Venom: The Last Dance review: Two left feet

Comic book movies have come a long way in the last 50 years, from “You'll Believe a Man Can Fly” to “You'll Believe a Horse Can Venom.” And if you saw that four-legged monstrosity in the trailer for Venom: The Last Dance and started hooting and hollering, rest easy knowing that Tom Hardy's third tango with a symbiote will likely deliver just that, what you hoped for. The Last Dance tests Hardy's chemistry with himself in a road trip film that fully embraces the deeply strange tone of this Spider-Man-without-Spider-Man spinoff franchise. What really stumbles The Last Dance is the way it supports that tone, with a terribly formulaic plot that makes this superhero hangout film a harder gamble than it could have been.

The main draw remains Tom Hardy's dual, dueling performances as Eddie Brock and Venom, and the bickering chemistry the actor developed with himself in the first two films…which is ironic given the game's thematic symbiosis. With both terrestrial and alien forces seeking to separate Eddie and his symbiote pal, Hardy plays up the former's confused, paranoid tics and tense physicality to a greater extent than ever before, and you get the feeling that he's constantly on the verge of a breakdown stands. Eddie isn't quite ready to become one with Venom, and his struggle with the uglier side of being a “deadly protector” provides the only reliable source of drama in “The Last Dance.”

While neither Venom nor Venom: Let There Be Carnage had particularly surprising storylines, they were based on Eddie's career as a journalist and each adopted the trappings of a different genre that fit the specific story Eddie was researching. The Life Organization's spooky goals of uniting humans and symbiotes fit a sci-fi/body horror framework in “Venom,” while “Let There Be Carnage” followed serial killer Cletus Kasady with a crime procedural-inspired plot center. But “The Last Dance” focuses on Eddie and Venom on the run after two films that devastated San Francisco, and Hardy's human character seems a little less convincing without that investigative angle. A detour to Las Vegas might suggest a foray into Hunter S. Thompson-style gonzo journalism – but this Venom horse is the closest thing to Raoul Duke's hallucinatory journey into the heart of the American dream. In the sequel, Eddie is largely at the mercy of his symbiote's whims, more often than not just screaming and thrashing around, while Venom does the heavy lifting in the action and chase sequences.

As for Venom, the symbiote is as food-motivated and attention-deficient as ever and is by far the most likable character on screen. At the end of the day, Venom is a lovable, sticky idiot; The immature best friend Eddie has to find space for as he grows up. He's a dummy who likes slot machines, eating brains and dancing to ABBA with Ms. Chen (Peggy Lu). And who among us can blame him? I didn't like The Last Dance all that much, and I certainly wasn't thrilled with any of the films before it, but Venom? I would have a beer with this guy. I'm a simple man, and when it comes to simple, cinematic pleasures, to me there's hardly anyone as sweet as Tom Hardy, who gives goofy little voices to larger-than-life characters.

Venom is far more reliable in providing the comic relief of The Last Dance than its symbiote action. Although the visual effects have improved greatly since the first film, The Last Dance offers little new after two outings that saw Venom unfurling his tendrils in as many ways as one could imagine. There's a plot device that makes Eddie and Venom particularly vulnerable to the becomes an increasingly predictable way to redirect the xenophage's attention at best. At worst, it's an annoying source of irresponsibility at a time when Eddie and Venom know to hide.

There's little variety in “The Last Dance's” rhythm – run, fight, hide, repeat – and even at its most chaotic, the action never reaches the boldness and creativity of the central relationship between Eddie and Venom. It feels like a step down from Let There Be Carnage, which struck a much better balance between these two elements. Kelly Marcel – who wrote both previous “Venom” films – makes her directorial debut here, and I was hoping that a larger role for the writer, who first illuminated the unique pairing at the heart of the series, would deepen the human dynamic and parasitic aliens. But at the end of the day, this is a big-budget superhero movie, and Marcel doesn't find a balance between the epic and the intimate.

There's also a big villain vacuum to contend with. A cold offensive turns Knull, the creator of the symbiotes, into a brooding and existential threat – but only if he can escape his captivity. The Last Dance is in no hurry to free him. Venom holds the key to his escape, but Knull is forced to leave the capture to his symbiote-hunting xenophages: huge, ugly bugs with woodchip-like mouths that spray their victims' innards from blowholes on the backs of their heads. It's a design decision that makes me want to stand up and clap as I write it down, but which becomes old hat after the tenth time.

While the Xenophage is a tricky physical opponent for Venom, he's simply no substitute for a villain with substance (certainly not a movie after Venom faced his most famous foe, Carnage). Knull is rarely seen, Knull is rarely talked about, and aside from sending the Xenophage out in the first place, it has almost no impact on the story – think Thanos The Avengersnot Infinity War. It's sequel-bait at its best, and giving your movie The Last Dance a subtitle will make it feel more outrageous than usual. Chiwetel Ejiofor's General Strickland has the edge and, as written, is just in that An antagonist means that he stands in Venom's way. His motivation for wanting to expel the symbiotes from Earth by any means necessary is entirely reasonable, and there is no depth or specificity to Ejiofor as he organizes the government's response to the alien battle coming to Earth. There's also a shadowy organization pulling the strings, whose name likely appears in tiny letters on a computer screen in a scene where an administrator issues threatening orders – further promises of a sequel that aren't guaranteed to come to fruition. Like I said, we're creating a lot of new factions and players for a movie that's supposed to wrap up the whole Venom thing.

Stills from the final trailer for Venom: The Last Dance