Venom The Last Dance is the best movie in Sony’s Spiderman-less Spiderman film universe. It’s still a bad movie. The plot is borderline illogical, there are no meaningful stakes, and even the great actors in this film come off flat. But in a film series littered with Leto’s Morbius and Madame Web, Venom The Last Dance pulls ahead. In the land of the blind, the man with one eye is king.

Venom The Last Dance isn’t entirely unwatchable but it is a disservice to comic book movie fans. There is now seemingly nothing tieing this series to the MCU and these movies do not work well in a vacuum. Instead of having fun with easter eggs and post-credit stingers pointing towards something greater, the Venom series ends with a ho-hum film and bizarre choices.

Leaving the MCU

Fans who have watched all the Venom movies up to this point may be wondering how this third film deals with where we’ve left our heroes. A post-credit scene from Venom 2 takes Eddie and Venom directly into the MCU. Spiderman No Way Home has a post-credit scene expanding on this further but transporting Eddie and Venom back to their Spiderman-less Sony world. The opening of Venom The Last Dance essentially replays this plot point, leaving the film to continue with no mention or regard for the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe.

It was fun while it lasted but after the disastrous duo of Morbius and Madame Web, it seems Disney is doing all it can to distance itself from Sony’s strange world. Truthfully that’s fine as the Multiverse saga has become a bit oversaturated and it’s tough to imagine a film doing a better job dealing with this contrivance than this summer’s Deadpool and Wolverine.

Heading to New York

This leaves our insufferable heroes essentially back at the end of their second film. Eddie is wanted for the murder of Patrick Mulligan, a San Fransisco cop from the second film. For plot reasons that bear no meaning or weight, Eddie and Venom decide their best chance of survival to head to New York.

On their way to New York they are attacked but what is essentially a giant space cockroach. The Master of this space cockroach is Knull, a fan favorite Comic Book villain. Yes, Knull is in this movie but only in the vaguest sense. He’s brought to the screen by Andy Serkis. Best known for portraying Gollum in Lord of the Rings, Caesar in the Planet of the Apes films, and directing Venom Let There Be Carnage. If you’re excited about Knull as a big bad villain you should temper your expectations.

Unassuming Supporting Characters

Juno Temple gets a supporting role in Venom The Last Dance and is unfortunately given painfully little to do. She acts as the human element of the film, working as an Area 51 scientist. She has an odd infatuation with symbiotes and space in general. Her character is given another painfully odd arch with her twin brother dying early in life from a lightning strike. Admittedly I am unfamiliar with the source material so I’m not sure if this is her comic characters arch as well, but I can’t imagine it was done worse in the comics than it was here.

The film also brings in a family of hippies on their way to visit Area 51 in search of alien life. These characters are again, incredibly underdeveloped and make bizarre choices, even for a Venom movie. None of these supporting characters have much to do and they do little to further the plot. They are all for the most part shoehorned in characters who tell bad jokes or turn into heroes when the plot demands it.

Venom and Eddy

The crux of this film is the relationship between Eddy and his floating-head best friend. Venom The Last Dance tries its best to make this friendship something that it isn’t. Tom Hardy is giving his signature aloof Eddy Brok performance and the Venom character is still cartoonish and annoying. Other audiencegoers mileage may vary but I have never enjoyed the Venom voice work and it’s even more painful here.

There is some playful banter back and forth or a joke here or there that lands, but they are the exception that proves the rule. Venom The Last Dance focuses on two characters who are not that interesting and wear out their welcome early on in the film. I enjoy Tom Hardy as an actor and think he has done some incredible work in the past. But this series has been a strange entry in his filmography and I’m hopeful this truly is the last dance.

Dancing Queen

I’ve been intentionally vague about the plot to avoid spoilers but truthfully the plot is mostly nonsense. For a while, Venom cannot fully take control of Eddy because it sends a signal to the space cockroach. Venom is incredibly cautious throughout to alert space cockroaches. He avoids saving Eddy and innocent people all in service of avoiding detection. Then when the plot needs it Venom throws all of his caution out the window with hopeless abandon so he can dance to the A-Teens version of Dancing Queen. Not even the Abba version.

Venom The Last Dance does culminate in what I would argue is the strongest battle sequence of the entire franchise. It is ostensibly just giant CGI monsters fighting each other, but the CGI looks pretty good and it’s done in a cool location. The ending comes fast and furious and while many of the actions here make no sense, they are exciting to look at.

The Future of Sony’s Universe

Venom The Last Dance may truly be the last Venom movie. There is a sense of finality at the end even though there is a little post-credit stinger, I would be surprised if we see another proper Venom movie. That said there are still more Sony Spider-villian properties in the work. We are just two months away from Kraven the Hunter and it will be interesting to see if that film relates in any way to the Venom series.

Despite all the film’s flaws. And there are many. Venom The Last Dance is truly the greatest so far of Sony’s weird bad idea of a shared universe, the animated Spiderverse movies notwithstanding. Venom The Last Dance is a serviceable film with an enjoyable final battle sequence. After the endlessly harangued Morbius and the truly bonkers Madame Web, I’ll take what we can get.