'Venom: The Last Dance' is another superhero movie out of step

To put it bluntly, "Venom: The Last Dance" has about as much passion as a ChatGPT-generated essay. Serving as the final installment to the Venom trilogy, it keeps to the series' tradition of lackluster plots, cheesy special effects and uninspired performances.

The movie opens with Andy Serkis' fully CGI character, Knull, with visuals that look straight out of a PlayStation 3 game. He establishes his backstory and vague plot to destroy the universe. Knull's plan will only work if his minion-monsters, called Xenophages, can track down a device called a Codex. As one might expect, Venom miraculously holds the Codex, and the plot is set in motion.

After this, we pick back up where we left off in the post-credits scene of "Spider-Man: No Way Home," with Eddie Brock and Venom, both played by Tom Hardy, in Mexico. They have mostly resolved their differences from the last movie and are working together to fight crime, as shown in a scuffle with stereotypically portrayed Mexican gangsters. Needless to say, the fight scene's racial undertones make it an uncomfortable watch.

Viewers are then introduced to the characters of the U.S. government's Imperium operation, who are trying to track down Eddie and Venom to further their research on the alien symbiotes. Imperium is run by Rex Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a stern and aggressive soldier. On the flip side, Dr. Teddy Payne (Juno Temple) is the cliché passionate and well-meaning scientist in charge of the lab.

Clark Backo plays Sadie Christmas, a lower-level scientist at the research facility. She has no discernible traits beyond a Christmas tree pin on her lab coat, a pair of New Balance 550s and a desire to do the right thing. 

The story of "Venom: The Last Dance" is simply lazy.

On paper, it doesn't sound too bad: Eddie and Venom are being hunted both by Knull's Xenophages and by the U.S. government. But the end result is a mess of conflicting tones and scenes that contribute almost nothing to the movie. Scenes of the symbiote research facility take on a serious, sometimes horror-like tone and are immediately undercut by Venom's cartoon-like antics, like riding a horse too fast and making Eddie sick.

Character motivations are thrown out the window the second it's convenient in order to advance the plot.

For example, Venom refuses to take over Eddie for much of the film, as he explains that it will make the Codex visible to the Xenophages, who will immediately kill him. The rule seems logical and is followed for most of the movie, with Venom only taking over as a last resort. This changes when Eddie and Venom conveniently run into Mrs. Chen (Peggy Lu) at a Vegas casino. Once Mrs. Chen asks Eddie to dance, Venom takes over and starts an awkward dance scene, allowing the Xenophages to find him.

With such a weak screenplay, it's no surprise the film's actors seem lifeless. Whatever passion Hardy had for his role in the first movie is now gone. He delivers almost every line in a nauseous whisper, sounding as though he's embarrassed to be reading the script that he co-wrote.

The side characters are one-dimensional and barely given any backstory, with the exception of Teddy, whose brother died from a lightning strike, as revealed in a flashback sequence. Unfortunately, Teddy's backstory offers no real insight into her actions or motivations in the film, making it feel like an obligatory comic book movie backstory.

Rhys Ifans plays Martin Moon, a father taking his family to look for aliens at Area 51. Beyond moving Eddie and Venom from point A to point B, the family does not impact the plot. Their inclusion amounts to a scene at the end in which Venom gets to save them, and the audience is reminded that helping people is a thing that he does every now and then.

As mentioned before, the film's special effects look cheap. None of the fully CGI characters look like they truly belong next to the human characters, including Venom.

He simply spends too much time as a floating head in the bright Nevada desert to look as good as he did in some of the first film's night shots. Green screens are painfully obvious as well, especially in a scene when Eddie and Venom fall from a plane.

The film ends with a predictable outcome and a closing scene that flashes clips from the past three films. The scene's desaturated colors, sweeping camera movements and inclusion of the song "Memories" by Maroon 5 are unintentionally hilarious. The scene's Statue of Liberty symbolism feels on the nose as well.

While the film has already made hundreds of millions of dollars, "Venom: The Last Dance" lacks the quality, care and depth of the best superhero movies. Its mediocrity is a reminder that the dominant film genre is on its deathbed, begging the question of what genre will soon embed itself within the mainstream and take over our lives, much like the Venom symbiote.