Venom The Last Dance Review: Pretty Ordinary But An Explosive Finale

RATING - ⭐⭐✨ 2.5/5*

Venom The Last Dance Review Movie Talkies:

First of all, I wanna start with Venom 2's end credit scene. So, Venom sees Spider-Man on the TV and says, "This guy..." Black Out— making many of us believe that the next film will feature a face-off between venom and spidey. Where is that? I beg you makers, stop fooling people with end-credit scenes like this. It happens so many times with so many movies. Just stop it at once. Now coming back to Venom The Last Dance, the same Venom, same Eddie, same flat story, but yeah, there is a lot of action on much bigger scale this time. The last 30 minutes of the film take it much higher than expected, and there is some real "carnage," which was missing in Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021). By the way, can these two films swap the titles between each other? Some family swapping kind of thing? 

Written by Tom Hardy and Kelly Marcel, Venom The Last Dance begins with Eddie and Venom entering a new timeline. There is this multiverse thing again—needless to say that it's unnecessary. Venom, and by default, Eddie (Tom Hardy), is hunted by the "eternity," named Knull, a thing that made him because he had once saved Eddie by breaking the rules. The codex is at the center as Dr. Payne (Juno Temple) is collecting different kinds of symbiotes in her lab and Soldier Rex (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is searching for Eddie in this dimension. The Eternity is looking for the Codex to bring all symbiotes back to their own world and is too powerful to defeat. There is a twist to this hunt. The hunter cannot trace the symbiote until it is in its full form, and Eddie's human body makes it untraceable. Venom and Eddie are now being chased by the giant creature sent by Knull, a special task force of Rex, and their own local police (from Part 2). How will they escape this three-way cobweb?

To be honest and brutal at the same time, Venom 3 bores you in the first hour with dead humor and flat screenplay. Things just go on and on for no reason, be it the traveling companions to Las Vegas or Mrs. Chen's sudden appearance. The moment Venom dances with Chen, despite knowing that he will be caught by the monster, the film sees a complete shift in the narrative. There is a big gang up in the climax, and we have the grand finale to bid goodbye to this Venom trilogy. Easily, this is the most explosive Venom film in this trilogy, or technically speaking, the most explosive Venom film ever! The basic script can still be overlooked because it hardly matters when it comes to superhero/villain comic book adaptations, but Venom 3 definitely suffers from a poor screenplay. The first half, or to be precise, the first hour (out of 110 minutes of it's runtime) is damn slow and interesting. You can have your nap there, get out and wash your face, and come back and enjoy a whole bucket of popcorn for the next 30 minutes. 

Tom Hardy's appearance looked a bit fat and rotten in the beginning considering the superpowers he holds, but soon after the airplane scene, you get used to it until he gets a new, handsome look in Las Vegas. His dialogue delivery looked fine compared to the previous film, but the engaging conversations with Venom were missing and not that funny. Chiwetel Ejiofor was good, Juno Temple was impressive (watch out for the twist in the end), and Rhys Ifans came as quite a surprise. Stephen Graham's character wasn't justified well enough, while Peggy Lu hardly appears for 4-5 minutes but looks "hot" in a red dress. Alanna Ubach and Cristo Fernández were decent, and Andy Serkis is Knull, the Eternity, but do we get to see his face?

The major highlight of the film is the visual extravaganza in the last half an hour. It's a nice pleasure as a movie buff to see multiple venoms fighting multiple creatures that are indestructible. Having them colored differently as per their characteristics was one more unique thing to see. We have a power-packed finale, but for what? Does that really make it look great? You watch it and decide for yourself, but my answer is, "It's strictly okay. Better call it ordinary." The cinematography and sound effects were looking good, while the 3D effects aren't up to the mark. You know how annoying it is to see a film in IMAX 3D when the screen ratio is not fully covered and adjusted as per the IMAX screen size. For dialogues, I'd say, "Cut that shiit out, man. You could have done much better." I mean, I hardly had 3 laughs in the entire film. Kelly Marcel debuts as a director with Venom: The Last Dance, so I am not really shocked why it felt underwhelming even after providing such a grand finale. The immaturity and incompleteness in her direction are visible out there on the screen. You can feel that there is something missing, and I say it's the director's touch that we are missing. Despite the bad start, Kelly covered a few things with fantastic action sequences, so let's give her for that. Rest, it's an ordinary flick with some explosive fireworks in the last quarter.

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