Venom: The Last Dance (2024) Movie Review: Charming Road Trip Movie Starring a Man and His Symbiote, Interrupted by Generic Superhero Fare

The key to the surprising success of the “Venom” trilogy, other than the existence of a trilogy of Venom movies without the involvement of Spider-Man, is the star Tom Hardy. More specifically, Hardy’s love for this iteration of Eddie Brock and the kooky odd couple sensibility Brock shares with the symbiote.

The relationship consequently gives rise to the majority of the film’s humor as well as the textual reading of the two aspects within Venom co-existing as a form of married couple. One of the reasons why the second film worked so well is because it updated that kooky humor from the first film and made the entire movie revolve around that central relationship. As a film viewer completely inundated by corporate superhero fare consisting of CGI sludges, it’s not to say that Venom sheds the entire baggage. But there is a heartfelt sincerity and love for these characters that is strangely moving.

The plot follows immediately post the post-credit scene of “Spider-Man No Way Home,” with Brock immediately sucked back into his own universe, suffering from a hangover and still having to quench the thirst of his “buddy” and confidante, who already has made his appearance resembling a hobo, but then both Brock and the symbiote start on a long trek towards New York. After all, they are still fugitives on the run after the events of the previous film, and it doesn’t hurt if they get into some hijinks along the way where Brock and the Venom symbiote could work together as “Venom”—the Lethal Protector.

Venom: The Last Dance (2024) Movie Review — A still from “Venom: The Last Dance” (2024)

If that sounds suspiciously like the layout of a procedural TV show starring a drifter who gets into adventures every week, or more specifically like an episode of the 1977 television show “The Incredible Hulk,” screenwriter and director Kelly Marcel is clearly heavily interested in this section of the narrative. There is an extended section where Brock and Venom meet up with a family living off the land who are traveling to Area 51 to check out the veracity of aliens three days before it is being decommissioned, and they agree to drop Brock off in Las Vegas.

These sections in usual superhero fare would seem almost filler in terms of tonality. But considering the tonality we are dealing with in this film, along with a symbiote who chomps and grumbles, has seen Rain Man, and uses his ideas as a giant celestial being only to fail at the slots table in the casino—these sections come off as nothing less than goofy and charming. Even the randomness of the plotting at times, like the presence of franchise regular Mrs. Chen, leading to Venom and Mrs. Chen going through a musical bit, has an off-kilter charm that feels in sync with a franchise that thrives on off-kilter bits.

But therein lies the rub. Because Marcel has to deal with the plot as well. Taking elements from Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman’s 2018 run on “Venom,” especially the concept of Knull as the big bad villain of the symbiotes, the movie teases Knull in the opening sequence with Knull addressing gigantic cockroach-looking beings (who hunt symbiotes), as well as the audience, about the plot, before sending off one of those symbiote hunters to hunt for Venom and the codex within Venom. Credit to Marcel, she introduces an in-universe reason as to why Hardy needs to be on screen even while utilizing the Venom symbiote, rather than Venom entirely hulking out.

The problem is the introduction of the organization researching and containing symbiotes, and then Brock and Venom having to literally be taken out of their road-trip subplot and dropped within the main plot of the narrative, and dealing with more of these symbiote hunters. Chiwetel Ejiofor and Juno Temple star as characters who share the names of their comic book characters but have their personalities sucked out and replaced by stock characterizations.

The organization houses symbiotes kept in stasis, who would invariably be used in the final battle sequence. And of course, in typical Sony Pictures fashion, Knull would be teased, but he wouldn’t be a player within the narrative at all. The film instead chooses to revel in a massive monster fight between the symbiote hunter vs. all the symbiotes freed and bonded with characters who are barely introduced and acknowledged.

In the midst of all these, what anchors the film in terms of anything resembling emotion is the central relationship between Brock and his symbiote. In an era of franchise-led movies that all thrive on continuation rather than ending, “Venom: The Last Dance” emerges as something different. It has its set of post-credit scenes; it has big battles, explosions, and CGI goop monsters battling it out with each other; and it also has digital blood. It also has enough strands that the studio and the filmmaker believe are fascinating enough for fans of this iteration of the franchise to come back for more.

And maybe that will happen. The design of Knull and the design of the different symbiote figures are interesting enough in their recreation from the comic books. But “The Last Dance” truly is the last dance for this story between Venom and Eddie Brock. In a substrate of ever-continuing and non-stop storytelling, this film truly marks an ending of what made this franchise enjoyable in the first place—the relationship between Brock and Venom. That doesn’t elevate the movie into something great, but it does signify a form of closure and a jumping-off point from this train. For that, I am grateful.