The Rules of Sequels state that a second chapter can occasionally equal or surpass the original, e.g., “The Godfather Part II,” “Aliens” and “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.” But the wheels often come off in the third entry of a trilogy, as evidenced by clunkers such as “Jaws 3-D,” “Beverly Hills Cop III,” “Home Alone 3,” “Lethal Weapon 3,” “Spider-Man 3” and even “Pitch Perfect 3,” which you probably forgot even existed. (Of course, there are some exceptions to this rule; “Toy Story 3” leaps to mind.)
We buck the trend to some extent with “Venom: The Last Dance,” which isn’t quite entertaining or distinctive enough to recommend but is far superior to the astonishingly terrible original from 2018 and marginally better than the 2021 sequel titled, “Venom: Let There Be Carnage,” in which there was Venom and there was, um, carnage.
There’s really not much of a story here — at least not one we haven’t seen in a dozen previous superhero films — but writer-director Kelly Marcel, who developed the story with star Tom Hardy, leans into the absurdist buddy-comedy bromance element while filming in a style reminiscent of the whiz-bang, style-over-substance, action comedies of the 1990s and 2000s, and that makes for a medium helping of fun.
“Venom: The Last Dance” is dopey and silly and filled with familiar stock characters and well-worn tropes, but it’s almost never ponderous. Even when the orchestral score is trying to sell us on the idea that we’re in Grand Scale Epic territory, the action onscreen is telling us otherwise.
I mean, this is a movie that makes time for a hippie family singalong of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” that runs for as nearly as long as the 1969 album version of the song, follows that with a wiggy dance number set to a certain tune by ABBA, includes needle drops by Queen and Cat Stevens, AND works in references to road-trip movies including “Thelma & Louise” and “Rain Man.” Only rarely did I feel we were supposed to take any of this seriously.
After the obligatory prologue about a standard-issue, ancient megalomaniacal-fascist-alien god/creator of the Symbiotes who has been imprisoned for eons but is plotting to be set free so it can annihilate the world, “The Last Dance” picks up shortly after the events of “Let There Be Carnage,” with Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock and the symbiote Venom hiding out in Mexico, with Eddie accused of murder. A giant, slimy, very CGI-looking creature enters the picture, hell bent on killing Eddie/Venom, while a team of Special Forces joins the hunt as well — so it’s time for Eddie and Venom to go on the run.
The plot is further crowded with a whole semi-dramatic story involving Area 51 as it’s on the brink of being decommissioned, which seems like strange timing given a super-secret underground bunker lab is teeming with activity. Juno Temple plays Dr. Teddy Payne, a brilliant scientist who is haunted by the memory of her twin brother getting zapped and killed by lightning, I kid you not, while Chiwetel Ejiofor is Rex Strickland, the military man in charge of Operation Capture Eddie. The cast of top talents semi-slumming it extends to Rhys Ifans, who plays Martin, a far-out alien enthusiast who is on the road with his wife (an underused Allana Ubach) and their children, pursuing his lifelong dream to see some real-life extraterrestrials. (Martin might as well be wearing a T-shirt that says, “COMIC RELIEF.”)
Tom Hardy goes full-on comedic Brando with his performance, stomping around this way and that (Eddie’s search for a decent pair of shoes becomes a running joke) while bantering and bickering and bonding with Venom, who has this great roaring voice worthy of his tentacles and rows of teeth and swirling tongue but is for the most part an almost cuddly companion, though he still has an appetite for biting off the heads of bad guys and swallowing them like oysters.
The press materials say Venom is “one of Marvel’s greatest and most complex characters,” but that hardly seems the case. One can make the argument that the likes of Tony Stark/Iron Man, Bruce Banner/Hulk, Wanda Maximoff/Scarlett Witch and Loki, among others, would be candidates to log far more hours of therapy than Eddie and his booming-voiced best buddy Venom, who have become a kind of comedy-action version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Eddie’s an endearing sad sack who isn’t particularly bright or resourceful, while Venom is powerful and occasionally violent but becoming kind of soft-hearted. Sure, there’s a ton of PG-13 violence and lots of explosions, but their last dance is still more of an affectionate tango than a hardcore mosh.