If cinematic trainwrecks had award ceremonies, Venom: The Last Dance would not only be nominated but would likely sweep every category for spectacular failure. Tom Hardy’s supposed final bow as Eddie Brock and Venom isn’t just a letdown; it’s a cinematic slap in the face to devoted fans and casual moviegoers alike. Calling this film “bad” is an understatement akin to calling a supernova “slightly bright.” What unfolds on screen is an incoherent, convoluted, and utterly soul-crushing experience that somehow limbo dances under even the most generously lowered expectations.
The initial concept of Eddie and Venom becoming fugitives, pursued by forces from both Earth and the symbiote world, held a glimmer of promise for high-octane action and suspense. Instead, audiences are subjected to a chaotic and nonsensical barrage of poorly conceived scenes, stitched together with plot holes so gaping they could swallow galaxies. The narrative progression, if it can be dignified with such a term, stumbles forward with the grace of a toddler learning to walk in a minefield. Logic and reason are jettisoned faster than Venom can devour a criminal’s head. It’s as if the writing team threw every half-baked idea at the wall, hoping that sheer volume would somehow mask the utter lack of coherence.
The supposed emotional crux of the film, the “devastating decision” facing Eddie and Venom, lands with a thud heavier than Venom’s symbiote form. Instead of feeling like a poignant culmination of their shared journey, it reeks of a manipulative and emotionally bankrupt attempt to jerk tears from an audience already numb from cinematic torture. By the time this manufactured emotional beat arrives, viewers are likely too drained from enduring an hour and a half of nonsensical drivel to muster even a flicker of care.
Eddie Brock, once envisioned as a complex and morally ambiguous anti-hero ripped from the comic pages, is tragically reduced to a hollowed-out caricature of his former self. Hardy’s performance feels phoned in, with Eddie mumbling and bumbling through scenes as if his primary motivation is simply to escape the filming set. The nuanced internal conflict and reluctant heroism that once defined the character are nowhere to be found, replaced by a vacant shell going through the motions.
Astonishingly, the supporting characters manage to sink even lower into the abyss of cinematic ineptitude. The decision to populate the film with cardboard cutout side characters, devoid of personality or purpose, is baffling. It’s clear the filmmakers have no understanding of what made the earlier Venom films (barely) palatable, let alone engaging. These characters serve no discernible function other than to occupy screen time and serve as constant reminders that actual human beings were paid to write this cinematic garbage.
Of course, no Venom movie would be complete without a generous helping of over-the-top CGI-laden battles, right? Wrong. Even this base expectation is spectacularly dashed. The action sequences in Venom: The Last Dance are so poorly choreographed, hastily edited, and evidently underfunded that even viewers seeking purely mindless visual spectacle will leave feeling cheated. The special effects are an eye-watering, headache-inducing blur of murky, indistinguishable shapes colliding in the dark, utterly devoid of tension, creativity, or visual interest.
The climactic final fight is a swirling vortex of visual noise, seemingly designed to distract from the profound emptiness at the film’s core. Nothing of consequence happens, nothing is at stake, and nothing is even remotely entertaining. It’s not exciting; it’s not engaging; it’s simply visually offensive.
Despite its marketing as a dramatic and emotionally resonant farewell to the symbiotic partnership of Eddie and Venom, the film fails spectacularly to deliver on even the most rudimentary emotional level. Any attempt at emotional depth is instantly drowned by the film’s erratic pacing, nonsensical plot, and complete and utter failure of character development. The supposed “devastating decision” feels contrived, forced, and utterly unearned. There is no sense of closure, no satisfying resolution – just a hollow, vacuous finale that leaves audiences questioning their life choices and regretting the precious hours sacrificed.
Do yourself a massive favor and avoid Venom: The Last Dance with the same fervent intensity you would avoid a real-life symbiote plague. Eddie and Venom deserved a dignified send-off. Audiences deserved a coherent and entertaining movie. Instead, we got this.
The behind-the-scenes whispers of ego-driven decisions and nepotism further salt the wound. Rumors suggest that Tom Hardy’s influence in promoting a director with whom he has close personal ties, who then co-wrote the script, heavily contributed to the film’s disastrous trajectory. This reeks of a passion project gone horribly wrong, fueled by misplaced faith and unchecked creative control.
It’s alleged that Hardy’s desire to inject a comedic tone into the original Venom movie led to clashes with the first film’s director, Ruben Fleischer, causing significant on-set friction and even halting production. Adding insult to injury, the director of Venom: The Last Dance is rumored to have leveraged personal relationships to hijack plot elements and force the unwelcome comedic tone into the first movie through extensive reshoots, resulting in a disjointed and tonally inconsistent mess. Even Fleischer himself has reportedly expressed regret over these forced changes. It appears that when star power trumps creative vision and studio oversight, the audience ultimately pays the price.
Looking back at the initial trailers for the first Venom film, glimpses of a darker, horror and science fiction-infused tone are evident. These elements were tragically stripped away, replaced by the relentless barrage of gags and forced levity that have come to define the franchise, culminating in the utter disaster that is Venom: The Last Dance.
