Skip to main content

Venom: The Last Dance review – messy sequel ends series with a shrug

Tom Hardy’s agreeably silly Marvel franchise wraps things up in a patchy final adventure that needed a tighter, and funnier, script

The recent, long-awaited, cratering of the superhero movie (with a notable Deadpool-sized exception) has led to a mad scramble – release dates pushed, marketing strategies tweaked, Robert Downey Jr bribed – and a concerned question mark over what the future might hold for Hollywood’s most commercially lucrative contemporary genre. The Venom franchise, which launched in 2018 to surprise success, had already felt like a throwback to an earlier time – a glossy and light-hearted burst of mid-00s nostalgia – but now, with its third and final chapter releasing at such a fraught time, it also feels like a reminder of a more recent time when these films used to mean more to audiences.

Whether or not something like Venom: The Last Dance will jolt enough of a response remains to be seen (the second film saw a $350m drop at the global box office and the third is tracking for a franchise-low opening) but it’s at least a smartly planned conclusion to an inoffensively silly and low-stakes series, Tom Hardy and his quippy alien symbiote leaping off a sinking ship with a spring in their step. It’s not as catastrophic as Madame Web or as redundant as The Marvels or as annoying as Deadpool & Wolverine, it’s just about passable in a throwaway kinda way, blessed by a surprisingly brief runtime that doesn’t allow it to grate or exhaust. If only it amused and excited us a little bit more.

Continue reading...

from The Guardian https://ift.tt/18IPZMS
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Green Planet review – David Attenborough’s gobsmacking, awe-inspiring return

From glowing bioluminescent fungus to 7,000 different camera set-ups for ants, the veteran broadcaster’s miraculous profile of plant life will have you gasping in astonishment so often you’ll be breathless One of the televisual joys I most remember from childhood was when a programme – often a nature documentary, but sometimes a few seconds on Sesame Street or a Tomorrow’s World demonstration of new technology – would show a flower unfolding with time-lapse photography. It was always sudden, always fleeting, and of course there weren’t even any recording buttons – let alone live pausing and rewinding facilities – that you could quickly press in order to capture and relive the delight. It was ever ephemeral, and I could never get enough. Until now, with the latest gift from David Attenborough and his endlessly patient and dedicated team of camera operators (to whom a now traditional 10-minute coda is again devoted), The Green Planet (BBC One). The new five-part series presented by the...
Post a Comment
Read more

How Rico Lewis helped harden up Manchester City’s treble challenge | Jamie Jackson

Guardiola believes advent of the teenage talent sowed seeds of change that turned his side into champions again Mid-January, the Etihad Campus. Before Tottenham’s visit a discontented Pep Guardiola is addressing a Manchester City team meeting that includes Erling Haaland, Kevin De Bruyne, John Stones and Ederson. The champions are in second place, eight points behind Arsenal, each having played 18 games. Performances have dipped and so has the attitude of his players. The final match before the World Cup was a 2-1 home defeat by Brentford . Since the tournament, City have beaten Leeds and Chelsea, drawn with Everton and lost their previous outing , 2-1 at Manchester United. Seven points from 15 is not championship-defending form and, when being knocked out of the Carabao Cup by Southampton is factored in, Guardiola can see City’s campaign derailing. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/h8WjbMX
Post a Comment
Read more

Wandsworth escape accused says it was ‘foolish’ to jail him with his ‘skill set’

Daniel Khalife, 23, says he absconded because he was ‘terrified’ of being locked up with dangerous offenders A former British soldier has told a jury he did not hand himself in after he escaped from prison because he was “finally demonstrating what a foolish idea it was” to imprison someone with his “skill set”. Daniel Khalife, 23, told the court he absconded from Wandsworth prison while on remand because he was “terrified” of being locked up with “serious sex offenders” and “terrorists” who wanted to kill him, and that he did not think his imprisonment would be in the public interest. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/vRZHkaw
Post a Comment
Read more