It’s the last dance of Venom.

Venom: The Last Dance is the third and final movie in the Venom movies, at least as far as the Eddie Brock/Venom story goes. The Spider-Man Universe is absolutely not slowing down at all with upcoming series Spider-Noir in who the hell knows, Kraven the Hunter coming out this year. There is also a Sinister Six, Nightwatch, Jackpot, El Muerto, and tons of other movies that are definitely never coming out ever and have been in development hell so long they wouldn’t know what Covid is.

Directed/written/produced by Kelly Marcel who you’ll recognize as the writer/producer behind Let There Be Carnage and Venom, yes this is Marcel’s directorial debut. And you know what? She did a darn good job. I actually didn’t realize that this film just made it to theaters on October 25, I actually watched it on October 26. I assumed it must have come out at least a month ago since I watched it at the cheap $6 spot who are normally a second run theater.

Venom 3 once again stars Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock, a down on his luck schlub who just can’t seem to catch a break thanks to the alien parasite symbiote attached to him. Despite a brief transfer to the MCU proper, Eddie is ripped back into his own world and finds himself on the run for the murder of Patrick Mulligan (Stephen Graham). As it turns out, there’s bad guys in this film. And I’m not just talking about Mrs. Chen (Peggy Lu) who is a raunchy older lady. Meow.

Turns out there’s a bad guy named Knull and Knull is played by who else other than Andy Serkis? Serkis did direct the second movie. Knull is the creator of the symbiotes and also their prisoner, the victim of the symbiotes turning on their master and trapping him in a cosmic prison. Knull creates monsters to hunt down the symbiotes in an attempt to free himself from his eternal jail. And of course Eddie/Venom just happen to be the key to his escape. Go figure.

Also hot on Eddie’s trail is…everyone, including the US organization Imperium led by Commander Rex Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor). Also with Imperium is Dr. Teddy Payne (Juno Temple) who is researching the symbiotes alongside Sadie Christmas (Clark Backo). Clark Backo is in this film? She’s a great fuckin gal. Rhys Ifans is in this universe yet again as Martin Moon, a hippy traveling to Area 51 in the hopes of seeing aliens. You know, the alien-believing hippy takes on a whole new frame of reference in a world where the audience knows for sure that aliens exist.

It doesn’t shock me at all that Venom 3 has low reviews from critics and high reviews from audiences, that’s just a given at this point. And the critics aren’t entirely wrong. At 109 minutes it is painfully obvious that the film has so much padding that you’d think it’s getting ready for prom night. Venom 3 is routinely pushing for side stories to fill out the “technically a feature length film”. The film loves sidelining itself so it can throw Eddie into a distraction for 10-15 minutes and presumably hope the audience realizes next to nothing is happening in that time frame. Like a full devotion to singing Space Oddessy.

While Venom has stayed mostly the same, Eddie himself has regressed both as a character in the film and a character for the audience. The year of symbiosis with Venom has left him a traumatized shell of a man, a person who used to want things in life and now just seems to be happy with not dying and retaining a decent pair of shoes for longer than ten minutes. Eddie is downright depressing at times and it has to do with how nonchalantly the film showcases his emptiness.

Did I mention that I absolutely enjoyed this movie? There’s not a whole lot going on in the story from a broad perspective, but there’s more when you take each scene on its own. It’s less of a grand journey and more a collective of smaller more personal moments with Eddie and Venom. And yes the movie forces the characters to act stupid and invite danger that could easily be avoided in order to start the next fight scene. It’s a comic book movie, I don’t hold that against it. It does set up Knull as a future villain even if Eddie and Venom won’t be around to fight him.

Venom 3 simultaneously sets the stage for its ending as well as a potential future for Eddie/Venom, depending on how Sony wants to go forward. Venom says he’s “sick of this multiverse shit” in yet another dig at the MCU’s deeply contemptuous and questionably successful plot device.

Rating: A-