"With the 2018 film Venom, Tom Hardy locked himself into a three-picture deal, giving his time, talents and torso to this saga about a man named Eddie Brock possessed by a fanged, body-snatching alien parasite", which jumps in and out of his body at will, said Amy Nicholson in The New York Times. Venom: The Last Dance brings the trilogy to a close, and it is, "in glimpses", quite interesting: a drama about a drunk who is "unbearably lonely despite being conjoined with a garrulous monster".
In the first film Eddie was an investigative journalist with a fiancé; "here, he's a filthy drifter" who has lost "his career, his woman and his reputation", and been forced to go on the run. There are "mild pleasures" to be had – such as the moment when Eddie/Venom is "suctioned to the fuselage of an airplane" and sighs: "It is so unpleasantly cold." But these are "overwhelmed by a barrage of underdeveloped supporting characters", played by the likes of Chiwetel Ejiofor and Rhys Ifans, and by a "banal" plot about saving the world.
This film "will have most accompanying adults shaking their head in despair within five minutes", said Matthew Bond in The Mail on Sunday. But the army of young Venom fans will enjoy a movie "that remains faithful to its comic-book roots" and is funny enough.
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"One of life's great mysteries" is that this "unspeakably stupid" series "has grossed more than $1bn worldwide", said Johnny Oleksinski in the New York Post. This instalment seems likely only to induce a "migraine" in those masochistic enough to buy a ticket. "So long, Venom. Don't let the door hit you on the way out."
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