52 Films by Women Vol 8. 51. Venom: The Last Dance (Director: Kelly Marcel)
One of the highest
grossing films of 2024 directed by a woman is the Marvel superhero sequel, Venom: The Last Dance, the third in a series of films featuring
British actor Tom Hardy as journalist Eddie Brock and the voice of his
computer-generated alter ego, Venom, an alien symbiote that needs Eddie to
survive, or at least complete a tax return.
Hardy, whose signature roles include Bane in The Dark Knight Rises,
Charles Bronson (the serial killer) in Bronson and building
contractor Locke in Locke, not to mention both Kray twins in Legend, is an actor who exudes menace that is to some extent diffused by the
heightened voices he adopts when playing a role. Action heroes – and villains –
have always been declamatory but Hardy takes it to a comic level, savouring
every word. In his best roles – and Venom is one – it is hard not to enjoy his
delivery. There’s an eccentricity to his performance, but you also enjoy the
actor seeing how far he can push a word, isolating it in a virtual glass jar,
prodding and probing it. The voice he adopts can be a trap in some roles,
liberating in others. Hardy’s Eddie Brock, with da urban drawl, is no joy to listen
to. His Venom, voluminous, expansive, an oversized man-child, is a lot more fun.
He’s like James Coburn with the dialogue of an astute six-year-old boy. Listen
to Coburn as Henry J Waternoose in Monsters
Inc for comparison. Daniel Day
Lewis’ Daniel Plainview from There
Will Be Blood is also a vocal
point of reference.
The writer-director
of Venom: The Last Dance is Kelly Marcel. She worked on the
screenplays of both Venom and Venom: Let There Be Carnage as well as the P L Travers goes to Hollywood film, Saving Mr. Banks. She adapted 50 Shades of Grey
into a screenplay for director Sam Taylor-Johnson. Her father is Hawk The Slayer film director, Terry Marcel. Marcel met
Hardy when she was an aspiring actress, subsequently becoming his go-to script
doctor. Graduating to the director’s chair, she accentuates Eddie/Venom’s little
boy lost quality. At one point, Venom makes Eddie discard a plate of food.
There is a running (or limping) joke about Eddie losing shoes. Marcel treats
Hardy like a rambunctious schoolboy who returns home every day with something
missing – a pencil case, school bag, front teeth. She messes up his hair and
asks him not to tell his father. In the film, Eddie/Venom want to visit ‘Lady
Liberty’ – the Statue of Liberty on Ellis Island. Marcel is Hardy’s Lady
Liberty, letting him goof in a nominally high-stakes superhero movie.
Like other recent
superhero movies directed by women (The
Marvels, Madame Web) Venom:
The Last Dance has
underperformed at the US box office, grossing $51m during its opening weekend; Let There Be Carnage grossed $90 million. However the film series
earns most of its revenue overseas, so the threequel will go into profit.
Marcel isn’t entirely concerned with creating a movie that breaks new ground,
following the blueprint of ‘deadly destructive super villain seeks object in
order to unleash unlimited power, wreck the universe and make everyone forget
he is a failed businessman’. Maybe not the last bit, but the film has a certain
topicality, beginning as it does in Mexico with Eddie exactly where we last saw
him at the end of Spiderman:
No Way Home in a Mexican bar.
Marcel had nothing to do with Eddie’s cameo in that blockbuster, but she
honours the post-credits sting with good grace, with Eddie compelled to jump
behind the bar and make his own drink. ‘You should have been a bartender,’
declares Venom, the voice in Eddie’s head that we can hear but no one else can.
The joke is that Eddie is so powerful when Venom presses ‘go’ that he’s
destructive, doing hundreds of pesos’ worth of damage.
Eddie is a fugitive,
seeing himself on television described as being responsible for killing a
police detective, Mulligan (Stephen Graham). He is also pursued by the hounds
of Knull (Andy Serkis), Knull being the CGI supervillain trapped in a
symbiote-created prison with no chance of rehabilitation. Quite why Knull has
so many visitors – the creatures under his command who seek the bearer of the
codex that will set him free, enable him to unleash his power and close his X
account, because why wouldn’t you – is anyone’s guess. They disappear through
portals that allow them to skip customs and rabies checks. They can fly and
detect the heat signature of the codex bearer but can’t see or smell.
Pursued by a rather
large creature, Eddie ends up finding a pound filled with fighting dogs. He
responds, as any six-year-old would, by wanting to free them. He is discovered
by the dogs’ equally vicious and heavily tattooed keepers, who waste time explaining
what they are going to do with him. Eddie nicely asks to let him go, otherwise
something bad will happen to them. It is nacho verses macho. Of course the bad
guys don’t listen to Eddie and Venom takes over, not only encasing Eddie’s body
with a protective shell but exerting superstrength without bursting a blood
vessel. Dogs freed, villains pummelled, Venom contemplates flying, apparently
not one of his superpowers.
Pictured: 'This is my dream, my life's work.' Dr Teddy Paine (Juno Temple) confides in military man Rex Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor) in a scene from the Marvel superhero threequel, 'Venom: The Last Dance', written and directed by Kelly Marcel. Photo: Laura Radford. Still courtesy of Columbia - Sony Pictures.
Marcel then takes us to Area 51, introducing us to Dr Teddy Paine (Juno Temple, like Marcel, the daughter of a film director, in Juno’s case Julien Temple) whose brother died in a lightning strike. Dr Paine undertakes research into symbiotes at an underground facility directly below Area 51, referred to somewhat confusingly as Area 55. Area 52 must feature sporting goods, Area 53 home furnishings. Area 54 the canteen. Area 51 is being de-commissioned, even though Area 55 is staying open. This apparently involves frequent uses of acid baths. Dr Paine’s overseer is Rex Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor) whose retina scan and voice recognition - he says his name – trigger said bath. Writer-director Paul Schrader once said that audiences would rather be confused than bored and what’s boring about an acid bath? The facility reminds us of Men in Black. Marcel may have even used the same set, given that both Venom and the Men in Black series are produced by Columbia Pictures. Mulligan is alive with his symbiote, giving Dr Paine and her colleagues, one of whom wears a Christmas Tree brooch, something to study behind a high-density fibreglass window.
On their way to Area
51 are the Moon family – Martin (Rhys Ifans), Nova (Alanna Ubach) and children Echo
(Hala Finley) and Leaf (Dash McCloud). Martin is obsessed by alien life forms
and wants to see the facility before it is closed down, though most of us
aren’t aware it is still open. Quite what they expect to see is anyone’s guess.
Area 51 is unlikely to have a souvenir shop. Nevertheless, they happily burst
into song and take turns with the driving. They meet Eddie after he parachutes
into the desert after hanging off a plane and encountering one of Knull’s codex
seeking minion-thingies. Eddie was on his way to New York and somehow managed
to cope with the lack of oxygen – he could watch an in-flight movie through the
window, maybe one of his. The codex within him is detectable when he is between
forms, having only appeared after he was stabbed through the chest. Marcel can
type this stuff; the audience has to accept it. Although Echo thinks Eddie
looks like a serial killer, Martin embraces him with starry-eyed naivete. Like
Ejiofor, who appeared in Doctor
Strange, Ifans has also done a Marvel, The
Amazing Spider Man as Dr Kurt
Connors aka the Lizard. The multiverse is good for re-casting. After trying to
get Eddie to join in on a version of David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ – Venom is up
for it – and Leaf explaining that he doesn’t like aliens (‘aliens don’t exist,’
Eddie tells him) he is dropped off in Las Vegas with $20 and a contraband bar
of chocolate, courtesy of Leaf. Hardy says ‘yum’ with great relish.
It is worth
mentioning that Eddie’s outerwear is t-shirt and jeans. At one point he wears a
short-sleeved overshirt. He’s not a stylish guy. His attempt to enter a casino
doesn’t go well, until Venom takes over, tackling a tuxedoed patron who thinks
nothing of urinating on Eddie. In the UK, the film is rated 15 for violence,
language and a half-hearted bid for Deadpool’s audience. ‘I’m keeping the shoes,’ Eddie
tells Venom, one of Marcel’s better lines. After losing his money very, very
quickly, he meets Mrs Chen (Peggy Lu) from the previous films. She invites him
to her penthouse suite and she and Venom dance. I understand this is something
called ‘fan service’.
I forgot to mention
the various surveillance cameras that record Eddie’s movements. There is a symbiote capture scheme. It is only
a matter of time before Eddie ends up at Area 51, by which time Strickland
shuts down Dr Paine’s research because that’s how military men show their
authority.
The climax takes
place at the facility with Knull’s multi-tentacled hounds detecting Venom. Some
of the staff decide if you can’t study a symbiote, wear one. Naturally, the
Moon family are caught up in the mayhem.
Venom: The Last
Dance is best enjoyed as a road
movie comprising of moderately enjoyable set pieces and ten minutes of credits.
That’s right. You get a whole set of songs played before the film’s own post
credit sting. Will it feature Spiderman and, if so, which one? I feel duty bound to say that the webbed
crusader does not appear. Instead, our Mexican barman (Cristo Fernández)
discovers a vial containing a Symbiote. Now that I’ve told you, you’ve less
chance of missing your train. Meanwhile, Marcel will move on to franchises new,
or at least I hope she does. She’s tackled both Mary Poppins and sadomasochism,
but not in the same movie.
Reviewed at Cineworld
Leicester Square (Screen Three), Central London, Thursday 21 November 2024,
17:40 screening
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