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“Aliens suck!” — Venom: The Last Dance
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Superhero Movie Rewatch
“Aliens suck!” — Venom: The Last Dance
This movie is way more fun than it had any right to be.
By Keith R.A. DeCandido
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Published on January 22, 2025
Credit: Sony Pictures
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Credit: Sony Pictures
From August 2017 – January 2020, Keith R.A. DeCandido took a weekly look at every live-action movie based on a superhero comic that had been made to date in the Superhero Movie Rewatch. He’s periodically revisited the feature to look back at new releases, as well as a few he missed the first time through.
There was always at least an intention for there to be three Venom films, especially since star Tom Hardy signed on to do a trio of movies featuring the symbiote. With Venom and its sequel Let There Be Carnage being pretty much the only successes in Sony’s Spider-Man Cinematic Universe Without Any Actual Spider-Man In It, a third film was pretty much inevitable.
Initial thoughts were to finally cross over with Spider-Man, though that was abandoned pretty quickly, with the focus instead shifting to Knull, the powerful alien responsible for creating the symbiotes. Introduced by Donny Cates, Ryan Stegman, & JP Mayer in the third issue of the Venom series that ran from 2018-2021, Knull was established not just as the creator of the symbiotes, but also retconned as the force behind Gorr the God Butcher in the Thor: God of Thunder series (the MCU version of which was in Thor: Love and Thunder).
The story for the film was, as with Let There Be Carnage, put together by Kelly Marcel (who wrote the final script for Venom) and Hardy, with Marcel writing the script. This time, Marcel also directed. Andy Serkis was set to direct, as he did the previous film, but he was unavailable. However, he was able to play the role of Knull (who is only in a couple of scenes), having previously been seen in this rewatch in Avengers: Age of Ultron, Black Panther, and The Batman. While thought was given to, not just a Spider-Man crossover, but also to developing the Ravencroft Institute from Let There Be Carnage, it was decided instead to have a major showdown against Knull, with lots of other symbiotes showing up.
Back from Let There Be Carnage are Hardy as both Eddie Brock and the voice of Venom, Stephen Graham as Mulligan, Peggy Lu as Mrs. Chen, and Cristo Fernández as the Bartender. New in this film are Chiwetel Ejiofor as General Strickland (based on a supporting character in Venom comics; Ejiofor previously appeared in this rewatch as Mordo in Doctor Strange and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness), Juno Temple as Dr. Teddy Paine (a gender-flipped version of a mad scientist from the comics, originally created for the 1990s Morbius the Living Vampire series by Len Kaminski & Ron Wagner, and who has also been involved with Venom), Clark Backo as Sadie, and Rhys Ifans (previously in this rewatch in The Amazing Spider-Man, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and The King’s Man), Alanna Ubach, Hala Finley, and Dash McCloud as the Moon family. (Hilariously, Hardy, Graham, Ejiofor, Temple, and Ifans are all British actors putting on American accents.)
The movie was less successful than its predecessors, but more successful than anything else Sony has tried in the Spider-Man Cinematic Universe Without Any Actual Spider-Man In It (Morbius, Madame Web, and Kraven the Hunter all tanked). The ending leaves it open for Knull to return, at least…
Credit: Sony Pictures
Venom: The Last DanceWritten by Kelly Marcel & Tom HardyDirected by Kelly MarcelProduced by Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach, Amy Pascal, Kelly Marcel, Tom Hardy, Hutch ParkerOriginal release date: October 25, 2024
“The darkness has teeth”
We open in the MCU, with Venom still in a bar in Mexico thanks to Dr. Strange’s spell in Spider-Man: No Way Home. When the spell is reversed, he’s shoved back into his own universe (to Venom’s relief, declaring, “I’m so done with this multiverse shit!”), albeit in the same bar with the same bartender, though the latter has much longer hair now. He sees a news report that shows that Eddie Brock is wanted for questioning in the murder of Detective Patrick Mulligan.
Deciding he needs to go to New York, Brock starts walking. He had to leave New York because of a judge, but Brock now has dirt on the judge, and he can use that to help get the judge to clear his name. He encounters a kennel where dogs are being kept for dogfights, and Venom remonstrates with the men inside, chowing down on their brains, though Brock loses one of his Crocs after the fight, in a brief tug-of-war with one of the dogs. One of the now-headless dogfighters has a nice pair of boots, which Venom offers to Brock. They then attach themselves to the side of a plane bound for New York (which prompts a plaintive cry from Brock, “How does Tom Cruise do this?”).
However, Knull, the creature who created the symbiotes, and then was imprisoned by them, has discovered that one symbiote carries a codex. Apparently, the codex is not a book (the actual definition of the word), but a glowy thing that is created when a symbiote resurrects its host from the dead (which Venom did with Brock). Said glowy thing is the key to releasing Knull from his prison.
Knull sends a xenophage—a giant creature that can regenerate itself—to attack Venom. Venom is able to kick it into the jet’s engine. Venom then abandons the fully integrated form of Venom, as it’s only in that mode that the xenophage can sense the codex. Venom does turn into a parachute so Brock can land safely, but he loses his new boots.
Area 51 is being decommissioned. We see some of the tech from the base being dissolved by acid. (This will probably be important later.) However, beneath Area 51 is the Imperium, a secret government installation that is studying the symbiotes. While Venom and Riot escaped the initial crash in Venom, the others were captured by the Imperium. They also capture the not-really-dead Mulligan and bring him in. Mulligan is bonded with the Toxin symbiote, and warns General Strickland, in charge of the military contingent at the Imperium, about the codex.
The Imperium ambushes Brock in the desert, but he and Venom manage to escape thanks to Venom temporarily bonding with a horse, though Brock is forced to kill one of the soldiers, which he’s not happy about. The rest of the soldiers are killed by the xenophage. Once they’re a safe distance away, Venom abandons the horse and hides back inside Brock, who is now walking barefoot through the Nevada desert. He’s eventually picked up by the Moon family in their colorful VW microbus. They’re heading to Area 51 before its decommissioning.
The Moons—who engage a reluctant Brock (but an excited Venom) in a singalong of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity”—drop Brock off in Las Vegas, giving him a pair of Birkenstocks and twenty bucks. Unfortunately, the casinos have something of a dress code, and the ratty clothes Brock has been in don’t conform to said code. So he slugs a drunk guy in a tux and takes his clothes, particularly liking the shoes that come with the tux…
He loses the twenty bucks at a slot machine. Fortunately, Mrs. Chen happens to be in the same casino, and she’s been winning big. She has a suite and everything. She offers her room so that Brock can get cleaned up (he has nicer clothes, but he hasn’t showered in a while and he’s been through some stuff). Venom insists on dancing with Chen in full Venom form, which unfortunately alerts the xenophage to his presence.
Before the alien arrives, though, the Imperium—which picked up Brock on traffic cams in Vegas—show up and are able to separate Brock from Venom and then capture Venom.
The xenophage shows up at Area 51 and alerts Knull, who sends more xenophages. The symbiotes are freed and they all bond with various folks on the base. Most of them are killed fighting the xenophages, as are many soldiers.
The Moon family shows up, having hoped to see some aliens and getting way more than they bargained for.
Venom finally figures out how to stop the xenophages. He separates from Brock, then bonds with the xenophages directly, bringing them to the acid bath. Strickland—who is mortally wounded in any case—activates it and then drops grenades in, blowing stuff up, killing Venom and the xenophages (and Strickland himself).
Only one symbiote survives, its fate unknown, and Brock also survives, saved by Venom before things went boom. A general informs Brock that his past record is expunged and he’s free, as long as he says nothing about what happened.
He finishes the trip to New York, visiting the Statue of Liberty as he and Venom had planned.
Elsewhere, Knull swears vengeance on the universe, even though he should still be trapped with Venom having been killed. Meantime, the bartender escapes the carnage of Area 51, while a cockroach wanders away from a shattered specimen bottle that had a tiny piece of Venom in it…
Credit: Sony Pictures
“We all have monsters inside”
This movie was way more fun than it had any right to be. A big part of it is the same thing that made the other two watchable: Hardy’s total immersion in both roles, which is glorious. He’s having way too much fun with this. Also, I have to say the running (ahem) gag of him constantly losing his footwear was hilarious.
Having said that, the story itself is pretty nowhere. This film makes the same mistake that the third Ant-Man movie did, which is abandoning the hero’s support system. Yes, Mrs. Chen is there—in a particularly unconvincing coincidence—but no Ann or Dan, which is a loss. Instead, we get manufactured pathos with Teddy Paine. I got to the end of the plot summary above and realized that I didn’t include any of Paine’s part in it, and that’s because all of it is completely irrelevant to the story. Paine’s backstory with her brother has nothing to do with the movie, and Strickland taking control of the Imperium is meaningless because the xenophages attack three seconds later. Poor Juno Temple is stuck staring wide-eyed at symbiotes for the entire movie and making sure never to use her left arm (damaged in the lightning strike that killed her brother) until she bonds with a symbiote at the end in an obvious attempt to make sure they have a way to do another movie if they want to.
Still, this is a dopey fun buddy movie, with Venom being completely ridiculous, with lots of different-colored symbiotes getting their asses kicked by the xenophages, with way too many fight scenes, and with lots of extra characters who don’t actually do much, but are fun to watch (like the goofy Moon family and Chen). Temple and Chiwetel Ejiofor are both pretty much wasted in roles that don’t require any actual acting talent. Temple, as I said, mostly just stares wide-eyed, while Ejiofor plays the same tired military hardass role that we’ve seen a billion times before and twice since Tuesday. (In this rewatch alone, we’ve had it in Hulk, Incredible Hulk, and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, to name but three.) Stephen Graham is also wasted, but at least he’s playing a role he already established in the previous film, so there’s a good excuse for it. But all Mulligan/Toxin does is provide exposition and get killed.
The movie also has some outstanding music, from the singalong of “Space Oddity” to excellent uses of “Tequila,” “Wild World,” “Don’t Stop Me Now,” “Hard to Handle,” “Dancing Queen,” “Memories,” and “I Had Some Help.”
Thus endeth the latest batch of great superhero movie rewatches. We’ll probably wait to revisit this feature until the end of 2025, where we’ll have, at the very least, Kraven the Hunter, Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts*, Superman, and Fantastic Four: First Steps to look at, along with whatever all else gets released this year. (Rumors are that a sequel to Old Guard and a reboot of Red Sonja may be imminent, for example.)[end-mark]
The post “Aliens suck!” — <i>Venom: The Last Dance</i> appeared first on Reactor.
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