Dr. K's Waiting Room

Released: 25 October 2024
Director: Kelly Marcel
Distributor: Sony Pictures Releasing
Budget: $120 million
Stars: Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Clark Backo, and Stephen Graham

The Plot:
Now a fugitive wanted for murder, Eddie Brock/Venom (Hardy) go on the run while being hounded by the vindictive General Rex Strickland (Ejiofor) while evading a monstrous being sent to hunt them by the ancient symbiote god, Knull (Andy Serkis).

The Background:
Fist appearing as simply a black costume acquired by Peter Parker/Spider-Man on an alien world, Venom would later take on a whole new lease of life when he bonded with the unhinged Eddie Brock to antagonise Spider-Man. Since then, Spidey’s dark doppelgänger has become a popular anti-hero and one of Spider-Man’s most recognisable foes. Venom’s popularity led to them appearing in videogames and cartoons prior to being shoe-horned into Spider-Man 3 (Raimi, 2008), though the idea of doing a live-action Venom film had circulated since 1997. This finally came to pass when Tom Hardy took on the role in a commercially successful solo film that, despite mixed reviews, led to an equally successful sequel in 2021 that was received a bit more favourably. With Hardy having signed on for three films from the start, a third was never in doubt, with Hardy and Venom: Let There Be Carnage director Andy Serkis both expressing interest in crossing over with Sony’s other Marvel films and the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Tom Holland was even open to appearing in a cameo but, in the end, writer Kelly Marcel took over as director and favouring the introduction of Knull, who she hoped would return as a prominent supervillain in later films. Although Serkis was unable to return to direct, he took on the Knull role and Hardy returned for a cool $20 million payday. The casting of Chiwetel Ejiofor and Rhys Ifans confused some and the trailers led to speculation about Venom’s place in the MCU, a sneaky tactic from Sony that no doubt contributed to the film’s box office of over $430 million. Reviews remained mixed, however, with many praising Hardy’s performance and the dynamic between Eddie and the symbiote while criticising the moronic plot and squandering his talents. Despite this, and the narrative presented in the film, Hardy remained open to the possibility of returning in some capacity later down the road.

The Review:
If you told me that we’d get an entire trilogy of Venom movies that didn’t involve Spider-Man, the guy who Venom owes their entire existence to, I’d say you were crazy. But then I’d remember that this is Sony we’re talking about, and this is exactly the kind of nonsense they’d sign off on these days. Yeah, spoilers: no version of Spider-Man appears in Venom: The Last Dance, despite the movie making the ridiculous decision to revisit one of the most pointless post-credits scenes in all of superhero cinema by showing Eddie at a bar in Mexico in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He’s then unceremoniously transported back to his world not by a magical portal created by Doctor Stephen Strange, but seemingly by a similar portal generated by Knull, the long-imprisoned creator of the symbiotes who sits entombed in a dark prison in a far away galaxy. Once back in his world, Eddie is ravaged by a combination of a drunken headache, a hangover, and a migraine caused by the teleportation that renders him a confused, fatigued, and ultimately bizarre character for the duration of the film. As much as I love Tom Hardy, his portrayal of Eddie has always irked me. Once again, he adopts a weird accent, and he plays Eddie with this weird, twitchy, socially inept awkwardness that makes many scenes (particularly in this movie) difficult to watch. Despite once being a ballsy, confident reporter who took on mega-corporations without fear, Eddie is a paranoid, largely clueless, and often bumbling figure who constantly bickers with his dark passenger. The banter between Eddie and the symbiote is one of the highlights, as ever, and is put to greater effect here through the second act’s “road trip” format as the two randomly decide the best way to avoid the authorities is to head to New York City. However, the symbiote is a growling, gruff character who’s difficult to understand and continues to be childish and unreasonable at times. Impulsive and reckless where Eddie is measured and reserved, the symbiote still desires to bite off heads as a “lethal protector” while Eddie prefer to lay low, meaning their ideals continue to clash in a way that irks me as a Venom fan since the whole point is that they’re supposed to be united in their cause.

Still, it makes for some amusing moments, such as the symbiote impulsively knocked people out (much to Eddie’s dismay) to steal their clothes and his immediate addiction to gambling when they make a pit stop in Las Vegas. Eddie’s easily at his lowest point here. Thanks to the events of the last movie, he’s been branded a murderer and forced to go on the run, separating him from his lost love, Anne Weying (Michelle Williams), who’s sadly absent in this film. After being spotted on CCTV cameras, Eddie attracts the attention of General Rex Strickland, who mobilises his forces to capture Eddie on sight. At first, this is seemingly to arrest him for the murder of Detective Patrick Mulligan (Graham) and others, but in actual fact Strickland oversees both the decommissioning of Area 51 and the symbiote research centre, Area 55, located beneath it. Thus, his mission is more to obtain symbiote samples, if not entire symbiotes, for the “Imperium”, a shadowy government organisation that’s running vague experiments on the symbiotes. Once Strickland learns there’s more to Eddie than he expected, he puts together a crack squad to capture the symbiote and kill Eddie but doesn’t reckon with the two’s abilities and is driven into a vengeful rage when his men are killed in the act. Eddie’s stunned and bewildered to learn that the two of them now carry a “codex” after the symbiote resurrecting Eddie in the climax of Venom. This one-of-a-kind McGuffin is the key to releasing Knull from his prison, and therefore means the two are also hounded by the monstrous Xenophage. This insectile beast can instantly detect the codex whenever Venom fully transforms, meaning much of the film focuses on Eddie as it’s too dangerous for him to fully let Venom out. Unless they happen upon kindly shopkeeper Mrs. Chen (Peggy Lu) in Las Vegas. Then it’s perfectly fine for Venom to overtake Eddie and engaging in a dance sequence with Mrs. Chen to the tunes of ABBA. Except it’s not as, predictably, the Xenophage shows up, wrecks the hotel, and Eddie is both captured and consequently separated from the symbiote. Thus, we’re denied a lot of true Venom action, leaving the symbiote little more than a floating, frothing head, unless the film decides it needs to suspend what little logic it has for an action scene.

Eddie and the symbiote are taken to Area 55, an underground laboratory where the United States military and a band of scientists – led by Doctor Teddy Payne (Temple) and Sadie Christmas (Backo) – research the symbiotes that landed in the first movie. Unlike the experiments performed by the Life Foundation, these seem to be largely unobtrusive and benign; Teddy is in awe of the alien lifeforms and wishes only to understand and communicate with them. Even Strickland doesn’t want to destroy them, only Venom (and that’s for personal reasons), and this strange turn of event sis only further compounded by the revelation that the symbiotes aren’t actually evil. Instead, they were fleeing from Knull’s wrath and came to Earth looking for safe haven. Quite how we’re supposed to believe this when every symbiote we’ve seen up to this point, including Venom, has been sadistic and violent and wished to either eat humans or drain their bodies completely is beyond me. such concerns are further compounded by the bizarre backstory given to Teddy. As a girl (Brooke Carter), Teddy and her brother (Fflyn Edwards) were inexplicably struck by lightning, which killed him but somehow left her with only a lame arm. since then, she’s dedicated herself to living her brother’s dream of investigating life beyond our world and is fascinated by the symbiotes. It’s thanks to Teddy that Mulligan’s life is saved as she bonds him with a symbiote and learns of Knull’s threat; yet, despite being explicitly told that the only way to stop Knull is for either Eddie or Venom to die, she vehemently opposes Strickland’s offensive against Venom since it would deprive her research. While Teddy is shoe-horned in and a poor substitute for Anne, she at least has some agency and a character arc. Sadie is just kind of there; her “thing” is she likes Christmas and is named Christmas and that’s about it. Then, in the final act, she suddenly gains prominence when a symbiote latches onto her and creates Lasher, who aids Venom in their battle with the Xenophages, while Mulligan and his symbiote are unceremoniously consumed before they can help. This bugged me as I would’ve preferred to see Eddie, Anne, and Mulligan (and maybe Teddy and Strickland) fight together with symbiote partners, but it’s doubly odd as the first movie established that a true symbiosis is very rare and yet Sadie shows no signs of being consumed by her symbiote.

In place of Venom’s more familiar supporting cast, Eddie stumbles upon hippie Martin Moon (Rhys Ifans) and his family – equally hippie wife Nova (Alanna Ubach), his enthusiastic but scared son Lef (Dash McCloud), and his apathetic daughter Echo (Hala Finley) – who are on a road trip to Area 51 to realise Martin’s lifelong dream of seeing an alien. Though Eddie’s reluctantly to tag along with the Moons, the symbiote insists and, while enduring their cringey singing and crackpot quirks, the two dwell on how they’ve been denied a normal life. Again, I feel like it would’ve made much more sense for Anne and Doctor Dan Lewis (Reid Scott) to have maybe seen or sensed Venom’s danger on the news and come out to help him, especially as the Moons keep sneaking back into the plot simply to put some innocents in peril. What’s really weird is that Reid Scott does feature in a cameo as the shadowy head of Imperium, a man who authorises Strickland’s employment of “The Six”, which you’d think would be a troop of symbiote-infused soldiers but is simply just another strike team. Like Martin, Strickland is shameless stunt cast with an actor known for their previous Marvel work simply to trick people into thinking Venom: The Last Dance is somehow tied to the MCU’s Multiverse Saga. While it technically is, the casting amounts to a bait and switch and nothing more, though Chiwetel Ejiofor was enjoyably charismatic in the role. In contrast, Knull is a complete waste of time. Aside from dumping a bunch of clunky exposition in our laps at the start, he does nothing but send Xenophages after Venom. Why he can’t conjure a portal to release him from his prison is beyond me, and we never see him and Venom interact, meaning it’s up to the scary and surprisingly gory Xenophages to carry the main threat. This would be fine (and admittedly spares us the same nonsensical symbiote-on-symbiote action of the last two films), but the Xenophages are functionally invincible. They immediately heal from all wounds and devour their foes and are extremely aggressive, but immediately lose interest once they can’t see the codex, making them dangerous but also paradoxically dumb.

The Nitty-Gritty:
Venom: The Last Dance feels tonally confused. Like its predecessors, it lacks the gore and violence I’d expect from a Venom movie and tries to make up for it with a few s-bombs and even an unexpected “motherfucker!” from Martin. It also delivers some startling gore in depicting the Xenophages’ preferred method of attack, which is to eat their victims whole and spewy their bloody remains from vents on their back! Venom bites the heads off a few bad guys but is again a far cry from the “lethal protector” they wish to be, and I know from the comics. In this instance, it makes sense since Eddie’s on the run, but he makes some baffling decisions in trying to evade Strickland. He wanders around in plain view, constantly being spotted by CCTV, has a good old time in Las Vegas, and his end goal is to go to New York and blackmail a former editor into helping him. The middle part tries to be a road trip movie, but it doesn’t really work; the Moons quickly outstay their welcome and it’s ridiculously convenient that they’re heading towards where all the action’s about to take place. This is why I think Anne and Dan would’ve made just as much sense, if not more. It’s also odd that Eddie mentions he and the symbiote have only been bonded for a year. I find it difficult to believe that these three films take place over a single year and, if that is the case, that’s even more disappointing. The film also squanders any potential from the ending of the last movie; we never see Venom interact with Tom Holland’s Spider-Man and his jaunt into the MCU is nonsensical, at best. I’ve always hated the idea that these films take place in a separate universe when it would’ve been so easy for Sony and Disney to collaborate on a more cohesive spin-off series. They don’t even take place in the same universe as other Sony-Marvel films, or previous Spider-Man continuities, meaning any hope of a Venom/Spider-Man interaction is tossed out the window in favour of him easily evading the Xenophage and never even seeing Knull.

It’s a shame as the film does look really good. The symbiotes held captive at Area 55 look a little dodgy but, when they bond to a host, they look fantastic. Venom, especially, looks amazing whenever they full transform. I love how slick and oozing the symbiote skin is, how they have this impossible, exaggerated teeth, and the way their bodies are all distinct and unearthly. Mulligan’s symbiote, for example, is like water and radiates an awesome presence that rightfully captivates Teddy’s imagination and Strickland’s distrust. Lasher also stands out in the finale, simply because they adopt a Christmas tree colour pattern and are so prominent in fending off the Xenophages. Venom’s abilities are displayed quite well; Eddie makes a crack about the symbiote’s inability to fly so it attaches them to an aircraft to jet him along at supersonic speeds, which was fun. It also jumps to other animals, such as a fish, frog and, most prominently, a horse. However, this sequence is simply a retread of the motorcycle chase from the first movie, which also gets a callback in the finale. Because of this, and Venom simply taunting, manhandling, and beheading some Mexican lowlifes, Venom: The Last Dance doesn’t really gives us anything new in terms of Venom’s portrayal. The symbiote does show fear at the mere mention of Knull; it’s not really clear why but it does establish that Knull is this awesome threat. Sadly, while Knull cuts an intimidating figure with his emo hair, massive sword, and swirling prison of darkness, he’s essentially a non-factor. The Xenophages are the main threat, which again is at odds with the trailer, which suggested that the symbiote’s people were invading Earth. This plot point seems to have been dropped, along with any notion of Strickland employing symbiote soldiers, to tell a far more basic story. There are some decent moments between Eddie and the symbiote where they reaffirm their bond and their desire to live in peace, but they spend so much time at odds or goofing off or being forcibly separated that it falls a bit flat for me.

Thanks to Eddie defending himself and the initial Xenophage, Strickland pursues Venom relentlessly, ultimately taking them by surprise after a Xenophage attack, separating Eddie from the symbiote, and bringing them to Area 55. Having learned from Mulligan’s symbiote about Knull’s threat and the codex, Strickland is happy to execute Eddie for the greater good, only for the Xenophage to track the two to the bae after the symbiote rebonds with Eddie to save him from a gunshot wound. In the battle, Mulligan is killed and the symbiotes are released, bonding with Sadie and other nearby scientists to assist Venom. This was odd as everyone knows how dangerous the codex is so I would’ve assumed at least some of his brethren would see the value in killing Venom over sacrificing themselves to save them. Regardless, more and more Xenophages arrive, slaughtering the symbiotes and their hosts, wrecking Area 51, and putting the Moons in mortal danger. Luckily, Venom and the symbiotes are on hand to save them, with Lasher chastising Strickland’s reckless use of a rocket launcher and finally convincing them that they’re all on the same side. However, no matter how many bullets and blade can stop the Xenophages, which simply stitch themselves back together, devour Sadie’s symbiote, and mortally wound Strickland. Pinned down with no way to win, Eddie and the symbiote realise that the only way to stop the Xenophages is to sacrifice themselves. Thus, Venom leads the Xenophages to the gigantic acid tanks Strickland was using to decommission Area 51, absorbing the Xenophages into their body and forcibly dragged them into position. Despite being prepared to die alongside his friend, Eddie is aghast when the symbiote spits him out and shields him from the acid shower and the resultant explosion that destroys the entire base. Thanks to having obtained a symbiote, Teddy rushes herself and Sadie to safety as Agony and can only watch as Strickland, the Xenophages, and the Venom symbiote are destroyed. In the aftermath, Eddie finally makes it to New York, now a free man, and gazes upon the Statue of Liberty while remembering the symbiote, unaware that Knull is still waiting in the dark void and determined to enact some kind of vague revenge. Oh, and a piece of Venom also survived. Not to mention the piece he left in the MCU, meaning there are ways for Venom to return and completely squander what’s sold as an emotional ending.

The Summary:
Honestly, I didn’t expect Venom The Last Dance to involve Spider-Man. Even if it had, I probably wouldn’t have been happy or impressed that it took three movies to see what should’ve been done in the first film. For me, the Venom movies should’ve been a two-part affair: one involving Spider-Man and the other involving Cletus Kasady/Carnage. Bringing in a more modern antagonist like Knull was a good idea on paper, but the movie doesn’t commit to it. Like, why not have Knull come to Earth leading a symbiote/monster army and have Venom team up with Anne, Mulligan, and other symbiotes to fight them off? The Xenophages were horrific alien creatures, sure, but they’re simply ravenous beasts. We never see Venom tangle with their master and that’s a huge missed opportunity, as is the chance to up the stakes with a world-ending threat. Instead, we have a much more reserved film, one that tries to explore the relationship between Eddie and the symbiote but instead meanders along, squandering any potential it might’ve had. The Imperium plot point goes nowhere, Area 55 is a cauldron of contradictions, and I didn’t really care about Teddy or her confusing characterisation. It’s disappointing that this series ends on such a flat note; it does nothing to earn its sombre conclusion, and I just feel robbed of what I really wanted to see from these characters. I like Tom Hardy, but his portrayal of Eddie is so weird and all over the place, the actual Venom action is disappointingly light, and it just feels like everyone’s going through the motions because they’re contractually obligated to. Add to that the fact that the film’s another example of Sony blatantly lying to audiences with its trailers and trying to trick people into thinking it’s something it’s not and you have an uninspiring end to a franchise that somehow worked when it never should’ve. I can only hope that we get a proper, accurate, and definitive version of Venom sometime in the future… though I’m also happy to let the character lie dormant for about ten years after these efforts.

My Rating:

Could Be Better

Have you seen Venom: The Last Dance? If so, what did you think to it? Were you disappointed that Venom couldn’t fully transform or did you enjoy the new spin on their relationship? What did you think to new characters like Teddy and Strickland replacing Anne and Dan? Were you also annoyed that there wasn’t a showdown between Venom and Knull? Which of the other symbiotes was your favourite? What are some of your favourite Venom and/or Knull stories from the comics? Leave your thoughts on Venom: The Last Dance down below and go check out my other Venom content.