VENOM: THE LAST DANCE (2024)

Way back, when I first heard that Tom Hardy was attached (hah) to a Venom film I was ready to be absorbed (heh). One of the greatest villains in the Spiderman Universe was coming to life (sorry Topher Grace your Venom didn’t do it for me) with a top tier actor in the mix! I was in. And then I was immediately out. From the outset, I hated Venom (2018). From the clunky CGI, to Tom’s digitally enhanced and grating Venom voice plus the lame jokes, the welcome was worn. But I hung in, hoping that Tom Holland’s Spiderman would show up and save me from this movie. Nope. Then the sequel Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021) rolls around (sucked) and I watched it only to see its post credit sequence of Venom licking a television with Spiderman on the news! Was this it? Was it all going to have been worth it? Was Spiderman coming to save the final film? Nah. So here we are, a trilogy later and no Spiderman, only buckets of more CGI. I suppose Venom did its job for Sony, as the trilogy raked in tons of cash, but for me it’s left a sticky, symbiotic stain on a very cool character. Venom: The Last Dance allowed for some great actors (Juno Temple, Chiwetel Ejiofor) something to do and a paycheque, but overall it was a poor man’s Midnight Run, with Venom and Eddie (Hardy) blandly bickering in the desert. I may have smirked a few times, though mostly at the end, as I was finally unbonded from this venom.

WATCH OR NOT: NOT

Additional musings: Don’t be like me and feel you have to finish the series. Seriously, don’t.