My Thoughts on “Venom: The Last Dance”

 

(This is the poster for Venom: The Last Dance.)

First we let there be carnage, now it is time for one last dance. ‘Til death do they part indeed. Sorry I couldn’t get this review sooner. First I got sick 🤧 with a cold 🦠 that I had to deal with for a week or so, then I wrote my post about Huey Li, which took me about three days (maybe even four) to write and which he still hasn’t not read yet at the time of me writing this. I’m still hoping he reads it, I keep leaving him comments on his videos linking him my post about him, but so far he hasn’t bitten. He hasn’t taken the bait. If he doesn’t read my post, it’ll feel as if all that work I put in for those three or four days was for nothing. I’m still proud of how it turned out, I’m glad I wrote it, but if Huey doesn’t read it, or at least acknowledge its existence, it’ll feel as if something is missing. That there’s this missing piece. I hope he doesn’t assume that it’s spam or anything, maybe that’s why he’s been ignoring it.

 

But, he hasn’t responded to any of the comments he got on his latest video complaining about American leftists 🇺🇸 not being pragmatic, and ultimately self-destructive and bad for democracy discouraging people from voting or voting for Democrats, or doing anything to stop Trump and the Republicans’ agenda, and just shit-talking America 🇺🇸 and pushing a narrative (knowingly or unknowingly) that Trump is not uniquely bad and that he’s just as bad as every other American president 🇺🇸, he’s just louder and more open and obvious about his awfulness. And even if he is uniquely bad, America 🇺🇸 is bad and isn’t worth saving. 

 

It should be allowed to burn 🔥 so that something better can emerge from the ashes like a phoenix 🐦‍🔥, that something better usually being socialism. Because most leftists, especially American leftists 🇺🇸 operate only on this notion that “capitalism is bad,” and that anything and everything that happens in this country and in the world can be fit into that prism of “capitalism bad.” Huey didn’t mention this, but it always whenever I hear someone on the Left, whether they’re American 🇺🇸 or not, says the term “late-stage capitalism.” Whenever I hear someone say “late-stage capitalism,” it immediately tells me that person doesn’t actually know what they’re talking about. Late-stage capitalism is a completely meaningless term, and even if it does mean something, it is completely misapplied. 

 

But, I’m more of the belief that late-stage capitalism isn’t real, that it doesn’t actually exist, and that it’s a meaningless term that people only use as shorthand to describe anything that they don’t like about American society 🇺🇸, regardless of whether it has anything to do with economics or not. I saw this brilliant comment in the comment section of that video that said that America 🇺🇸 isn’t bad because of capitalism, it’s not bad because of free markets, it’s bad because of it’s a conservative corporatocracy. 

 

Corporate America 🇺🇸 dominates everything, every aspect of the economy and society (and now government), and they have taken the basic concept of capitalism, the basic idea of “the free market,” and twisted it, they deformed it, they turned it into something ugly that only benefits them and them alone. It’s almost a form of feudalism, or at least, it’s turning into a new form of feudalism. In fact, there’s a new term of what we have now or what we’re turning into, “techno feudalism.” Any self-respecting principled libertarian, or “classical liberal,” or free market lover should not be on board with what we have right now because what we have right now is not the free market. There’s nothing free about it. It’s an oppressive authoritarian system that has stomped out almost every amount of competition, and free markets can only truly work when there’s competition. When everyone can participate in the free market on a level playing field, but we don’t have a level playing field. 

 

The corporations have taken full control of the game, and rigged it entirely in their favor. The little guy can’t compete in the free market in an honest and fair way, the corporations will always have the upper hand. Socialism will not solve anything, it’s not the end-all-be-all, all-in-one solution that will fix everything bad about this country because socialism too can be distorted, twisted, and deformed by the powers that be into something ugly that only benefits them and them alone. It can lead to authoritarianism and exploitation all the same. Some of the worst regimes in history have been socialist ones, or at least ones that purported to be socialist. The comment I just mentioned said that the Democrats should move in the direction of Neo-Jeffersonian democracy rather than social democracy or anything left of that. 

 

I don’t know enough about Jeffersonianism or Neo-Jeffersonianism to say with that commenter or not. If you couldn’t already tell, I am a supporter of capitalism, I am a capitalist, but I think that it should be regulated. Only with heavy amounts of regulations can capitalism function the way libertarians say that it should function or does already function, meaning that their whole world view about “less government and less regulation” is completely backwards. It’s because of the rollback of government and cutting of regulations that we got to the sorry state that we’re in where corporations dominate and control everything, and where the billionaire class have become an oligarchy, even if the term “oligarchy” is being overused by people like Bernie and AOC. Anyway, enough about Huey Li’s video, back to the review. I’m going to try to get this out by today (Monday March 31, 2025), and if not, I’ll guess I’ll just have to post it tomorrow on Tuesday April 1, 2025. If I do, then just now that it isn’t a prank.

 

 

 

 

(This is the screenshot of the comment I talking about.) 

Now this movie got a lot of bad reviews when it came out, but I already kind of knew that it was going to get bad reviews. Critics have never really liked the Venom movies all that much, going back to the first one. They all have pretty low Rotten Tomatoes critic scores 🍅 and are considered “rotten.” Anything lower than a 60% is considered rotten on that website. But, I don’t particularly care about what Rotten Tomatoes 🍅 has to say. I know I keep bringing it up in pretty much every review I’ve written thus far, but I feel like if I don’t mention it, even in passing, someone in the comments will bring it up in the comments, and try to use it as a gotcha, like “like this movie has this score on Rotten Tomatoes 🍅, therefore you’re wrong! Your opinion is stupid and you’re stupid 🫵!” I know how the Internet 🛜 works, I these are kind of things people on the Internet 🛜 say to those with differing opinions than them about movies, TV shows, streaming shows, and video games, and of course books 📖 and comic books (and manga). Especially when their opinion is so intrinsically tied to their identity that they feel personally attacked when someone disagrees with them, even slightly. 

Even though most of the critics, the vast majority of them, hated this movie and have it bad reviews and bad ratings 👎, I had strong feeling that I was probably going to like this movie. I liked the other two Venom movies, and this one (at least from the trailers) looked pretty consistent in terms of quality with those other two, why wouldn’t I like it? And I suspected other Venom fans would feel the same way. Under normal circumstances, I would recommend this movie if you’re someone who liked the first two Venom movies, but I’m not sure anymore because there were a lot of Venom movie fans who didn’t like this one. The movie didn’t even make as money 💵 as the other two either. Venom was the sleeper hit of 2018, no body expected it to do as well it did, and then Venom: Let There Be Carnage came out and still did pretty well even if made way less than the first one. But, that could maybe be explained by the fact that it was released during the pandemic 😷🦠. But, this one fell below expectations. Even though it was still technically a box office success and still made a lot of money 💵, it still made less than the first two and is the lowest grossing film in the trilogy. 

The most notable example that comes to mind of a Venom fan that didn’t like The Last Dance is HiTop Films, who did like the first two Venom movies, especially Venom: Let There Be Carnage, even if it was mostly just in a guilty pleasure kind of way. Like, he found them entertaining, but still acknowledged their flaws and still said that at the end of the day, they were still bad movies, especially the first one. His take was that they were entertaining in spite of their flaws, and it was because Tom Hardy elevated the material by embracing the stupidity and campiness of it all and chewing as much scenery as he could. 

Then, he gave Let There Be Carnage a much more positive review in comparison to the one he made for the first one, and the reason that he gave for why he liked Let There Be Carnage more and thought it was an improvement over the first one is that the director, Andy Serkis (the same guy ♂︎ who did the motion capture performance for such characters as Gollum in the Lord of the Rings movies, King Kong in King Kong (2005), and Caesar in the reboot Planet of the Apes movies) leaned even more into the ridiculousness and campiness of the first one, and just decided to turn it into a romantic comedy ❤️, or at least as much of a romantic comedy ❤️ as he could given the constraints of Sony and Avi Arad, the producer on all three Venom movies, as well as on all three Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies, both Amazing Spider-Man movies, and every other movie in the SSU, the Sony Spider-Man Universe, which doesn’t actually have Spider-Man in it at all. It still had to kind of be a superhero movie, and it had a typical superhero movie climax where there’s big fight scene between the main hero and the main villain, the main hero kills the main villain, and saves the day, the end. 

 

But, Andy Serkis got as far enough away from the superhero movie formula that Let There Be Carnage managed to feel unique, at least compared to the MCU movies that were coming out at the time and are coming out now (the current day MCU is pretty garbage) and even the other non-Venom SSU movies. He managed to create a superhero movie that was gayer 🏳️‍🌈 than the superhero movie with actual gay superheroes 🏳️‍🌈, Eternals. That’s why I was going to review this movie, Venom: The Last Dance, on Valentine’s Day ♥️ or before Valentine’s Day ♥️, because of the unintentionally gay relationship ⚣ between Eddie Brock and Venom. But, alas, because of external factors, it was not meant to be. Now, I’m either posting this on the last day of March, or on the first day of April, in which case, it wasn’t meant to be a celebration of April Fool’s Day, but it is what it is. 

But, Andy Serkis didn’t come back to direct Venom: The Last Dance, instead it was directed by Kelly Marcel, a long time producer and writer on the Venom movies. This is her directorial debut. All of the Venom movies have different directors, they never had the same director across all three films. The first movie was directed by Ruben Fleischer, the second movie was directed by Andy Serkis, and the third movie was directed by Kelly Marcel. Compare this to the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies, which were of course all directed (and co-written and produced) by Sam Raimi, and the two Amazing Spider-Man movies, which were both directed by Marc Webb. Who, of course, directed 500 Days of Summer ☀️, and most recently directed Snow White (2025). 

 

You can definitely tell that this wasn’t directed by Andy Serkis, because whatever style and personality he brought to Venom: Let There Be Carnage isn’t really here. This one feels much closer to the first one in terms of look and tone. Even in terms of the aspect ratio, it looks more like the first movie than the second movie. The second movie had a 1.85:1 aspect ratio while the first movie and the third movie both have a 2:40:1 aspect ratio. Well, technically, Last Dance had a 2.39:1 aspect ratio, but it’s not that big of a difference. And you can tell that it’s a movie directed by a producer, and it’s their first time directing, rather than a filmmaker who started out as a motion capture actor (as well as a regular actor) has a vision of his own, and just wants to make a good movie rather than just create or expand a franchise. Last Dance does feel a bit more compromised and studio driven than Let There Be Carnage did. And Let There Be Carnage isn’t exactly a bastion of artistic expression and total director freedom itself.

 

And that’s the main reason that HiTop gave for he didn’t like The Last Dance, and why he felt that it was the worst Venom movie, the worst of the trilogy. You can go watch his review if you want to see the opposing viewpoint. I say “opposing viewpoint” because HiTop may be one of the Venom movie fans who disliked The Last Dance and thought it was a step down from Let There Be Carnage and the worst of the trilogy, I am not. I like this movie a lot, and while it is certainly more flawed than the first two, or at least the flaws are not as easy to ignore, and reeks of studio and producer interference (it’s a movie directed by a producer after all), and you can tell was made during a writer and actors’ strike 🪧 (which it actually was, no joke), it is still just as enjoyable as the first two. I certainly would not call it a bad film. I truly wish that I got to see this in theaters when it came out last year because I would’ve had a great time with it. 

 

This wouldn’t be the first time I disagreed with HiTop, because he famously did a negative review of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, where he did a fake interview with Zack Snyder, and people point to as their made argument for why Batman v Superman is a bad film. And I like Batman v Superman, I like it a lot more now than I used to when it first came out and I was influenced by all bad reviews of it (which mostly criticized the movie in bad faith if I’m going to be honest). I mean, if you’re going to defend The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and make the argument that isn’t as bad as the critics said and that it isn’t without merit, despite how hacked to pieces it was and much the studio interfered with its development, then you have to do the same with Batman v Superman because many of the same things that happened with The Amazing Spider-Man 2 happened with Batman v Superman. 

 

I mean, Zack Snyder didn’t even want to do a Batman and Superman versus/team-up movie with Wonder Woman, he probably just wanted to do another Superman movie, a Man of Steel sequel. But the studio pushed him to a Batman and Superman versus movie (a movie where Batman and Superman fight each other) because they wanted to catch up with Disney and Marvel, so he did his own version of that. He did the Zack Snyder version of Batman vs. Superman, and basically made it Man of Steel 2. If you want anyone to blame for why there wasn’t a true Man of Steel 2, blame Warner Bros., not Zack Snyder. So, you can be assured that this will be a mostly positive review. 
 

While I am still talking about the fans for a moment, I did see the YouTuber, tonka joey 🦘’s video on the first two Venom movies, where basically read out reviews of the first two Venom movies on Letterboxd. I hope she does an update to that video where she also includes The Last Dance, or just do an entire dedicated video to The Last Dance. She might just do that because I saw that she deleted her Venom video. No explanation, it’s just gone. So hopefully, it just means she’s making an update to it with reviews of the third movie. 

 

 

 

 

(This is the Cinemark XD poster for Venom: The Last Dance. It’s also the cover art for the standard 4K release 💿 of Venom: The Last Dance.) 

 

 

 

 

I will say that it might be tough for a newcomer to coming into this movie because this movie starts with Eddie Brock and Venom at a bar in Mexico 🇲🇽 while they were still in the MCU. Because if you remember, at the end of Let There Be Carnage, they got transported to the MCU as a result of that multiversal disruption that the Tom Holland Peter Parker caused in Spider-Man: No Way Home. In fact, No Way Home had an after credit scene where Eddie Brock and Venom go to that same bar, wearing those same colors that they wore at the end of Let There Be Carnage. And this movie pretty much picks up exactly where that after credit scene left off. Eddie and Venom are arguing with each other about Thanos, because Venom is aware of Thanos, he’s aware of the entire multiverse, and he knows about the Infinity Stones. 

Then, Eddie starts arguing with the bartender, and saying that aliens don’t like stones, they like brains 🧠, and then the bartender tells him that he lost his family during the Snap 🫰 (or the Blip as it’s known officially within the MCU) and how they were gone for five years. Because that’s how long the people who got dusted in the Snap 🫰 were gone for. Imagine you’re someone who never watched an MCU movie in your life, never watched Avengers: Infinity War, or Avengers: Endgame, or Spider-Man: No Way Home, and you only watched the first two Venom movies, or perhaps you didn’t even do that, and just jumped into this one because you thought it would be fun to watch or because someone you know is a fan of them and wanted to watch this one and you decided to watch it with them to support them and their interests. You’d be confused as hell.

It’s still a bit crazy that we got a Venom trilogy without Spider-Man, where Spider-Man just isn’t a thing and where Venom has no connection to Spider-Man, and it’s crazier that we got an entire Spider-Man cinematic universe without Spider-Man, where Spider-Man isn’t a thing. It just had all of his villains, or at least, they were his villains until they turned them all into antiheroes. Not even antiheroes, just straight up heroes. All because Avi Arad wanted to make Sinister Six after he finally got his Venom movie, and Venom vs. Carnage movie. But, I don’t see how there could a Sinister Six movie if none of the members of the Sinister Six are well, sinister. And not all the characters they did movies on are Sinister Six members, like Madame Web isn’t a Sinister Six member neither is Morbius. But, it wasn’t all just going to be all villains or villains turned antiheroes. 

 

Had it continued, it was going to feature Spider-Man side characters, characters that aren’t villains of Spider-Man (Peter Parker/Miles Morales) but allies of his or otherwise have similar or the same powers as him, like Black Cat, Silver Sable, and Silk. Maybe even Spider-Gwen (I know she’s actually called Spider-Woman, but most people just call her Spider-Gwen because she’s Gwen Stacy if she had spider powers 🕷️ and took Peter Parker’s place or worked alongside him), though they’ve kept her confined to the Spider-Verse movies, but for sure those movies about Black Cat, Silver Sable, and Silk were definitely a real thing and were definitely in the works before they were ultimately canceled after the SSU (outside of the Venom movies) proved to be a gigantic failure.

Even Eddie and Venom’s incursion into the Marvel Cinematic Universe proved to be lackluster. Like, there was so potential with having this version of Venom and Eddie teleport to the MCU. They could’ve met the MCU version of Spider-Man/Peter Parker played by Tom Holland, they could’ve been in Spider-Man: No Way Home and been one of the villains facing the three Spider-Men, along with Green Goblin, Doc Ock, and Sandman from the Raimiverse, and Electro ⚡️ and The Lizard 🦎 from the Amazing Spider-Man universe, or Webbverse if you prefer. Imagine how cool it would’ve been to see this version of Eddie Brock interact with the Tobey Maguire Peter Parker, who would probably instantly be distrustful of Venom because of his experience with his universe’s Venom in Spider-Man 3. 

 

But, none of that happens. Venom and Eddie never interact with any of the three Peters, none of the three Spider-Men. His appearance just amounts to an after credit scene, an after credit scene that most people didn’t see when they saw No Way Home in theaters because hardly anyone stays to see after credit scenes anymore. What a total waste 😒, might as well have not even bothered. But yeah, it’s crazy that these movies have more connection to the MCU by virtue of Venom and Eddie’s short incursion into it than they do to the other SSU movies. 

After this, Eddie and Venom get teleported back to the Sonyverse due to the end of No Way Home where Doctor Strange undid all the damage that the Tom Holland Peter made and sent everyone back to their own universes; he also made so that no one would remember Peter’s true identity as Spider-Man or even know who he is, starting him completely from scratch with no friends or family to depend on or use as a crutch. Yes, I did call it the Sonyverse, I think that’s a better name than SSU. Sue me. For reason though, the bartender is played by the same actor as in the MCU. Shouldn’t be played by a different actor? Isn’t that how this works? 

 

Then, that is when Eddie and Venom decide to move to New York City and start a new life there after their life in San Francisco was completely destroyed by the events of Let There Be Carnage. So, they embark on a nationwide journey to try to get to New York City. Even as their journey gets interrupted by an alien monster and the military trying to capture or kill them. The Statue of Liberty 🗽 becomes this recurring symbol throughout the film, representing Eddie and Venom’s desire for freedom and a desire to start a new life together. Start fresh. Even as outside forces try to tear them apart. If Let There Be Carnage was a romantic comedy ❤️, then The Last Dance is a Thelma & Louise-style road trip movie. They even reference Thelma & Louise in the film itself. 

Right of the bat, Tom Hardy is easily the best part of this movie. He’s the reason why all the Venom movies work so well, and why they’re leaps and bounds better than the other films in the now dead SSU. These films are magic because we get to see Tom Hardy in this dual role as Eddie Brock and Venom (it wasn’t a fully dual role since in the first movie, Venom was voiced both by Tom Hardy and Brad Venable, who sadly passed away in 2021, causing Tom Hardy to have to voice Venom full time), and see him be as over-the-top and crazy as possible. I wasn’t kidding when I said he chewed scenery. I will say that he is much more subdued in this film compared to the first two, like he almost seems tired and out of it most of the movie. I know the explanation in the film for why he’s like that he’s having a hangover after he got shitfaced drunk 🥴 while he was in the other universe. 

 

But, it really does seem like Tom Hardy is kind of bored 🥱 with the character and just wants to get it over with, so he can move on in his career and do other things. But, he’s a producer on this movie, a co-producer amongst many, so he couldn’t been that bored 🥱 with it. Even when Tom Hardy is on autopilot (or cruise control, whichever car metaphor you prefer), and is kind of sleepwalking his performance as Eddie Brock, he still makes to turn out a great performance, especially as Venom, and still manages to be the best part of the movie. It’s worth it just to see these two characters banter off each other and bicker with each other like an old married couple. 

Michelle Williams is no where to be found. They completely omitted her character, Anne Weying from this movie, they just didn’t include her at all. Probably on the count that a lot of people complained that her and Tom Hardy didn’t really have any chemistry together as those two characters, and no body really bought that these two were ever in love ❤️, even at one point, and a lot of people just saw her as a third wheel getting in the way of the Eddie Brock and Venom relationship. They also didn’t like the wig that Michelle Williams wore in the two movies that she was in. They thought it looked really fake-looking. They unfavorably compared it to the wig that Kate Mara had to wear in the reshoots for Fantastic Four (2015) AKA FANT4STIC. I didn’t have a problem with the wig, I thought it looked fine, a lot of didn’t and made fun of it. It does say a lot that they brought back Mrs. Chen and not Anne, or her fiancé, the doctor 👨‍⚕️, Dan Lewis. 

 

I guess in some ways, it works. If we’re going to operate under the assumption that Eddie and Venom are a gay couple ⚣, and are more than just friends but actual lovers ❤️, then Anne being absent in this film could be seen as metaphor for how gay men ⚣ who are in the closet (or are self-hating perhaps) try to have heterosexual relationships ⚤ with women ♀︎, but can’t really get into it, it feels unauthentic and they don’t feel that way about the woman ♀︎ at all; and it’s only when they come out of closet and embrace who they really are and quit trying to get with women ♀︎ and be heteronormative ⚤, do they find true happiness 🥰. 

 

Perhaps I’m reading too much into it but, people read too much into much into the first two movies and saw Eddie and Venom’s relationship as a gay romance ❤️, I’m just following along and taking it to its natural conclusion. Still, it would’ve been nice to have Eddie at least acknowledge Anne’s existence, even just in passing. Like, when he’s reminiscing about his old life in San Francisco, and about the things he lost as a result of his and Venom’s fight with Carnage and Cletus Kasady (and also Shriek, Cletus’s girlfriend and later wife since they get married 💍 at the end). Sure, even he’s no longer in love ❤️ with her, he could still view her as a friend. 

 

It still boggles me that this whole trilogy took place over the course of one year 🤯. Eddie says at the beginning that he’s been bonded with Venom for a year. Like, hardly any time passed in between the first movie and the second movie and then the second movie and this movie. We do get to see the return of She-Venom, where Venom possesses a woman ♀︎ and takes on a more feminine appearance ♀︎ as a result. There had to be at least one She-Venom appearance per movie because it was so popular in the first movie for…no particular reason at all 😏. He even does it for the same purpose as he does in the first two movies, to rejoin Eddie’s body. Except this time, Venom doesn’t bond with Anne, he bonds with this female scientist ♀︎ who’s nicknamed “Christmas 🎄” on the count that she celebrates Christmas 🎄 almost year round and wears a Christmas tree 🎄 pin on her lab coat 🥼. I haven’t seen a character in a movie be named Christmas 🎄 since Lee Christmas 🎄 in the Expendables movies. 

 

 

 

(These are photos of a fan made bust of She-Venom as she appeared in the Venom movies. Someone actually made this and sold it on Etsy.) 

 

 

 

I did like the hippy family. I know a lot of people didn’t like the hippy family, and they especially didn’t like the fact that the hippy dad was played by Rhys Ifans, when he was the same actor who played Dr. Curt Connors/The Lizard 🦎 in The Amazing Spider-Man and Spider-Man: No Way Home. But, I liked them, I thought they were funny. They were endearing. They weren’t even all hippies, it’s just the mom and the dad that were hippies, the kids weren’t. In fact, the kids kind of disagreed with their parents’ hippy lifestyle and did very subtle and quiet things to defy them. They also don’t share their parents’ belief in aliens 👽 and UFOs 🛸, at least until the end where the existence of aliens 👽 gets confirmed to them right before their eyes when they bear witness to the battle between the symbiotes, the military, and the Xenophages. They even participate in the final battle, as they’re trying to run away from the Xenophages, and the dad even blows one of them up with an RPG (rocket propelled grenade) before running away. So, they weren’t completely useless and inconsequential. 

 

I will say that the scenes with the hippies is where you can tell that this movie was hacked to pieces and there’s probably a bunch of deleted scenes lying around. The part in the trailer where the hippy dad tells Eddie that there will come day when he’ll have to make a sacrifice is no where to be found in the movie. Instead, it’s replaced with this moment where the hippy dad tells him about this mythological being or this spiritual concept. I forget what the name of it is (if I remember it or if I go back and watch the movie to see what it is, I’ll edit this part to include it), but it is used as a metaphor to Eddie’s relationship with Venom and the codex in their body. At least, two licensed songs they used in the trailers, “Space Oddity” by David Bowie and “Wild World” by Cat Stevens, are actually in the movie, although “Space Oddity” is not played in its original form, instead it’s sung by the hippy family and Venom (in Eddie’s head, so only Eddie was able to hear Venom sing along to “Space Oddity” with this hippy family) as a sing along song as they’re on the road, driving to Nevada, first to drop off Eddie in Las Vegas, and then take the Extraterrestrial Highway to get to Area 51, which is being decommissioned in the film. 

Speaking of which, a lot of people had an issue with the codex. They didn’t think that it made any sense, that it created a plot hole 🕳️, and that it made Eddie and Venom more special and important when Eddie was supposed to be an everyman and that point of his character was that this could happen to anyone, it just happened to be him, and the first movie made a such a bigger deal about how Venom was a loser on his planet. But, I do think the codex does makes sense, and that it doesn’t ruin or take anything from Eddie and Venom’s characters. The thing that I took away from it was that a codex can emerge in anyone, anyone who is bonded to a symbiote and “dies” while bonded to a symbiote. It just happened to be Eddie and Venom because he died once and Venom brought him back, saved him from death in the first movie. However, I will say that whenever I hear the word “codex,” I always think of Man of Steel, but that’s probably just me.

People also took issue with the Symbiotes bonding with all the scientists at Area 55 (the replacement for Area 51) in the final battle against the Xenophages because they thought that it went against the rule established in the first movie that Symbiotes can only bond with compatible hosts and only certain people are compatible hosts. But, I personally don’t think it does. They do stick to the rule that Symbiotes are only capable of bonding with compatible hosts, they make a big point about how they needed Patrick Mulligan, the detective from Let There Be Carnage, because he was the only one they knew who was compatible with the symbiote they had in captivity. He was bonded with a symbiote when they captured him, and they keep imprisoned in the facility so that he could be used as vessel for that symbiote, which I suppose is supposed to be Toxin, but they don’t actually say if it’s Toxin or not. None of the symbiotes besides Venom are named in this movie. 

 

I also don’t know when Patrick Mulligan got this symbiote. I assume it was during the events of Let There Be Carnage, but I don’t remember which part it would’ve been in. Unless, he got a symbiote in his body after the events of Let There Be Carnage, but that wouldn’t track with the information we’re given in the film because they say at the beginning that Patrick Mulligan was presumed dead and that they blamed his murder on Eddie Brock, which is why Eddie is already a fugitive even before the military starts chasing after him to get the Venom symbiote. So, it had have during the previous film itself at some point. Maybe it was in the interrogation scene after Mulligan arrests Eddie, maybe Cletus Kasady attacks the police station and “kills” Mulligan, leaving behind a piece of the Carnage symbiote inside of his body. 

 

If that’s the case, then that would mean that the symbiote that we see in this movie that’s bonded to Mulligan is Toxin because Toxin in the comics is an offspring of Carnage, just as Carnage himself was an offspring of Venom (in the movie at least, I don’t know about the comics). But, like I said, I don’t know for sure if it’s supposed to be Toxin or not. You could argue that the symbiotes at the end of the film only bonded with the scientists that they were compatible with, or in the case of Dr. Paine, conveniently picks a symbiote that is compatible with her. But, whatever, it’s not a big deal. I don’t think it’s as big of a plot hole 🕳️ as people have made it out to be. 

 

I did like seeing the other symbiotes, the other symbiotes were pretty damn cooling looking, especially that lava/fire one 🔥 and the electric one ⚡️ that bonds to Dr. Paine and kind of looks like Scream (a female symbiote ♀︎ from the comics that bonds with Mary Jane in sequel to the PS4 Spider-Man game by Insomniac Games, simply titled Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, on the PS5.) but only blue and purple. And the Xenophages were cool too, they had a cool design I thought. I did like how they were almost indestructible, and could literally pull themselves back together again if their body is ripped apart or blown up. The only thing that can actually kill them is acid, but more on that later. Their weakness to acid pretty much means they’d be terrible against the Xenomorphs from the Alien movies if they existed in the same universe. And the way they eat people too is fascinating because every time they eat somebody, blood 🩸 sprays out of the back of their head. It does the same thing too whenever it kills and eats a symbiote. 

 

This movie is pretty bloody 🩸 for a PG-13 movie, I was surprised at how much blood 🩸 there was in this movie. There’s even a little bit of blood 🩸 when Venom kills those Mexican gangsters 🇲🇽 (who may or may not be cartel members) at the beginning. It kinda makes you wonder if it was supposed to be R rated at one point, but they edited down to be PG-13 because Avi Arad says so. He really hates it when Marvel movies have R ratings. It’s the same reason why neither of the two Ghost Rider 🔥 movies were R rated and why Morbius wasn’t R rated. There’s a couple of F bombs in this movie too, but that is allowed in a PG-13 movie. You’ll allowed at minimum two “fucks” in a PG-13 rated movie. Anything more than that, it’s rated R.

I even liked General Strickland. I a lot of people didn’t like him because he was played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, and it messes up the whole multiverse thing because he played a completely different character in the MCU. He played Karl Mordo in the Doctor Strange movies, a character who started out an ally of Doctor Strange but eventually becomes an enemy of him. He has a whole hero-to-villain arc across the two Doctor Strange movies we have so far. People felt that him being cast as General Strickland was just false advertising on the part of Sony to make it seem like Mordo, or at least a variant of him, was going to be in the movie when he obviously wasn’t. It’s the same reason people opposed Rhys Ifans being cast as the hippy dad. But, I didn’t think anything of it. 

 

I already knew right from the get-go just from watching that first initial trailer that he wasn’t going to be Mordo and he was going to be playing an entire different character, and I was okay with that. It didn’t bothered me. It didn’t ruffle my feathers 🪶 like it clearly did other people. Plus, I like Chiwetel Ejiofor, I’ve liked him ever since I saw him in Roland Emmerich’s 2012 (the disaster movie Roland Emmerich made in 2009 about the 2012 apocalypse scare/failed prediction) which was the first thing I ever saw him in, and it’s hard for me to dislike him in anything I see him in. It’s a shame he doesn’t have that many scenes with Tom Hardy because I think those two as those two characters could’ve bounced off each other pretty well. It would’ve been comedy gold. I would actually like to see Tom Hardy and Chiwetel Ejiofor in a non-Marvel project (a non-superhero project) together, I think that would be really cool. Maybe they could be in MonsterVerse movie, who knows 🤷‍♂️? 

The thing I like about General Strickland is not your typical asshole or even evil general. He’s a hard ass for sure, but not an asshole and certainly not evil. He just wants to protect the world from the symbiotes because he sees them as a threat, an invading force, and sees the scientists’ more sympathetic view of the symbiotes as being foolish and naïve. And when he learns that Eddie and Venom have a codex inside of them, and if the Xenophage gets its grubby little claws on it and brings it back to Knull, the creator of the symbiotes (and Xenophages), it’ll mean the end of mankind, he tries everything he can to avoid that outcome. He’s willing to sacrifice Eddie and Venom just to save the planet 🌎 because that is what matters to him the most. Preserving the human race…and also the United States 🇺🇸, but I think for Strickland, preserving the US 🇺🇸 is secondary to preserving the human race. I mean, you can’t exactly have a country without humans, am I right? 

 

His viewpoint is completely valid because in the previous two movies we did see symbiotes kill people intentionally and without remorse. The whole first movie was about a symbiote trying to launch an invasion of Earth 🌎 and try to take over the planet, and the second movie was about a symbiote that bonded with a serial killer (and was partially created by that serial killer) going on a rampage, killing people all over San Francisco. Symbiotes are dangerous, they can and will kill people. They are legitimate threat to humanity. 

 

Even Venom, even though he’s a good guy and only kills bad guys, he’s still killing people, biting their heads off and eating them to feed himself. It’s not only really until this movie that they tried to make the case that symbiotes are just misunderstood creatures and have no desire to attack humans. They just came here to hide from Knull and the Xenophages. I understand that they kind of had to do this make Knull and the Xenophages a big enough threat that the humans would have to team up with the symbiotes to even stand even a remote chance of defeating them.

 

But, we can see just from just looking at the previous two movies that Strickland’s viewpoint of the symbiotes being a threat to humanity that have to killed or contained is perfectly valid and comes from understandable place. Even I found myself taking Strickland’s side at couple of points throughout the film because even I thought that the scientists at Area 55 were being too naïve about the symbiotes and how dangerous they can be. It’s like watching I, Robot where no one saw the robots as a threat or a potential threat except for Will Smith’s character, Del Spooner. 

But, to his credit, when Strickland does see the Symbiotes working with the humans to try to defeat the Xenophages and prevent them from getting the codex, and when he sees Eddie and Venom protect that hippy family when they up in harms way, but most importantly, when he gets rescued by one of the symbiotes (the one that bonds with Dr. Christmas 🎄 I believe), he does soften his stance a little bit and starts working with them to defeat their common enemy. He’s willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to destroy the Xenophages and save the entire planet 🌎. It sucks that he dies, but it does fit with the character arc that he goes through on in the film. He went from seeing the symbiote as an enemy to seeing them as an ally, or at least a temporary ally. 

 

It was interesting to see Area 51 get decommissioned in this movie and replaced with a newer underground base, Area 55 (it’s literally underneath the old Area 51 site), I thought it was a cool idea. I’m surprised that this hasn’t happened in real life, Area 51 being decommissioned. I guess the US government and military 🇺🇸 still has a use for Area 51 that they’re willing to keep it around…for now at least. And in case you’re wondering, no, I don’t think there are aliens 👽 at Area 51…or kaiju (since Area 51 was a Monarch outpost used to house the other MUTO cocoon in Godzilla (2014)). I just think it’s a place to test top secret experimental aircraft, which is still cool, that doesn’t take away from Area 51’s coolness and mystique just because there aren’t any aliens 👽 there. Area 51 doesn’t need aliens 👽 to be cool or interesting. 

 

I also liked all the different Venom animals that we see throughout the film, I liked the Venom horse 🐎 which was shown prominently throughout the trailers, I liked the Venom fish 🐟, and I liked the Venom frog 🐸, those were fun. And the end credits shows even more Venom animals, like they show us a Venom rat 🐀 or Venom mouse 🐁. I said this before in a previous post, but I really would like see a Venomized Godzilla, I think that would be cool, and I haven’t seen anyone really do anything like that except Matt Frank (who goes by the name Kaijusamurai on DeviantART), who drew fan art of that sort of thing. 

But, what about that titular last dance? Well, just like how in Let There Be Carnage, Carnage does actually say “let there be carnage” in the film itself, there is an actual dance scene in this movie and it is actually Venom’s last dance. It’s the last we get to see him have fun and be happy before everything goes to shit for him and Eddie. Even more than it already did, there is no such thing as rock bottom at all, things in life can always and often do get worse. Eddie and Venom reach Las Vegas, thanks to the hippy family that they hitched a ride with, and while they’re at one of the casinos 🎰 inside one of the hotels 🏨 (Venom gambled all of their money 💵 away), they bump into Mrs. Chen, who is coincidentally at the same casino-hotel 🎰🏨 that they were at. 

 

Some people didn’t like this because they thought it was too convenient that she would not only be in Las Vegas at the same time that they were in Las Vegas but also that she would be at the same exact hotel 🏨 that they were at. But, I didn’t care, movies have these type of plot conveniences and coincidences all the time, even the best ones, and you know what? These type of coincidences happen in real life too, so I don’t want to hear that it’s “unrealistic” that these characters happen to be the same casino-hotel 🎰🏨 at the same time. Her short appearance in this movie means that Mrs. Chen is the only other character besides Eddie and Venom who’s in all three movies. It’s crazy to think about, that this minor side character (the type of character who would be nothing in any other movie) is the only other character besides our main duo that appears in all three movies and is played by the same actor. Actress in her case. 

 

It’s always cool to see her, she’s a really funny character and she adds a unique dynamic to the trilogy because she allows Eddie have a friendship outside of Venom, a human relationship besides his ex-girlfriend/ex-fiancée, Anne. Not that he maintained his relationship with Anne, not even as a friend, since he never brings her up again. Well get to see Venom cut a rug with Mrs. Chen, one last time. She even says “one last dance,” when she asks to have a dance with Venom. A lot of people had a problem with this scene because they thought it was stupid for Venom to do this because if he fully transforms, then Xenophage will be able to see him by sensing the codex inside of them, and by doing this, he’s basically giving away their location for what? A stupid dance. And they point out how Venom is the one who told Eddie that they can’t fully transform because if they do, the Xenophage will be able to find them. 

 

But, I don’t have a problem with this because Venom (this version of the character at least) isn’t exactly the smartest tool in the shed, and he doesn’t make the best, most well informed decisions even when he should know better, and like Eddie says in the film itself, Mrs. Chen kind of enables Venom’s worst impulses. She’s encouraging him to do something that he shouldn’t, that would put them all in danger, though she doesn’t know that since neither Eddie or Venom tell her that they’re being pursued by an alien monster that can sense them and pinpoint their location whenever they fully transform. 

 

She’s kind of like the cool aunt, or cool friend that encourages you do something that you know you shouldn’t do, but you do it anyway because it’s just too darn fun and she promises not to tell your parents. Yes, it is an insanely stupid decision that ends up biting them in the ass, but it makes sense in the context in the film and it is something the characters would do. It doesn’t defy any logic for me or break any fundamental storytelling rules. I think people are way harder on this scene than they should be, and I feel like they’re just looking for things to nitpick about and make the movie seem way worse than it actually is. 

 

And it’s pretty nice scene, it’s a nice little scene where we get to see Venom actually have fun for a little bit. Keep in mind, this is only point in the movie (besides maybe the beginning) where Eddie and Venom get any sort of down time where they can relax and have fun and aren’t running for their lives or fighting for their lives, or hitchhiking. They’re with someone they know and someone who they both like very much. There’s something comforting in that. And it’s set to an ABBA song, you can’t go wrong with that. Of course, it doesn’t last long, since as expected, the Xenophage immediately senses them, tracks down their location, and runs all the way to Las Vegas to the hotel 🏨 that they’re in, and attacks them, but that’s just the nature of Eddie and Venom’s life. 

 

They are the Lethal Protector, and as the Lethal Protector, they will always be in danger, they never be safe, and never get any time for rest. That’s the price they pay for being vigilantes and for being together. It’s because of their bond, their perfect symbiosis, as well as their desire to do the right thing and kill the bad guy that the Earth 🌎 ends up in danger from its worst threats yet. I do like that even though this is the last time we ever see Mrs. Chen, she still defends Eddie to the very end. Like, when the Six show up and take Eddie and Venom away, she yells at them and says, “You leave Eddie alone!” That’s how you know she was a true friend and that she truly cared about Eddie and Venom. 

 

And as far as we know, this is the last time she ever sees Eddie. It’s definitely the last time she ever sees Venom since he dies at the end, but it’s probably the last time ever sees Eddie too since after the final battle at Area 51/Area 55, he immediately moves to New York and starts a new life, and leaves his old one behind, and was explicitly told not to speak of what happened before. I realize that they mostly meant for him not to speak about the events at Area 51, but I also kind of feel like they meant for him not to speak of his life in San Francisco as well. 

 

Because, that general, or colonel, or whatever he was that talks to him in the aftermath of the Area 51 battle tells him that his record was cleared and his name was cleared of all suspicion in the “murder” of Patrick Mulligan, and I take it that mean that he has to leave that life behind and never talk about it again otherwise he’ll be thrown in prison for the rest of his life. So, no more Mrs. Chen, he’s never going to see her again. Maybe, it’ll be one of those things where if they bump into each other again or if they see each other, they’ll just subtly acknowledge each other’s existence, like they’ll wave at each other 👋 or nod at each other 🙂‍↕️, tipping their hats at each other so to speak, like I do with all my classmates and other people that I knew from high school 😂. But, it wouldn’t be a full on reunion like the Las Vegas scene in this movie. 

Speaking of deaths, I should finally address the elephant 🐘 in the room: Venom’s death. Yes, Venom does die at the end of this movie. He sacrifices himself to save Eddie and the entire planet 🌎. Basically, what he does is that he absorbs all of the Xenophages into his body, and he takes them to that acid shower thing 🚿 that used to melt things from Area 51 down for the decommission, and with the help of Strickland, he showers himself and all of the Xenophages in the acids, and basically they all melt down and die. Strickland of course, as mentioned before, sacrifices himself too by setting off a grenade which blows up all of the acid tanks as well as himself, Venom, and the Xenophages, ensuring that nothing survived. 

It’s honestly pretty ballsy for them to kill Venom like this, and keep him dead by the end of the movie. He’s such a beloved character, men ♂︎ think he’s funny 😆 and badass and women ♀︎ think he’s cute 😊 and even kind of hot 😍? I’ve seen women ♀︎ on the Internet 🛜 say that think Venom’s hot 😍, and honestly I’ve seen men ♂︎ too say that they think he’s hot 😍 too, even when he’s not in his female form ♀︎. People have become so attached to this version of the character after three movies that surely they had to have known that people were going to be sad and even cry 😭 if they killed Venom at this movie. But, I’m glad they did it. 

 

I know they did a fake out death in the first movie where they tried to make you think Venom was dead but he actually wasn’t, but here, they did it for real and I appreciate that. It’s a great way to book end this trilogy, to tell people that this is the end and there will be no more after this, and it’s great way to the end movie and the trilogy off on a bittersweet note. After Venom dies, Eddie makes it New York, and looks at the Statue of Liberty 🗽 just like they wanted to, while Eddie himself reminisces about all the memories he had with Venom over this one year period, and says “I’ll never forget you, buddy.” All while a Maroon 5 song plays in the background. 

 

 

 (This is the IMAX poster for Venom: The Last Dance.)

 

 

 

 

 

I feel like this ending where he finally makes it to New York and starts a new life there would be a lot more impactful and meaningful if this universe actually had its own Spider-Man (or Spider-Woman), or if he and Venom had actually interacted with any of the Spider-Men while he was still in the MCU. Him going to New York specifically feels more like an obligation, like the character in the comics lived in New York, so they have to have him move to New York as well. I know that he doesn’t have Venom anymore, but still. 

I’m honestly surprised that Avi Arad even allowed them to kill off Venom in this movie. You’d think, after Sam Raimi killed Venom off in Spider-Man 3 and ruined his chances to make a Venom spinoff movie, that Avi Arad would do everything he could to make sure that they kept Venom alive at the end, so that they could make more movies after this. BTW, had Sam Raimi not killed Venom at the end of Spider-Man 3, and had Avi Arad got the chance to make his Venom spinoff movie with the Sam Raimi version of Eddie Brock and Venom played by Topher Grace like he originally planned, I have a strong feeling that he would’ve had Venom fight Carnage. 

 

Because once Avi Arad had Venom, he wanted Carnage because he’s a red and even meaner Venom (a Venom that’s completely pure evil and irredeemable), and then he wanted the Sinister Six because it’s a supervillain team, a perfect counterweight to the Avengers he thought, which he still hasn’t got. He got Venom and he got Carnage, but not the Sinister Six, that Sinister Six movie still alludes him. The closest thing to that was No Way Home, but not all the Sinister Six members were present. Like, Kraven the Hunter wasn’t present. Sony gave him a solo movie in the SSU (AKA the Sonyverse), ended up being the last film in the SSU because it was a box office failure 😞. 

Maybe, they did it because they knew that this going to be the last one, that this whole universe was a sinking ship and they were going to make anymore Venom movies with the version of the character, played by this one specific actor. So, they decided to give it a mostly definitive end by killing off the title character. I say “mostly definitive” because there is a mid-credit scene that reveals that Knull is still out there, and while he is still imprisoned since the Xenophages failed to retrieve the codex from Eddie and Venom, the fight against him is not over and he still intends on getting out. There’s also an after credit scene that reveals Venom is not actually dead, not fully dead anyway. 

 

There was that little piece of him that was left behind in the bar at the beginning that Strickland and the Six retrieved, and in the after credit scene, it latches onto a cockroach 🪳, giving Venom a new lease on life, a small chance for him to come back and fully reconstitute himself and maybe even reunite with Eddie. I didn’t see either of those two scenes because it was dinner time, and I wanted to get back on my laptop 💻 so that I can watch YouTube while I eat because I like to watch YouTube videos while I eat. I so took the movie out of my PS4, and put it back in the case, and I never got to see either of those scenes. But, even then, I usually don’t wait for after credit scenes or mid credit scenes anymore. I just stop watching after the credits start rolling. I also have no real interest in watching them since they’re complete inconsequential now. 

But, the fact that they included these scenes as mid credit and after credit scenes at all suggests to me that they didn’t know or didn’t think that this going to be the last one. They thought, and hoped, that they would be able to make another one. They riding on the success of Kraven the Hunter, hoping that it would be successful enough for them to continue. So, if they left the door 🚪 open just a little crack just in case Kraven the Hunter was successful enough to continue on with the SSU and make another Venom movie where Venom comes back and Knull is the bad guy. Because if they fully knew that the SSU wasn’t going to continue after Kraven the Hunter and that this was going to be the last Venom movie, why wouldn’t they just make Knull the bad guy in this movie? That is one common complaint about the movie that I sort of agree with. As much as I liked the Xenophages and thought that they were cool, Knull really should’ve been the main bad guy. Especially since he was played by Andy Serkis, the director of Let There Be Carnage. 

 

Knull is a fully CGI character in this, and Andy Serkis did the voice and motion capture for him, as you do since Andy Serkis is the master. If you want use to motion capture for a CGI character and you want that character to have personality and feel as real and authentic as every other character in the movie, you usually get Andy Serkis. He may not have came back to direct The Last Dance, but he did come back to do the motion capture for Knull. It’s honestly a huge waste of Andy Serkis’s talents considering that Knull doesn’t anything in this entire movie except sit in a chair, waiting for the Xenophages to retrieve the codex so that they can free him from the prison that symbiotes built to keep him contained. And there won’t be a Venom 4 because Kraven the Hunter failed and put an end to the SSU. So, we’re never know what they had planned for Knull if anything. 

 

For all intents and purposes, this is the finale to the entire Venom trilogy, it will remain a trilogy for the foreseeable future, maybe even forever. This was truly the last hurrah for this version of Eddie Brock and Venom. The whole taking a Spider-Man villain and turning them into a hero thing only really worked with Venom, and no one else, because Venom has already kind of become an antihero in the comic. Case in point, Anti-Venom. I’m surprised that they didn’t have him become Anti-Venom by the end of this movie. Maybe they were saving that for the fourth movie if they actually got chance to make a fourth movie and have Venom fully come back and reunite with Eddie Brock in New York. But, we’ll never know since there will never be a fourth movie. Kraven the Hunter’s failure in theaters killed any chance of that ever happening. 

 

 

 

(These are pictures of Anti-Venom, an alternate version of Venom that’s more overtly heroic than the regular Venom. He’s considered Venom’s symbiotic brother. These are both from the comics, the first image is a comic book panel, and the second image is a cover of an issue of the Anti-Venom series.) 

 

 

 

—

 

 

(This is a clip from Kraven the Hunter, showing Alessandro Nivola’s character Aleksei Sytsevich AKA Rhino 🦏 making a weird noise when given bad news. It’s the perfect clip to show the quality of film that the future of the Venom trilogy and the future of the SSU was at the mercy of.)