The Cinema Boy’s review published on Letterboxd:
“Venom: The Last Dance” is one of the worst movies I’ve seen in the year 2024, the horrible year that I lost my cat of 17 years Jade and that America decided after more than 250 years it wanted an authoritarian to take control of the nation in 2025. Bad is relative now. But this is dumb bad as a movie, It barely even constitutes itself to be a film in my estimation humbly (that’s how meaningless and hollow this experience is), and in the aforementioned sea of badness in life and in film to me that is 2024, its existence as a movie with a storyline that is actually more incoherent than not is only the beginning of its problems; a random and pointless experience and ultimately completely void of anything meaningful narratively or otherwise to say thematically. Any perspective at all beyond “generic dumb cliche rendering” eludes the project completely. It feels simply mandated to make money and showcases there was no actual narrative direction at any time or anywhere to go with any of this to begin with in a continuing trilogy. Getting a trilogy out of this pedantic exploration of the source material is wild, impressive, unintentionally hilarious and so reflective of the time the industry is in. This trilogy collectively is the definition of amateurish, redundant and piss poor storytelling made for teen boys, throwaway content and not much else; all of these movies suck but this one especially is so muddled and incoherent and juvenile and nonsensical and just plain stupid that it’s hard to even invest emotionally or otherwise in anything happening on screen at any time. I was completely apathetic taking in this movie. This might be the most emotionless experience I’ve ever had watching something. I did feel inclined to take out my phone and record when Venom and the old Chinese woman had a disco dance sequence. It felt like something to document and reflect on forevermore. I also found there to be a lot of sexual subtext in a lot of this movie. Why doesn’t Venom make Eddie spit roast girls with him in Vegas for example. I just think that could be a better movie. To me at least. My friend Mickey, who is truly the best YouTube commentator in existence and always is intelligent and brimming with true talent in his videos commenting on art, summed up this entire movie iconically to me. He said among other brilliant things in his video review that “I will not let Venom 3 upset me. I will not let Venom 3 win” This is the modality everyone needs when analyzing this picture guys. Everything is extremely stupid and next level dumb in this movie. Don’t let it get you down! It’s all as aforementioned painfully forgettable and barely registering as a narrative of any substance or point, why get angry about something so painfully rendered to begin with. It also takes all the illogically present again previously pointless characters in the narrative (it’s the type of movie where everyone runs into everyone somewhere completely randomly when the script needs) and new extremely (again) random supporting to minor superfluous characters added in to the proceedings and focuses on them in ways that make the movie even more cringe than otherwise possible and also showcases a true overall lack of understanding or care to the potential of the source material executed with grace and wit and the potential of the character of Venom explored on screen properly in general. It’s a shame it couldn’t be rendered with other creatives completely that could dive into the Venom character in exciting ways instead of bland and rather surface level early 2000s superhero modality old school movie ways that this team not only leaned into with this trilogy, but also feels like was all they ever knew to do approaching this as people who don’t even like superhero movies to begin with; these modalities and ways of approaching superhero and comic book material so antiquated and provably the wrong direction to go business wise and for fan reception we’re ways I actually thought went completely out of fashion forever but these horrible Sony Spider-Man less pictures said hold my beer and want to remind everyone that the painfully generic and lame superhero movie renderings of decades prior to now are never really gone for good. The same no nothing outsider idiots can run amuck and the same banal and badly constructed superhero genre films of yesteryear now have new modern day siblings. Superhero movies as a genre are being whored out on the corner in Hollywood for a BJ and a quarter and it’s exhausting at this point to me. I’m just so over the amount of mid to trash movies the genre has produced in the last 5 or 6 years alone. There have been so many superhero movies that are bad and just bad movies period, especially in this calendar year, and this one ranks with the worst of them. The saving grace of all of these three Venom pictures has been king Tom Hardy who is effortlessly charismatic and charming as hell in this role and as a performer in general. The franchise is lucky to have him. This movie begins painfully with terrible expository renderings to tie together loose ends and illogical plot holes with the MCU and Sony Spider-Man movies about the multi verse and it all feels so shoehorned together and eye rolling much like the entire picture in general that follows. Chiwetel Ejiofor is completely forgettable, disposable and wasted here. Juno Temple dramatically mugs on camera and overreacts a painfully generically written role which never comes together for me. It all felt so forced and silly at all times. Andy Serkis is Knull, a villain explained in video game like expository dialogue upfront in the film, which I failed to register had broadcast that he was trapped in a chair against his will. I really thought he was just sitting there (heh) but admittedly the aforementioned video game style plot renderings through loud bombastic fast dialogue up front was disarming and I zoned out. This is a movie that one zones out to because it’s dumb from the first minute and any discernible person seeking substance in film and narrative storytelling would as well. There are other characters in the picture and they all are dumb and silly as well, universally, which is the implied mandate the movie must always hit overall. So good for them. Also, I missed Michelle Williams and wish she had returned. This movie even has some stupid post credits scene that hints at more that could come. I beg Sony to please stop making these Spider-Man less villain movies. Here is some trivia on the picture: Andy Serkis was interested in returning to direct following his involvement with Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021), but was unable to do so due to his commitments to Animal Farm (2025) (which he had previously delayed in order to direct the former), so screenwriter Kelly Marcel took over as director for this movie. Nevertheless, Serkis would go on to provide the voice of the character Knull. Tom Hardy, Peggy Liu, and Reid Scott are the only actors to appear in all three Venom movies. The movie was originally planned to come out in October of 2024, but got bumped up to July 12th of that year. After the strike, it was pushed back to November before it finally got moved back to October 25th. The name of the villain "Knull" means "fuck" in Swedish and Norwegian. Venom tells Eddie in the film that they are the "Lethal Protector." This is the name of the 1993 comics storyline that introduced many of the Symbiotes seen in the film's climax. 2024 Films Ranked All Superhero Movies Ever Ranked Every Marvel Live Action Film Ranked All Spider-Man Franchise Films Ranked
