3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Venom: The Last Dance

2024, Kelly Marcel (directorial debut) -- download

Not sure why I watched this movie given my loathing for the previous, as well as the first movie, but I was curious as to how they were going to handle the whole interaction with the MCU, which was quickly followed the dissolution of any such plans. In fact, with the utterly disastrous flopping of Kraven the Hunter, I understand the whole "spider-verse" is over with? But I have a train-wreck fascination with this whole "franchise" and cannot help but watch them, like I cannot help but click those car crash Reels on FB (yeah yeah, allusions to living a train-wreck life?) and to be honest, I was actually tempted to go see Kraven in the cinema.... well maybe, once this three-month cough goes away.

ANYWAYZ.

They do answer my MCU question immediately, having this movie begin with Brock at a bar in Mexico, in the MCU after his multi-verse bloop for reasons I cannot remember, and then immediately having him bloop back into whatever you wanna call this other universe he is from... is it the spider-verse? He traumatizes the bartender Dani Rojas (Cristo Fernández, Ted Lasso) in both universes.

Brock (Tom Hardy, Inception) is once again aimless for reasons I cannot remember, and my lack of memory, supported by my "nodded off" comments in the last movie's post, explains why I have no idea who this police man (Stephen Graham, Snatch) Eddie is accused of killing is. Either way, they cannot return to San Fran and instead, decide to do a road trip to NYC to see the grand green lady. Well, technically, an air trip where Venom (Tom Hardy, The Dark Knight Rises) attaches himself and Eddy, to the side of a plane. Until the monster shows up.

Oh yeah, previous interlude -- Venom is being tracked by some sort of government agency based out of a being-shut-down Area 51 and they have lots of symbiotes (colours of the rainbow!), including the cop Eddie supposedly killed. And Keeley Jones (Juno Temple, Ted Lasso) works there as an alien obsessed scientist with an arm ruined by lightning. 

Anywayz, the monster fight dumps them in the Nevada desert where Venom tells Eddie his character backstory. Apparently the symbiotes were created by an ancient evil that calls itself Knull, who is an "as old as the universe", Elric of Melnibone, guy on a throne, Big Bad. The symbiotes rebelled and trapped Knull on his home planet, but eventually he created new monsters, called Xenophages, and sent them out into the universe to collect a particular symbiote who happens to have a key thingy inside it, called a Codex. Guess who has this Codex? But it really doesn't matter at all, all you have to care about is that there are monsters that even scare Venom the Chicken / Human Head eater.

They never really make it to NYC. They are interrupted by the government agency and captured, who in turn are interrupted by the monsters portal-ing there way to Area 51 for the Big Battle. This is where the movie decides the symbiotes are not all that bad -- "the enemy of my enemy...." and all that, and the soldiers from the government agency have to fight along side their symbiote-suited compadres against the monsters, which is not as successful as you would hope, as the monsters have a wood chipper in their mouth which makes quick work of the colour coded symbiotes + human. Things are dire.

And then Venom saves the day by ending the franchise / sacrificing himself. Oh, there are implications that now Knull knows where the Codex is, so we could continue the story, but we all know better. I guess the script was written with optimism & miracles could happen. But....

In general, I was less annoyed by this than the previous two. I still find the interaction between Venom and Brock irritating but there was enough interesting stuff happening elsewhere for me to find fun. The Vegas segment is worth a chuckle as is the insert of Eddie hitching a ride with Rhys Ifans (Knotting Hill) & hippie family, though it would have been funnier if Venom just lost whatever "humanity" he was learning, and ate the lot of them. Like everyone: the entire government agency, the other symbiotes, the xenophages and finally.... Eddie. The End. Now, THAT would be a movie I would probably like.

Also, I wished they had doubled-down on having "Ted Lasso" cast members in the movie. Why go for two when you could have Brendan Hunt (Beard) as a random American General assigned with shutting down Area 51 ! And Brett Goldstein (Kent!) as a black suited commando that only grunts, and Nick Mohammed (Nate) as a rando he bumps into while in Vegas... so many options!