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Venom: The Last Dance is an only occasionally entertaining action/adventure film
about the symbiote antihero and Spider-man antagonist, Venom. Besides the decent
cast and serviceable if unimaginative special effects this movie has few
redeeming qualities and few ties to the Marvel U or its characters. It is never
truly awful but it’s never terribly good either. And when it hints at a related
sequel (using a different main character) audience members may wish it will
never happen.
At this point whereas the early Marvel U was associated with high quality
productions, the Sony‘s Spider-verse has become a signifier of mediocrity. The
recent
Morbius
was a disappointment (although I liked Jaret Leto and a few other
aspects of it) and Madame Web was a complete disaster, and one of the worst
films of the year. Most of these characters as well as Kraven the Hunter who
will soon get his own film would have worked better in the contest of a
Spider-man film interacting with the web slinger. Then if they worked and got
popular they should get solo movies.
Venom The Last Dance was written and directed by newcomer, Kelly Marcel, who got
some assistance with the script department from actor, Tom Hardy. Marcel
previously wrote, the ridiculous, Fifty Shades of Grey (2015) and the previous
two Venom films. In a year with such fine first-time film makers as Malcom
Washington (the upcoming The Piano Lesson) and Pedro Martin Calero (The
Wailing), Marcel’s work here is unimpressive, and she stands out as one of the
least promising new film makers. The cast can’t overcome the script they
have to work with which is a bombastic, muddled mess.
The film is subtitled Last Dance because it is the presumed last film in the
trilogy with began with the passable
Venom (2018) and continued with the
slightly better Venom: Let there be Carnage (2021) which was elevated by Woody
Harrelson’s turn as the homicidal Carnage.
The film tries to go after a similar audience as
Deadpool and Wolverine but it does not have
much of that film’s rollicking adventure, hilarious visual and verbal gags or
fun characterization. There is an ok dance scene in the film between Venom and
an Asian woman who for some reason likes Venom and Eddie, but it is not nearly
as memorable as the dance in
Wednesday
or the scene in which Deadpool dances/kills while using a
Wolverine corpse as a weapon. In fact, Venom: Last Dance pales in almost every way to
Deadpool and Wolverine, but its biggest
flaw is its muddled and sub par script and poor story. Few of the film’s lines
crackle and pop and after an ok setup it goes nowhere.
The film also differs from
Deadpool and Wolverine in that it veers slightly more into
sci-fi horror than comedy, in fact several scenes and monster designs look like
they could have come out of
Alien Romulus
but that film hit far more of its
target and it is at least respectable. One never gets the idea that this film
was made to tell a good story. Like Marvel Secret Wars this film was obviously
created just to use a copyright and fill a market niche.
Unlike the relationship between
Deadpool and Wolverine, the relationship between
Venom and his host Eddie Brock is demoralizing. Although Brock treats him as a
friend, Venom constantly tortures him and constantly scares him half to death.
If this is what it means to be a superhero or more correctly a lethal protector,
then they can keep the job.
Even Banner and the Hulk have more fun moments. Venom is so mean and callous he
often resembles Mr. Hyde more than the Hulk. It’s too bad that because of
copyright issue that can’t do another Hulk film because he is infinitely more
interesting and would potentially provide better stories than Venom.
The paper-thin plot involves Venom being pursued by the military that wants to
use him to their benefit as well as evil symbiote that wants to unleash Null,
the god of the void into the universe. On top of that the police wrongly think
that Venom is a murderer and they are in pursuit of him. Both Venom and Eddie
must be two of the unluckiest beings in the universe.
They end up in Mexico. The last movie depicted the death of a Detective Mulligan
and everyone thinks he did it. He finds out because he sees a news story about
it on a barroom TV. They are also unfortunately noticed by Knull, who is the God
of a void who believes that everything that isn’t nothingness is encroaching on
his territory. He created all the symbiote's as well as the xenophobe mufti-legged monsters that, for years Kull has planned to
use to get out if his prison. It's all poorly explained hinging on Knull getting the key which will free him
and involving many of the symbiotes that turned against him and put him in jail. The
whole key idea is similar to the key on Buffy which turned out to be Dawn who
could be used to open up a gate to hell but this idea was much better handled.
Eventually the symbiotes’ join forces with Venom to fight the evil servants of Knull I don’t know how the character is in the comics but this movie’s Knull is
one of the deadliest dull villains within memory.
Like
Spider-man 3
and Blade Trinity because it is an underwhelming by the numbers
conclusion to the trilogy accept the other trilogies started out good. This film
ends the series making the audience demand less and only Sony Spider-verse completest should bother with it. Everyone else will probably want to sit out of
this last dance.
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Directed &
Written by:
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Kelly Marcel, screenplay by Kelly Marcel and Tom
Hardy |
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Starring:
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Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Johor, Juno Temple |
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Rating:
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Rated PG 13 for intense sequences of action
and
violence, bloody images, and strong language |
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Available On:
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Currently playing at theatres |
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For more
writings by Vittorio Carli go to
www.artinterviews.org and
www.chicagopoetry.org.
His latest book "Tape Worm Salad with Olive Oil for Extra Flavor" is also
available.
Email
carlivit@gmail.com
See the film trailer of the Lee Groban movie
directed by Nancy Bechtol featuring Vittorio Carli.
See
https://youtu.be/tWQf-UruQw
Come to the New Poetry Show on the first Saturday of every month at Tangible
Books in
Bridgeport from 7-9 at 3324 South Halsted.
This is now a monthly show featuring Poetry/Spoken Word, some Music, Stand Up
and Performance Art and hosted by Mister Carli. For more information e-mail:
carlivit@gmail.com for details
Upcoming features at the Poetry Show:
December 7- Shontay Luna, Teresa Magana, Wilda Morris, and Jose Popoca
January 2025 – Dami Andonova, Dina Marie Marguerite Patrick-Stewart and Eric
Allen Yankee
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VENOM THE LAST DANCE © 2024 SONY PICTURES
All Rights Reserved
Review © 2024 Alternate Reality, Inc. |
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