Plenty of fun if you ignore the glut of dull exposition

The third and supposedly final outing in the Venom series is a delight when it is not being a Madame Web’ rerun, writes Clarisse Loughrey, while The Room Next Door’ falls flat

- Clarisse Loughrey

★★★☆☆

It’s a testament to Tom Hardy and writer-director Kelly Marcel that the process of having to bid adieu to the veiny, intrusivethought-made-hulking-flesh that is Venom may bring the whisper of a tear to the eye. Venom: The Last Dance is, supposedly, the third and final outing for the classic Spider-Man adversary who, for contractual reasons, has not been allowed to fight any Spider-Men.

The Venom trilogy has partly been Sony’s Eminemsoundtracked, oddly vintage attempt to offer a clapback to MCU wholesomeness. Yet, thanks largely to Let There Be Carnage, the trilogy’s 2021 middle chapter, it’s also transformed into a feverishly inspired romcom between Hardy’s moto-jacketed journalist Eddie Brock and Venom, the alien symbiote who latched onto him.

The Last Dance, though, sees the franchise unfortunately relapse somewhat into the Morbius and Madame Web brand of dense, dull exposition that Sony’s non-Spider-Man movies seem drawn towards like a moth to a flame. Knull (voiced by Andy Serkis), the “god of the void” and Venom’s creator, whose appearance is of the interchangeable, skeletal wraith variety, is on the hunt for a codex that will free him from his prison and allow him to get back on schedule for destroying the universe.

We’re subsequently introduced to more symbiotes, all helpfully colour-coded, and Knull’s squad of symbiote hunters, the xenophages, a generic alien foe save for a quite cool feature that sees them spray a blood mist out the back of their heads every time they chow down on someone. Two accomplished actors, Ted Lasso’s Juno Temple and Oscar nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor, play a scientist and a soldier, respectively – jobs that largely involve peering through observation windows and attempting to fathom the unfathomable.