The Last Dance of Eddie Brock in Venom: The Last Dance

Before I went to go and see Venom: The Last Dance on the first day it was in cinemas in the UK, I decided to rewatch the first two in the franchise to remind myself on everything that had gone on so far. For those that don't know, the Venom franchise follows the story of Eddie Brock, a journalist, who becomes connected to a symbiote known as Venom which is basically, in simple terms, an alien that attaches itself to a human. Apart from a brief moment in the end of Venom: Let There Be Carnage, the films are set in the Sony Spiderman Universe (SSU), which is basically the Marvel Cinematic Universe but with complicated legal rights that most people don't really understand and less highly regarded films by fans and critics alike. The reason for this semi-alternate universe (they now let MCU have Spiderman) being that as part of the deal to get Marvel out of bankruptcy and before Marvel was bought by Disney, Sony purchased the rights to make Spider-Man movies. Fast forward multiple years later and as a result, you have 3 Venoms, a Madame Web and unfortunately, a Morbius.

Truthfully, I found Venom: Last Dance to be a really fun film. It definitely felt slow to warm up over the course of the first hour but the story really finds it's feet for the final third creating a chaotic culmination of action, comedy and even heartwarming moments. I almost even shed a tear with the montage set to Maroon 5 at the end which really surprised me as I didn't realise I had that level of emotional investment in the franchise. The film itself is definitely the best of the three with first time Director and writer of the previous two (as well as Fifty Shades of Grey weirdly), Kelly Marcel, doing a very good job of amplifying the regularity of the more beloved moments of the previous films such as the odd couple nature of Eddie/Venom, Mrs Chen and Tom Hardy being weird. It's clear from watching that Hardy, who produces the film, really trusts her to make the film and is seemingly having an absolute ball playing Eddie Brock.

When it comes to other characters, the story brings back some previous characters of the franchise with Detective Patrick Mulligan (played by Stephen Graham) returning in what feels like quite a disjointed storyline as well as Mrs Chen (played by Peggy Lu) in the casinos of Las Vegas. The story introduces some new characters with Rhys Ifans playing the alien obsessed Martin Moon whose taking his family to see Area 51. I personally really enjoyed the introduction of the family with Eddie Brock forming a very sweet relationship with the youngest in the family creating some lovely moments. Juno Temple is also introduced as Dr Teddy Payne who works at Area 55 where they study the symbiotes and it will be interesting to see if that character returns in future instalments if they happen.

Despite the positives of the film, it was hard to not feel like they had included a lot of moments purely so they could be clipped to go viral once the film hits home release, with the Venom Horse being a good example of this approach having done just that after it's inclusion in the trailer. The Sony Spiderman Universe has a long mostly negative history with meme culture with Morbius and Madame Web taking the internet by storm with corny lines, shots and plot points. Instead this film feels like the first one where they've tried to embrace that part of the internet more and on a first watch, It did feel like they've managed to get the tone right. It will be interesting to see if those moments do go viral over the next months. Although, there is a long recurring joke about Eddie Brock being shoeless which is funny the first time but didn't quite land for me by the third time he loses his shoes.

Overall, I think the film has a lot of heart which helps to make it (mostly) a pretty fun watch. It helps that it's not the longest film in length too. I'm not sure it's a film that needs to be studied too aggressively with a critical lens but I think that should be the case for most superhero movies made with a similar tone in mind. If you take the film at face value, it's a film with good action sequences, fun comedy moments and a solid story which for me ticks a lot of boxes. If this is the end of the Venom franchise, then this film does a really good job of wrapping up the franchise but I think there's still going to be demand for more Eddie Brock/Venom especially with an interaction with Tom Holland's Spiderman yet to happen.

3 out of 5.