Photo gamerant.com

The official movie poster for Venom: The Last Dance

Venom: The Last Dance, the third installment of Sony’s Venom franchise, released in theaters last weekend Oct. 25. In other words, a rushed, tiresome, cheesy and flawed Marvel movie was released in theaters last weekend. 

There’s not much to say. The movie–congested with ridiculous plot devices, burdened with clichéd dialogue and sprinkled with little amounts of humor–was just not entertaining. (Well, it was, but not in a good way.)

The movie follows the trek of Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and his symbiote companion, Venom, as they run from both the Army and the main antagonists: the Knull’s “minions.” 

The movie emanates “road trip” vibes–one scene is literally an entire sing-along while in a van. The entire hour and forty-nine minute movie is a long chase over the period of a few days. This structure was not very intriguing, as it has been seen over and over again in cinema, and was nothing new. Nearly every shot that is not an action sequence seems rushed and ill-prepared. 

A constant, unrealistic utilization of Deus Ex Machinas–plot devices that alter the future of the story–that, in this film’s case, hardly contributed to the plot, are deployed various times throughout the movie. While some of these elements impacted the course of the story, most of them were unneeded and ultimately unnecessary, and probably just thrown in to add spikes to the already flat storyline.

The dialogue and the humor of Tom Hardy’s character didn’t quite land itself on its feet in this film, either. Unlike previous Venom films–instead of brash and savage personalities–this film chose the route to highlight the vulnerabilities of Brock and Venom. While this was greatly appreciated in the aspect of strong character development, a crude and humorously absurd Brock and Venom would have been the better option to preserve the lovable traits that the previous two films established.

Not all is bad, however. The action scenes were quite amazing and filled with stunning use of CGI, although the CGI wasn’t the only element that enhanced great fight scenes. Rather, the intelligent maneuvers and usage of objects/surroundings by the characters in their settings during battle were the main contributors to the spectacular scenes. 

As of Oct. 30, nearly one week after its theatrical release, Venom: The Last Dance currently holds a 39% Tomatometer score from critics, although it praises an 80% Popcornmeter score from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes. General viewers may have liked this film more than movie critics because of the action this film held, however, in the end, the movie’s effect just wasn’t enough.

After watching, it is evident that the movie desperately tried to have heart and emotion, but ultimately lacked such substance. Wait for this film to be launched on Disney+–and when it is–watch something else instead.