By ROBERT DANVERS
Starring Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Juno Temple
Written and directed by Kelly Marcel
Sony/Columbia
“I am Knull, God of the Void!” With those, the first words spoken in VENOM: THE LAST DANCE, the trilogy capper serves notice that the purple prose of this particular Marvel Comics IP will be honored as it has been in the two previous VENOMs–not least since series screenwriter Kelly Marcel, who again conceived the new picture’s story with returning star Tom Hardy, has now settled into the director’s chair as well.
Knull (performed by Andy Serkis, director of the preceding VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE) is established in a pre-Marvel-logo sequence as the new film’s Big Bad, a Dark Lord of the alien symbiotes whose progeny rebelled and deposed him into a trapped exile. But he can reclaim his kingdom and grow yet more powerful once a strike force of still-loyal minions visit Earth and access a game-changing bit of DNA embedded in…yep, perpetually sensation- (and flesh-) hungry creature Venom and the latter’s perpetually hapless human host Eddie Brock. (Hardy, back in the dual/dueling role, once again relishes booming out Venom’s growly quips, threats and expletives.) Once Knull gets his…er, scales on that piece, he’ll be able to obliterate entire worlds, species, et al.
But first things first, for the movie if not for Knull: The post-credits teases of both VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE and SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME must be followed up on. This potential, though, is sidestepped as the movie goes on its unsteady trip through its threequel paces. (Those footing references, by the way, are nothing compared with the movie’s own odd fixation on feet and footwear.) The previous movie’s mayhem now has Eddie on the run (sorry), since he’s being blamed for the death of Detective Mulligan (Stephen Graham) and dare not return home to San Francisco. This suits Venom fine, since he’s jonesing to visit NYC.
Mulligan, however, is alive if not well because he is now hosting a symbiote; accordingly, the U.S. Army has spirited him away to a top-secret scientific facility in the Nevada desert. That area’s notorious Area 51, we’re told, is mostly a tourist destination and is about to be decommissioned; the real action is 100 feet below the surface, at Area 55. In the labs down there, hard-bitten General Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor) spars with idealistic Dr. Paine (Juno Temple) over how to best address what Mulligan, speaking in tongues, conveys is a clear and present alien danger from Knull’s soldiers.
A mid-air attack on Venom and Eddie cues their realization that they’re being hunted far more aggressively by Venom’s home world than by Eddie’s, and it isn’t long before they have to detour into Nevada for a reckoning; at least one of them must die for Knull’s forces to access the special sauce that Venom is carrying amidst his many fluids and tendrils…
And so it is that after the original VENOM channeled DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE and the first sequel riffed on THE ODD COUPLE, this third movie touchstones–RAIN MAN? Yes, that classic gets called out as a certain other famous Nevada destination gets visited. VENOM: THE LAST DANCE feints towards emotional gravitas with regard to Eddie and Venom’s now-shared plight(s), but even after two previous movies, it doesn’t feel particularly earned. The larded narrative doesn’t help the flow either; another character gets a backstory, at one point Eddie/Venom is off-screen for around 10 minutes and meanwhile, an entire family is introduced. The latter does allow for the always-welcome Rhys Ifans (as the winsome-hippie paterfamilias) to play off of Hardy, but it also adds yet more attempted sentiment into a mix now diluted since the first movie pushed the boundaries of the PG-13 rating.
While there are money-on-the-screen effects and CGI as arachnid-adjacent beasties attack and snack on both other creatures and puny humans, Marcel stages these skirmishes in workmanlike rather than inspired style; even the most outré bits–including one inadvertently (?) echoing this year’s genre peak THE SUBSTANCE–don’t register as strongly as they might. In addition, the various transformations and mutations here have been smoothed out rather than made messy; Ruben Fleischer’s direction of the original movie was, for better or worse, intently focused on the body horror(s) and attendant discomfort.
One reason that LET THERE BE CARNAGE will remain, to this viewer, the best of the VENOM movies is that it is the shortest of the three. This becomes all the more pronounced since VENOM: THE LAST DANCE, after straightaway sloughing off the aforementioned previous end-credits stingers, punishingly subjects fans to not one but two. Leaving aside any discussion of the scenes’ content so as not to SPOILER, be warned that from main-titles-at-the-end through to the final bonus scene, it is a full 15-minute sit; not since the lackluster 2004 remake of WALKING TALL have a major-studio movie’s closing credits seemed to drone on so endlessly.
