The Venom movie series is one of the surprises from the superhero movie boom. Based on the famous Spider-Man villain-turned-antihero, the Venom films rip up the Marvel Studios playbook and take an early 2000s approach to superhero cinema, stripping their sources down to their basic ingredients and separating them from the essence of their comics. books of the world. Their narrow scope and complete lack of pretension make them a change of pace from their cousins from DC or Marvel proper, but while that's refreshing in theory, the resulting films aren't really any better, and Venom: The Last Dance this is not the case. It is true that this trilogy – which is supposed to end here – was created by an irrational and incoherent mind The Last Dance slips in the charm of star Tom Hardy and a few good gags.
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POISON: THE LAST DANCE ★ (1/4 stars) |
Hardy returns as Eddie Brock, a disillusioned investigative reporter whose body harbors an alien lifeform called Venom (also Hardy, doing a silly voice). After the events of 2021 Venom: Let There Be Carnage and their meaningless entry Spider-Man: No Way HomeEddie and Venom find themselves hunted by a secret Army black ops team led by Mac Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and the villainous identity of Venom's creator, Knull (voice of Andy Serkis). While on the run, they perform a strange mishmash of high-speed action and flashy hijinx that never quite entertains, laughs, or feels as heartfelt as it should.
Venom: The Last Dance racing with action and exposition at high speed. The story does not build; things easily it happenedone after the other, without expectation or doubt. Every action is immediately followed by its most obvious result regardless of the pace of the story, never mind the real situation of the place between the parties involved. Occasional events are exciting or surprising on a design level; If you're excited to see Venom meet a bunch of different animals or do a mysteriously choreographed dance number with recurring side character Mrs. Chen (Peggy Lu), you are in luck. There is a psychic power in some of the Venom business that evokes Jim Carrey The mask. But for all the GIF-able moments the film provides, there's no particular flavor or flair in the way writer-director Kelly Marcel presents it. The endless race for mediocrity.
This ruthless efficiency of characters works for the characters as well as the plot. Example: The background of Juno Temple's character, Dr. Payne, is delivered in a flashback that is very brief and has no impact other than bringing information there. Each character gets a specific problem or detail that is meant to endear them to the audience but never get any depth or development.
The only supporting player who gets any significant screen time is Martin, a friendly UFO-obsessed hippie played by Rhys Ifans, who hitches a ride with Eddie on his way to Area 51. This is the only point where the film slows down, as Eddie (with Poison lurking in his body) enjoys the healthy glow of Martin's family and ponders the nature of life, death, purpose, and existence. These themes should be consistent with the rest of the story, but none of them are because nothing outside of Martin's van feels remotely real.
To his credit, Tom Hardy puts so much into his performance, that it seems like he's in a different movie entirely. His Venom is as broad and beautiful as ever, as he spends most of the film as a hollow voice commenting on the events of the film. Eddie, on the other hand, actually feels more than a bad New York idiom for change. Without much dialogue this time, Hardy plays Eddie as a man disturbed by the events of the previous two films and forced to take a shot at his body and his life. You're on an inner journey that's more interesting than anything that actually happens in the movie. Hardy is the only player with a sense of gravity, integrity, and finality there The Last Dance as if you wish. Marcel and company even threw in some nude feelings for a Paul Walker movie Anger 7and a millions of reasonsthe wind suddenly blows.
I Poison films have been the only remotely successful branch of Sony's disastrous shared universe of Spider-Man characters other than Spider-Man, so it's no surprise that, despite providing Tom Hardy with an off-ramp from the franchise, The Last Dance hang a few threads to keep track. While most of these plot hooks are too minor to detract from the film in any meaningful way, one of them does. The Last Dance feeling like the middle chapter rather than the end of a trilogy. And yet, there's so little promise in what's left when the credits roll that it's hard to imagine anyone stepping up to see the next one. With a trilogy that often avoids some of the pitfalls of Marvel's perpetual motion machine, a disappointing and humiliating conclusion.
