Dog’s Movie House: “Venom: The Last Dance” Works Best As Alien Buddy Comedy!

“Venom: The Last Dance” begins right after the events of the prior film, with Eddie and Venom on the run from the authorities and hiding out in Mexico. After an amusing incident between Venom and some illegal dogfighters, Eddie and Venom find themselves on the run from both the authorities and an alien conqueror known as Knull (an unrecognizable Andy Serkis). Knull is known as the King Of The Void but he’s imprisoned in this dark demension and needs a special key to get out and destroy the known universe (because that’s what a character called Knull does, I suppose.) Guess who has this key (called a “Codex). Yep, because of a bonding process between Eddie and Venom in the first film, whenever they fully become Venom the Codex is revealed, shining as a beacon for Knull, who sends his army of xenophages (think six-legged indestuctable killing machines with more teeth than a great white shark) to kill Venom and recover the Codex. Enter a whole bunch of subplots involving Area 51, a ton of captive symbiotes, a hippy family who gives Eddie a ride to Vegas, and a lot of bro-bonding between Eddie and Venom.

It’s the last of these subplots that serve as the highlight of the film. The central story is essentially alien boilerplate, with an absurdly powerful cosmic villain trying to take over the universe spouting inane dialogue like “Get me the Codex!”. The fact that Knull (a really, really big deal in the comics, apparently) is barely in the film actually helps things out a bit as there is literally no time to flesh out his character. (He’s bad, the created the symbiotes who imprisoned him and fled for earth, and he commands an ugly carnivorous army of monsters. . .that’s it!) The fun of “Venom: The Last Dance” is in the interplay between Eddie and Venom, who come to something of an understanding over the course of the film. They become an old bickering married couple who secretly thrive on their arguing. The film shines here as there are a ton of laugh-out-loud moments (Venom in Vegas! Dancing with Mrs. Chen to ABBA’s “Dancing Queen!” Yay!) “The Last Dance” is going to reward multiple viewings simply for the jokes alone.

There’s an outstanding supporting cast of actors in “Venom: The Last Dance” yet they are all somewhat underused. Chiwetel Ejiofer is one note as General Strickland, the guy in charge of the symbiote project in Vegas who simply wants to kill Venom to save the world. Juno Temple gets a little more to do as Dr. Teddy Paine, the lead scientist whose obsession with space and alien life stems from living the dreams of her late brother. Rhys Ifans has some fun as the father of a hippie family travelling to Area 51 to see aliens before the site is decommissioned. And Peggy Lu returns all too briefly as the acerbic yet caring Mrs. Chen.

The films quirky approach to storytelling dissolves a bit toward the finale as the big battle scene must take place. Fortunately Marcel does a pretty good job or orchestrating the action as the formerly captive symbiotes get released and merge with the scientists to fight the multiple zenophages attempting to retrieve the Codex. I imagine the comic book fans will get a kick out of seeing symbiote characters from the Lethal Protector series onscreen, but to the casual audience they’re just cool iterations of Venom. They have some pretty cool powers though: some use fire, some blades, and one is a Venom version of The Flash. The ending is appropriately emotional yet one gets the sense that the adventures of Eddie and Venom aren’t quite over yet.

Overall, “Venom: The Last Dance” doesn’t break much in the way of new ground for superhero movies, but the byplay between Eddie and Venom sets it apart from other comic book films and that alone makes a fitfully entertaining film even more so. See “The Last Dance” for Hardy’s wonderfully daffy performance. You’ll be glad you did! 4 Out Of 5 On Kendog’s Barkometer! So Sayeth The Kendog!

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