Excited to see what new challenges the iconic duo, Venom and Eddie, would face, I had high hopes that “Venom: The Last Dance” would be an outstanding film that would help Marvel get out of the gutter of releasing terrible movies after “Avengers: Endgame.” But after watching the movie, the plot easily crushed my expectations.
Its prequels, “Venom” (2018) and “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” (2021) were filled with entertainment, including comic lines that made me burst into laughter and thrilling action scenes. Since the second movie ended with a post-credit showing Eddie and Venom staring at the screen watching the Daily Bugle exposing the identity of Spider-Man, I was eager to see if there would be an interaction between these characters in the third movie.
The film begins with an introduction of a new villain named Knull (Andy Serkis) who has sent an evil creature in search of a symbiote possessing the “Codex,” a force created when Venom revived Eddie in the first movie. After being locked in a dark prison for so many years, Knull can escape with the help of the codex and continue to annihilate different worlds.
Throughout the movie, the duo faces challenges, like running away from the army. Since Venom contains the codex, they are also chased by the evil creature. In the end, Eddie and Venom decide that one of them must go to destroy the codex and terminate the creature. I wasn’t expecting to see the duo separate in an unsatisfying way since they’ve been through so much and their friendship was very valuable.
The movie started a bit slow, but several fight scenes captured my attention as the conflict escalated, especially at the end. One notable scene was when Venom teamed up with all the symbiotes to fight the creature. The fire in the background and the back-and-forth between saving innocent lives and fighting the creature created one of the movie’s most intense scenes. There were also some scenes where I felt heavy-hearted as I perceived how upset the characters and the symbiotes were when their bond ended. Overall, the chemistry between Eddie and Venom never disappoints.
Even though it had good action scenes, it was not enough to reach my expectations and I would not recommend watching it since its plot left several gaps related to the future of Marvel movies. For example, who will defeat Knull if Eddie or Venom are gone? Also, the introduction of the new villain felt rushed and random since it doesn’t relate to any current movies released by Marvel. I was also disappointed that Spider-Man didn’t make a cameo in a film and it seemed that Marvel let down its fans who were excited to see the character.
This movie was another example of Marvel choosing quantity over quality, and therefore I would rate the movie 2 out of 5 stars. The storyline leaves many questions about how this movie will contribute to further Marvel projects. Although the acting was good, the lack of organization and information from this film has yet to give me hope that Marvel can produce good movies like they used to.
