The worst mistake the third part of a superhero trilogy can make is thinking what we need is a lot of new plots. Remember when the exposition-spouting butler turned up halfway through Spider-Man 3? Well, so it goes with Venom: The Last Dance, the latest misadventure of ex-journalist Eddie Brock and Venom, the alien symbiote living in his skin. The lethal protector is back for a third sloppy, oddly bloodless adventure, and he’s buried under a backstory you never knew you needed … because you didn’t.

After the infuriating tease of Venom in the main Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) timeline provided by his post-credit cameo in Spider-Man: No Way Home, Eddie Brock (Hardy) and his travelling companion (also Hardy in motion capture) are back in their own universe. They’re hungover and on the run from the cops, the alien hunters of Area 51 led by General Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor), and Knull.

 

Who?

 

So, it turns out that Knull is … ancient evil who created the symbiotes and is imprisoned for all time, blah blah blah. Played under Computer Generated Images (CGI) by Andy Serkis (who directed the last film, Venom: Let There be Carnage) and presented here as a cut-rate Thanos, he sends his lackeys to hunt down Venom and Eddie Brock, as they are the key to his release and blah blah destroy all life. You know how it goes.

 

Somehow, The Last Dance is simultaneously 20 minutes too long for the script they have and 30 minutes too short for the story they want to tell. No one could possibly care about the fight scenes, which aren’t quite as incoherently shot as anything in the prior two films but are utterly nonsensical as storytelling. Instead, the flashes of what makes this franchise fun are its absurd and underserved idiosyncrasies. Give us more of Eddie with a hangover getting rag-dolled by a jubilant Venom as they argue over shoes. Give us more of the crazy alien-spotting hippie family (led by Rhys Ifans) and their bizarre singalong covers of David Bowie. And definitely give us more of Peggy Lu as convenience store owner and Venom’s #1 crush, Mrs Chen.

 

Maybe those sequences are fun because they play to Hardy’s strengths as an actor and the scripts of first-time feature director Kelly Marcel. She gets that there’s something fun about watching Tom Hardy having fun, and boy is he having fun. The Eddie/Venom double act is still a deranged delight, whether they’re mixing cocktails or sucking out the brains from the skulls of dog abusers.

 

None of that gets old, but it’s drowned in a torrent of new backstories and a deluge of previously unseen supporting characters who turn out to be Very Important for Reasons That Will Become Clear in Future Films.

Paper-thin characters with a single defining trait, such as “struck by lightning as a child” or “likes Christmas”, waste talented performers like Juno Temple. (Meanwhile, good luck hearing even a mention of Anne Weying, Eddie’s fiancée, played by Michelle Williams in the first two films.) Maybe they’re all too preoccupied by the huge arsenal of Chekhov’s guns littered around the script. Why is the Army melting down trucks with a huge acid shower? So there’ll be a handy acid shower for the third act, of course. Just don’t think about it.

As a trilogy capper, The Last Dance is barely a shuffle and more a shimmy. Moreover, as Sony seemingly attempts to expand their own Spider-Verse to compete with the MCU, their big bad is barely a factor. The script does nothing to elevate Knull’s threat level. He’s introduced with a boring monologue and then all but sidelined. If Sony is setting him up as their Thanos, they have endless work to do.

 

Worst of all, it’s such a tepid ending to a franchise that made the brilliant initial casting decision of casting Tom Hardy twice, then made the self-sabotaging choice of putting his skull-chomping not-quite-a-hero in a PG-13 setting. If the multiverse is kind, maybe one day we’ll be seeing Venom and Deadpool teaming up for an R-rated romp that mostly involves infuriating Wolverine. Maybe we’ll get lucky, and Tom Hardy will want to do this until he’s 90. But if this is how he goes out, it’s a shame it’s more X-Men Origins: Wolverine than Logan.

 

3.5/10

 

Boluwatife Adesina
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Boluwatife Adesina is a media writer and the helmer of the Downtown Review page. He’s probably in a cinema near you.