‘Venom: The Last Dance’ is a hilariously sincere road trip

After some hilarious contorting and prat-falling by Hardy, who mixes himself a drink while being controlled by his alien pal, the dynamic duo decides to abscond to New York City, in the film's first instance of surprising sentimentality. The films have largely been said in San Francisco thus far, but New York is the home of Marvel Comics, and more importantly, it's historically an immigrant haven, and Venom has neither been fully accepted on planet Earth, nor has he seen the Statue of Liberty, a beacon of hope for outsiders such as himself. This becomes his new objective, though the movie often cuts away from this arguably streamlined saga in order to focus on not one, but two overarching plots that pull from Hollywood's worst franchise tendencies.

On one hand, there's a new Thanos-like bad guy named Knull (Andy Serkis), a long-haired spiritual sibling to Christian Bale's Gorr in the much-maligned Thor: Love and Thunder. He has a sword, and resides on some nondescript prison planet out in the cosmos, though he never actually features in the movie beyond fleeting cutaways (a setup for future movies? Let's hope not). He's also the apparent creator of Venom and his symbiote siblings, and gaining his freedom depends on acquiring something called a "codex," a magical MacGuffin that happens to reside within Venom and Eddie's combined form, so he sends multi-legged alien monsters to earth in search of our heroes. The details are a pain to track, but they do result in a meaningful premise: so long as Venom and Eddie are together, the universe is at risk.

On the other hand, there's a whole lot of Earthbound noise concerning government scientists and military leaders, led by the ruthless Rex Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who have collected multi-colored Venom-like symbiotes in their lab—a set up waiting for a fun, multi-Venom action payoff—and who want to track down Venom and Eddie so they can keep Knull's hands off the codex. All of this exists to keep the plot moving from point A to B, but each time it appears, it robs the more focused character drama of Venom and Eddie of valuable screen time.

Which is not to say that the duo features nuanced dynamics akin to Chekhov; it's all surface level, and often jokey in execution. And yet, there's something sweet about it, if only because Hardy and his collaborators seem to really care about this idiotic premise. The series began with a straightforward superhero outing, Venom, which just happened to feature a gonzo, Jim Carrey-esque physical performance from Hardy. The second movie, Let There Be Carnage, leaned further towards his sensibilities, and the third is written and directed by his long-time creative partner Kelly Marcel (from a story he co-wrote alongside her), making Hardy arguably the trilogy's architect. The result is occasional cinematic delight each time Eddie and Venom team up or disagree, causing Hardy to convulse mid-battle, and perform at odds with his own body like a man possessed, bringing to mind great comedic performances like Bruce Campbell in Evil Dead II and Vincent D'Onofrio in Men in Black.

The naked sentiment of his approach is also matched by the repetitive subplot of a hippie family he keeps running into on his journey, led by alien enthusiast Martin (Rhys Ifans), who offers the lonely Eddie a ride in the family's van, where he spends some quiet downtime, allowing him to reflect on his partnership potentially coming to an end, as he and Venom face certain doom. Martin, his wife, and their two kids are en route to Area 51, which is being decommissioned—a plot point with a hilariously prolonged payoff in the final act, which uses the base's self-destruct mechanisms as part of its story, but doesn't really hold any other relevance along the way, in terms of plot or theme.

In fact, much of The Last Dance is written this way, with extraneous set ups for jokes and other story elements that have only fleeting, momentary payoff, like details about the base's scientists—their personal lives, and even the shoes they wear—that seem like they might be important, but end up the basis for some minor throwaway joke. It's almost remarkable to watch, given how much time and effort goes into establishing these ideas for relatively little reward. Then again, that's the fun of the Venom trilogy as a whole: people willing to go the extra mile for a gag, even if it doesn't really work. One of the scientists for instance, the ironically named Dr. Payne (Juno Temple), has a winding backstory about a twin brother who died in a lightning strike that left her disabled, a plot point whose end results feels like an elaborate joke.

Conversely, elements that ought to be more meaningfully woven into the plot, like Venom suddenly possessing a horse, or the returning Mrs. Chen (Peggy Lu)—Eddie's delightfully brusque San Francisco store clerk who he runs into here at a Vegas casino—appear as coincidences or minor details. And yet, Mrs. Chen's appearance is perhaps the movie's highlight, adding an element of lived history to Eddie and Venom's story (she's one of the few people who knows of Venom's existence, and, as a fellow immigrant, one of the few who accepts him). She also appears at a time when Eddie and Venom have been contemplating the end of their relationship, for reasons beyond their control, since one or both of them may need to die to keep the universe safe. The world-ending stakes aren't particularly meaningful, but the idea that this may be the duo's last ride creeps up on you with surprising heft, if only because of how obsessed the movie is with using Venom's frozen, toothy grin as the center of heartfelt reaction shots—as though the camera were searching for hidden depths beneath his smile—whenever his black, gooey face pops out from Eddie's torso to have a conversation with him face to face.

The moments when Venom: The Last Dance becomes a "real movie," so to speak—one that centers genuine emotion rather than indecipherable CGI action—are quite lovely. Its unapologetic dedication to melodrama even results in one of the most hilariously earnest final scenes in any superhero outing, one that's worth getting on board with for the sole reason that Hardy, Marcel and company seem to genuinely love these characters. It's unfortunate that the remaining majority of the runtime is a headache and a half, but as Marvel movies at large begin to wane in quality and cultural relevance, we'll take what we can get.

Venom: The Last Dance releases in theaters October 24.