Venom's last bite

Review: 'The Last Dance' forgets to advertise what it actually is – a bromance

KARACHI:

Marvel and Sony are odd bedfellows, and Venom: The Last Dance is the proof. Despite the fact that Venom hails from Marvel's pantheon of characters, this isn't a typical Marvel Cinematic Universe flick. It's Sony's turf, a world where forgettable films like Morbius and Madame Web roam.

You only need the previous Venom movies under your belt to understand what's happening in The Last Dance, and while those entries aren't masterpieces, they did pave the way for the bizarre buddy relationship that's now at the heart of this final instalment.

At its core, Venom: The Last Dance is a split-personality buddy comedy featuring the world's least-likely odd couple, Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and his alien "symbiote" bodymate Venom (also Hardy). Eddie has long since given up on any sense of normalcy, now stuck in a never-ending game of hide-and-seek with the authorities and a slew of relentless alien invaders called the Xenophages. These gnarly, symbiote-killing monsters come with one purpose: retrieving the "Codex" from Eddie and Venom to free their leader, Knull, a villain voiced by Andy Serkis (think Caesar in the Planet of the Apes franchise).

Brain-eater to broadway loving

It's worth saying that the real draw of these films is Venom himself—a character who has somehow managed to turn from a literal brain-eater to a Broadway-loving, canapé-licking antihero. If there's any reason to sit through the film, it's the banter between Eddie and his alien "frenemy." Tom Hardy nails it, playing Eddie as a man who looks like he just woke up from a bender, a perma-hungover antihero who trudges through the entire film like it's the worst day of his life. Their relationship has gone beyond bromance; they're like a dysfunctional married couple, too intertwined to be separated but too volatile to live in peace.

Michelle Williams, who played Eddie's love interest in the previous films, is notably absent here, and to be honest, not missed. Eddie and Venom's codependency has evolved to a point where a third wheel would feel out of place.

However, The Last Dance doesn't quite seem to grasp that this dynamic is all it really needs. Instead, the film clutters itself with plotlines and battles that feel painfully formulaic. Enter a villain who could've been intriguing but winds up as a throwaway CGI boss, most of the legwork done by his army of space cockroaches. In what feels like a desperate attempt to condense Marvel's entire Infinity Saga into one film, the writers cram every cliché into this supposedly unbeatable villain's arc without ever giving him a proper presence.

The ego and id

But where The Last Dance shines is in exploring just how far Eddie and Venom's odd bond has come. Their relationship is like watching an ego and its id, a twisted yin-yang that works. From their bickering to their silent moments of understanding, you can see just how much these two have come to rely on each other, a partnership built not on mutual respect but necessity. If comic-book purists complain that Venom's gone soft from a killing machine to a demanding pet, to them I say: If you spent the better part of a year sharing a body with a human, wouldn't you find humanity?

Juno Temple and Chiwetel Ejiofor are sorely underused in jargon-laden roles that not even they can salvage. And the movie tries to throw in laughs, like Eddie repeatedly losing his shoes in absurd chase scenes, which don't always land. It's a shame, because there are glimmers of comedy gold—Cristo Fernández, from Ted Lasso, reprises his role as a Mexican bartender, injecting some much-needed fun into the mix. Peggy Lu's Mrs Chen also reappears, and her cameo is just enough to make you wish the movie lingered on her instead of rushing back to space bugs.

To the film's credit, the CGI is more polished, especially given the number of different symbiotes sharing the screen. But plot conveniences abound, especially when Eddie and Venom hitch a ride with a family who just so happen to be alien enthusiasts and somehow sneak into Area 51 for the climax. These shortcuts strain credibility even within a universe that is meant to stretch the imagination.

Multiversal shade

Sony gives a much-needed nod to Eddie's brief stint in the multiverse, delivering the perfect response to the confusion caused by the post-credits scene of Spider-Man: No Way Home. Tom Hardy made his MCU debut as Eddie Brock in No Way Home, having been dragged into the 616-universe by Doctor Strange's original botched spell, though he didn't join the battle at the Statue of Liberty. Instead, Eddie Brock drank his time away at a bar in Mexico and was filled in on a brief history of the MCU by Cristo Fernández's bartender, and this scene played out again in Venom: The Last Dance's opening moments.

Sony and Marvel however, confirmed that Venom will no longer be a part of the MCU. To explain that, after being violently warped back into his home reality, Venom declared, "I'm so done with this multiverse s**t," which bears resemblance to Deadpool joking about the lackluster projects of the MCU's Multiverse Saga in Deadpool & Wolverine.

Even if you focus on the bad rather than the good, it's hard to deny the charm of Hardy's performance; his Eddie Brock is not a chiseled, noble hero, but a man who just wants a nap, a reluctant antihero in the vein of Robert Pattinson's Batman. That being said, The Last Dance did a perfect job saying goodbye to these characters, maybe even make you shed a tear.