Venom: The Last Dance

My relationship with the Venom franchise has been rocky. I have a soft spot for the first one, absolutely loathe the second, and now we come to the trilogy's closer, and thankfully, it's an improvement.

Venom: The Last Dance works best when it focuses on Eddie and Venom's story instead of trying to set up the future of the Sonyverse. If you didn't like the previous Venom films, this won't change your mind. It's still messy, but it gets more right than its predecessors.

This is easily the campiest and most mature of the bunch. It takes its time with the characters, letting us sit with them instead of rushing into the next action set piece. Still being PG-13 it manages to cram in a lot more gore than its predecessors. The action is inventive, and the humor hits its mark. It also doesn't shy away from getting personal and emotional. Eddie and Venom's relationship has never felt more genuine. I'll admit-I teared up a few times by the end.

Some may be disappointed by the potrayal of Knull, but personally, I loved it. He feels like an overlooming threat rather than an one-off villain, and the "God of Darkness" gets a Thanos-esque treatment he deserves.

Now, don't get me wrong-the movie is still bad, technically speaking-but it's self-aware about that. Instead of being "bad bad," it chooses to be "fun bad" and entertain you, and I respect that. Not every movie needs to be great; sometimes being fun is enough.

Even with the lows, I have always found a weird sense of comfort with this rendition of Venom. I have found myself caring more for these characters than maybe even the script intended. So I am happy to say that by the end, it does enough to justify this trilogy's existence - and to such an satisfying extent that I'd rather live in a world where the Venom movies exist than one where it doesn't.

It is genuinely impressive that Sony managed to make the most mediocre trilogy ever with such an iconic character.

In terms of enjoyment, Eddie and Venom continue to be a delightfully fun duo. In this 3rd movie, they are basically on a road trip and that was relatively entertaining for the most part. The final act of the movie was also a pretty enjoyable CGI action fest with some emotional scenes.

However, the story and script are still as flat as ever. The narrative feels very half baked with it feeling like a chain of things just randomly happening. Pointless characters that don't add much. Jokes being thrown at you just to see which land. Rhys Ifans and Chiwetel Ejiofor characters could have been played by anyone but feels purposely done because they knew fans recognised them from other Marvel projects. The villain Knull looks cool but is just there to be teased for future projects.

Overall, it is better than the second film but just on par with the first. It is a mediocre final entry. Sony continues to disappoint with their universe and We all know Venom is coming back somehow. I do worry for Spiderman 4 and hope Sony don't mess that movie in anyway.

If cinematic catastrophes could have a mascot, this would be standing at the front of the line, waving its tattered flag of mediocrity. Tom Hardy's final outing as Eddie Brock/Venom is not just a disappointment-it's an insult to audiences everywhere. To call this movie bad would be a kindness. This is an incoherent, muddled, and utterly joyless mess that somehow manages to fall short of even the lowest expectations.

The premise of Eddie and Venom being "on the run" from both worlds promised at least some thrilling action. Instead, what we get is a chaotic, poorly-scripted nightmare of disjointed scenes and absurd plot holes big enough to swallow the entire Marvel universe. The narrative, if you can call it that, lurches forward with all the grace of a drunken man stumbling in the dark. There is no rhyme or reason to the events that unfold. It's like the writers cobbled together every half-baked idea they could think of and hoped nobody would notice how little sense any of it makes.

The so-called "devastating decision" that Eddie and Venom face feels less like a culmination of their journey and more like a cheap, hollow ploy to yank on the audience's emotions. But even that attempt falls flat because, by the time it arrives, the viewer is too exhausted from enduring 90 minutes of mindless drivel to care.

Eddie Brock, once a complex and conflicted anti-hero from the source comics, is reduced to a pathetic shell of his former self, mumbling and stumbling through the film like he just wants to get it over with.

The supporting characters are even worse-if that's possible. Whoever thought it was a good idea to use cardboard cutouts of side characters nobody cares about and clearly has no understanding of what made the earlier films (barely) work.

They serve no purpose other than to waste screen time and remind us that, yes, someone actually wrote this drivel down on paper.

It wouldn't be a Venom movie without over-the-top CGI battles, right? Well, unfortunately, the action scenes here are so poorly executed and short to save cost that even those who came purely for mindless entertainment will leave disappointed. The special effects are a headache-inducing blur of dark, indistinguishable shapes smashing into each other, with zero sense of tension or creativity.

The final fight scene feels like -an unintelligible swirl of chaos that is supposed to distract us from the fact that nothing of consequence is happening. It's not exciting, it's not entertaining, it's just ugly.

At its core it tries to sell itself as a dramatic, emotional farewell to Eddie and Venom's bond, but it doesn't even come close to achieving that. Any attempt at emotional weight is drowned by the film's clumsy pacing and complete lack of character development. The so-called "devastating" decision feels unearned, forced, and utterly unconvincing. There is no sense of closure, no satisfying payoff-just a hollow, empty finale that leaves you wondering why you wasted your time in the first place.

Avoid this movie like the symbiote plague it is. Eddie and Venom deserved better. We all deserved better.

Tom's ego and nepotism to promote his FWB director both of whom had sole credit of writing the script should tell you that how much he actually despises the franchise.

Tom was the ultimate culprit is giving the first movie it's comic tone and had heated arguments with Ruben Flesicher on set to such an extent that filming halted for a few days. There were 3 script writers on the first movie can you guess who was one of them?

It's the director of this movie who with her relationship strong armed and hijacked the plot elements and forced to introduce the comic tone into the first movie by reshooting the movie which had resulted in a disjointed mess.

Even the Ruben had expressed his deep regrets about that but I guess if you can control the leading star you can have your way.

If you closely look at the tone of the first movie first trailer you will notice the horror and science fiction elements present which had been stripped down to barebones and gag and quips reigned supreme.

First and foremost, it felt like the makers made every poor decision possible when it came to the sound tracks and music. That which is supposed to amplify the intensity of ride simply let it remain bland throughout, even the climax, even the falling action.

With Venom and Eddie having largely ceased their bickering, their bromance has dwindled significantly in this movie. Being the conclusional piece of this hilarious trilogy, it has fallen short of many expectations.

Of course there was some of those promised action as witnessed in the trailers. But was there something which swept me off my feet which was absent from the trailers? Not really.

While the villain's back-story is rather solid, it could have been more centre-stage. Most of the characters that have made appearance in this movie felt weakly woven together; though the plot could not have moved forward without their roles, they barely left any impact. Speaking of the plot, it largely remains uneventful, with the makers just throwing a few name-sake 3D effect villainous creatures at our faces. There is only one major action sequence throughout the film, that it low-key has bottled down to something I would either skim through, or watch at a slightly increased playback speed.

If the unnecessary scenes, and by that I mean, 'adding no humor or value to the plot' scenes were deleted, it could easily boil down to half its current run-time. That being said, there could definitely be leads from where this movie has left loose ends at, but presently, it stays far aloof from being involved in such a gifting.

I feel like the last of the trilogy has not done justice to the previous two movies, it almost feels like watching a different character. The ending in particular came off to me as a tryhard terrific ending, and even if the clips were good, the track choices really did not work out for me.

A solid enough send off for this 'Venom' trilogy.

'Venom: The Last Dance' is decently amusing and produces enough entertainment with its plot. I didn't personally find it overly funny, though the person a few seats across from me had an absolute blast - never a bad thing seeing people enjoy themselves!

Tom Hardy remains the key element of these films, they would be far less enjoyable without his presence. There's a nice montage of sorts towards the end, it admittedly didn't 'hit' all that much for me but I imagine it's effective for proper fans of the series. Rhys Ifans and Chiwetel Ejiofor stick out most from the other characters.