Venom: The Last Dance (2024) – Review

Quick Thoughts – Grade – B – If you are a fan of the Venom franchise because you love it when a sweaty Tom Hardy walks around and talks to himself – you won’t be disappointed here. Venom: The Last Dance is a breezy and enjoyable romp that features some solid action beats and another fun performance from Tom Hardy.

This may sound insane, but one of my favorite things to come out of the 21st century (in regards to movies) is that Venom (2018) made $856 million at the box office. Watching a 100% committed Tom Hardy jump into lobster tanks and talk to himself during strolls through San Francisco makes me very happy. It was also nice seeing Venom: Let There Be Carnage collect over $500 million and guarantee we’d get to see Eddie Brock (Hardy) and Venom bicker their way through a 90-minute movie again. 

At a breezy 110 minutes (95 without credits), Venom: The Last Dance is a beautifully chaotic sendoff for a franchise that has always been chaotic. This time around, Eddie Brock (Hardy) is hiding out in Mexico where he occasionally eats criminals and spends too much time drinking at local bars. When he sees his face on the local news, he realizes that it’s time to get back into the world and clear his name. He comes across some problems when he’s attacked by pureblooded Klyntar (a creature that can kill symbiotes with ease) that’s sent by an ancient symbiotic god named Knull – who is pissed that his symbiote creations trapped him for eternity on a swamp planet. Knull wants to escape his eternal prison and it turns out that the bond between Eddie and Venom is the key to unleashing him. Knull isn’t the only person looking for Eddie, there are some high-ranking scientists and soldiers led by Rex Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who are studying the symbiotes near Area 51, and desperately want to snag Eddie so they can contain the symbiotic spread. This leads to various action scenes involving symbiote horses, whitewater rapid brawls, and a battle on top of a passenger plane that is highly impractical. 

Directed by and written by Kelly Marcel (who wrote the first two films), the film is a wonderful mess that not only has to give Eddie and Venom’s story some finality, but it also introduces or re-introduces characters played by Juno Temple, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rhys Ifans, Alanna Ubach, Stephen Graham, Clark Backo (Letterkenny!) and Peggy Lu. Despite all the characters and shenanigans, Marcel and Hardy do a nice job on focusing on the relationship between Eddie and Venom. The middle section of the film is dedicated to Eddie catching a ride with a family of alien lovers and almost taking part in an impromptu Space Oddity singalong started by hippie dad Martin Moon (Rhys Ifans). It’s during this time that Eddie takes stock of his life and it allows him and Venom to truly bond as they deal with their lives together. It’s rare for a major blockbuster to slow down a film by stuffing a lead character into a Volkswagen Bus for 15 minutes, but I’m glad they did it  because I always enjoy downtime with the lethal protectors. 

Adding to the neat character moments are the frantic action sequences that use every cent of the $120 million budget to create some eye-popping visuals that made me very happy. Whether it’s seeing Tom Hardy hanging on to a speeding Venom horse, or watching a Klyntar turn soldiers into bloody human mulch (they are like a big wood chipper), there’s a lot to like here and there are even some fun surprises that I won’t spoil here. The action scenes are a big improvement from the first two films and there are some interesting stakes that make the action feel final and dangerous. 

As a fan of the scrappy Venom franchise, I think Venom; The Last Dance is a cluttered, manic, and suitable sendoff for Tom Hardy, and I think it’s going to pull in lots of money around the world because it understands the spirit of the franchise (despite straying FAR from the comic source material) and isn’t afraid to halt its momentum so Venom can gamble and dance in Las Vegas.