After three Venom movies, if you’re not into them, you won’t be into them. Tom Hardy’s tenure as Eddie Brock brings out some of the most comic-book things about movies. You get violent, vibrant, utterly ridiculous action mixed with comedy and even a bit of heart. If there’s a movie that’s going to make you truly care about a jet black, voracious alien symbiote as a character, it’s Venom: The Last Dance. Now, after three movies, it also shows you that they have similarities between the movies that might turn people off.

Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (yes, that’s what it’s called) is a slice of what superhero movies looked like in the 2000’s. They were an entirely different beast from what Marvel Studios and DC Studios are pumping out today. Venom: The Last Dance is a throwback to an era of yesteryear with almost everything. From the plot, the music choices, the humor, the action, and even down to the way it’s shot, this feels like a different era.

That would normally sound like a negative, right? Well in a landscape with movies that are overbloated and complex, this feels right at home. It’s just a fun time. Venom: The Last Dance is silly in plenty of ways. It gets randomly melodramatic in other places. That doesn’t really matter because the way that all of it is presented is surrounded by a masterful performance by Tom Hardy.

The rest of the cast understood the assignment with Venom: The Last Dance, choosing to go over the top or just let the insanity permeate through their performances. Besides Tom Hardy, it stars Juno Temple, Alanna Ubach, Stephen Graham, Rhys Ifans, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Clark Backo, and Cristo Fernandez. There’s some backstory to the new characters like Juno Temple’s Dr. Payne, where she lost a brother at an early age from a lightning strike of all things, and Backo’s character who loves Christmas because of a pin her mom made her. Ejiofor’s Rex Strickland is a hardass who is immensely mean to everyone around him, and he doesn’t really get a super great payoff, but Chiwetel Ejiofor is such a fantastic and charismatic actor that he overcomes some shoddy material.

Realistically, you’re watching this movie for Tom Hardy and Venom. They’re the main event, and along the way, you get some of the insanity this series is known for. Rhys Ifans and Alanna Ubach play a husband and wife with a family that picks up Eddie along his trip to try to stop early universe alternate dimension monsters that are sent by Knull (the ultimate evil, hellbent on destroying all life) to capture an essence that is inside Venom and Eddie. Surprisingly, besides the short and sweet looks we get at Knull, this movie doesn’t really have an antagonist. The monsters are there to act as one, but they don’t talk, they just kill and get the crap kicked out of them, only to pull their bodies back together. They’re practically unkillable.

And yet, Venom: The Last Dance still remains entertaining. It’s a movie without a proper antagonist, that is billed as a last ride for Eddie Brock and Venom that ends up feeling like a stepping stone, instead. That does make you think a bit while you’re watching it, that it feels a bit cheap in that department, but it ends up as a fun movie. This isn’t some situation where it’s mindlessly bad, but there are flashing lights and cool colors that distract you. Seeing a bunch of symbiotes take over scientists, go into battle against unkillable killing machines and figuring out how they get through it, is fun. Seeing Venom take over a horse, a fish, a frog, and other animals to get Eddie out of a dangerous situation, that’s fun.

The movie also takes the PG-13 rating all the way up to the barrier between it and an R-rating. The violence in this movie is off the charts. It’s horrifying what the monsters do in this movie at points. Venom is about as brutal as it gets. Seeing one of the monsters bite off people’s heads and limbs or just eat people and their blood spurts out of its back. Seeing them eviscerated is heartbreaking, but it makes for a more fearsome foe for Eddie and Venom.

Venom: The Last Dance isn’t mindblowing by any means but it’s more than enough for an excellent time at the movies. Tom Hardy has carried these movies and continues to do so in this film.

Venom: The Last Dance releases in theaters on October 25th, 2024.

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