The Screen Scribe

I think it’s safe to say that Sony’s stewardship of their sole Marvel property, Spider-Man, has been….touch and go at best in the last twenty or so years. The original Spider-Man and it’s sequel are held as absolute classics of the superhero movie genre, while the third sequel was unanimously considered a bloated mess. Studio interference i.e the forced inclusion of the character Venom against Sam Raimi’s wishes, is widely viewed as the main reason for this. The film was panned and the original trilogy ended with a whimper.

Thus began Sony’s long obsession with the character Venom, one of Marvel comics most complex, fascinating villain / anti-heroes. When the first Venom film was announced, I personally had very little interest in seeing it, given the absolute fiasco Sony had become in the handling of their Marvel property post-The Amazing Spider-Man 2. However, I must admit that I thoroughly enjoyed it and its sequel. They both have their issues with character, plot, and direction, as well as some sketchy CGI at times, but Tom Hardy’s performance as the duo Eddie Brock and Venom, and his relationships with Annie and Mrs. Chen elevate otherwise average superhero films.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the third film. While I was cautiously optimistic following the release of the first trailer, and the reveal of the villain Knull (a personal favourite Marvel villain of mine), the film itself failed to live up to my expectations. While Hardy does an admirable job in his third outing as Eddie Brock and Venom, whose chemistry again is fantastic and at times heartwarming, a short runtime, a cannabalized story and tonal inconsistancies hamstring the threequel.

The handling of the story in particular irritated me. With such rich source material to draw from to set up a Knull storyline, which heavily features a revived Cletus Kassidy and Carnage and the medieval dragon symbiote Grendel, the adapted story in the film is somewhat lesser and lacking any depth, taking the codex mcguffin of the comic, and reworking it into a strange, non-sensical mcguffin for the film. This is a story that should have been carefully planned and executed, much like the MCU’s build-up of Thanos. And while the Sony Spider-Man Universe may not have required as lengthy a build-up as Thanos did, utilising their Madame Web property could have tied it all together. Though, without an actual Spider-Man present in this SSU, it all seems somewhat redundant to begin with.

Overall, while it has some witty one-liners, decent action in its finale, and an engaging duo led by Tom Hardy, Venom: The Last Dance is a poor final entry in an otherwise surprisingly entertaining trilogy.

5 / 10 from the Screen Scribe.