. It stops at the premises, without giving depth and a reasoned sense to the ideas of the first part, solving the knots of a barely outlined plot in an inconsistent and poorly focused ending. The characterization of the supporting actors suffers, used to the bare minimum of their possibilities, and with interpreters of the caliber of Ejiofor and Temple it is a real shame, perhaps not mortal but deserving of a serious reprimand. The action suffers, devoid of originality and the feeling of a great, vibrant, show. The story, the portrait of a special friendship, suffers. Marcel and Hardy show that they know the character, his limits, and his strengths, but they do not have clear ideas on what to do with him, after the success of the first two films, in terms of development and possible conclusion of the path.
Watch the official trailer for Venom: The Last Dance
OVERALL REVIEW
Venom: The Last Dance, in the vein of the first two chapters of the franchise, which perhaps ends here or perhaps not, avoids taking itself too seriously and this is a virtue. The problem is that the film is at its best when it focuses on the Eddie-symbiote relationship and this does not happen so often throughout the story. It is the fatal weakness of this light-hearted buddy movie disguised as a comic book movie: the imbalance of tones (action-drama-humor) and the thinness of the narrative take the breath away from the film.