Venom: The Last Dance Review

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This is a DynaMic Network podcast.

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the Dynamic Duel Podcast, a weekly show where we review superhero films and debate the superiority between Marvel and DC by comparing their characters in stat-based battle simulations. I'm Johnny DC. And I'm his twin brother, Marvelous Joe. And in this episode, we are reviewing the latest Marvel Sony film to hit theaters, Venom, The Last Dance.

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Yeah, the franchise is part of the Sony Spider-Man universe, which has not been great. I would say that the Venom franchise is probably the best thing about it. But how did the latest Venom movie stack up compared to the rest of the films? We'll find out later on in this episode. Before that, we're going to break down the comic book movie news from the past week, of which we've got two Marvel news items. It's an all Marvel episode today. First, we have the set photos that reveal our first look at Spider-Man Noir.

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and the news that the MCU Blade film has lost its release date. As always, we list our segment times in our episode description, so feel free to check out the show notes if you want to skip ahead to a particular topic. Our artificially intelligent duel simulator, AJ9K, has a quick message for our listeners, so listen up.

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Why hello there, do you want even more from this podcast? Then become a part of the dynamic duel community on Patreon, where you can choose from three tiers. The dynamic two-oh tier gives you access to our Discord chat server. The fantastic four tier gives you two bonus episodes each month, and the X-Force tier makes you an executive producer of this show. Lastly,

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The DynaMic podcast network tier lets you create your own podcast using this Monte Carlo simulator. Johnny and Joe will help you develop your show, provide graphic support and consultation, and get you simulation results. Pitch the twins your ideas via email at dynamicduelpodcast at gmail.com. Check it out at patreon.com slash dynamicduel. Pip pip cheerio. Thanks AJ9K and thanks to everyone who supports the podcast.

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Guys, be sure to tune into the other shows on the DynaMic Podcast Network this week, including Max Destruction, which pits your favorite action heroes from film and television against each other. This week, hosts Scotty and Gilly are determining the winner between Poe from Kung Fu Panda and Fiona from Shrek. On the Senjou World Podcast, host Zachary Hepburn speculates on fights between fan favorite anime and manga characters. This Thursday, Zach will find out who will win between Tetsuo from Akira and Tatsuo from

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and Lucy Dictonius from Elfen Lied. You Elfen lied to me, bro. On the console combat podcast, hosts John and Dean simulate battles between popular video game characters. In yesterday's episode, they found out who would win in a fight between Freddy Fazbear from Five Nights at Freddy's and Willie Weasel from Willie's Wonderland. Visit dynamicpodcasts.com or click the link in our show notes to listen to all of the shows in the DynaMic Podcast Network.

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But with that out of the way, quick to the No Prize! A No Prize is an award Marvel used to give out to fans. Our version, the Dynamic Duel No Prize, is a digital award we post on Instagram for the person that we feel gave the best answer to our question of the week. Last week, we asked you guys, who do you think is the scariest Marvel or DC character and why? And we asked that because Halloween is coming up in a couple of days, and we got a lot of great answers from you guys. Let's go ahead and run down our honorable mentions as well as the No Prize winner.

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Our first honorable mention goes to Colby Hentges, who said, Hey, boys, Colby Hentges, the scariest character in Marvel or DC is Major Force. He will murder your girl and put her in a refrigerator. I don't want none of that. Yeah, Major Force is a evil version, I guess you could say, of the hero Captain Adam. He is notorious for killing Kyle Rayner's girlfriend and then stuffing her in his fridge.

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which was just horrifying in the comics, completely unnecessarily violent. I could see where Major Force would be very scary for that reason. Yeah, Kyle Rayner is a Green Lantern, right? And I remember it was horrifying in the comic books because Kyle Rayner came home, not knowing where she was, opening up the refrigerator and then finding her there, which is something out of a slasher film, scary movie. That is absolutely horrifying. I remember my first exposure to that was in the Green Lantern Fears Itself comic book,

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graphic novel and there was a painted rendition of his girlfriend in the fridge. And I remember just being like, what the fuck is this? Cause I had no context and it just seemed horribly violent and scary to me. So yeah, I thought this was a pretty good answer. Yeah, it's the event that coined the term fridging that's known in the comic world. Yeah, it has a negative connotation where writers will use love interests deaths, primarily as plot devices for the protagonists, you know, and not really treating them like real characters.

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It's a shallow move to say the least, but in this instance here, it was a particularly scary one. Great answer, Colby. Our next honorable mention goes to Cyrus Moore, who said, Hey guys, Cyrus Moore here. And I think I'm going to butcher this last name, but I think Victor Zaz, the Batman villain, is probably the scariest DC villain of all time. I mean, serial killer who kills people that tallies.

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how many kills he has on his body, just a real creepy character, creepy backstory. I think he's definitely the scariest. Yeah, we've seen Victor Zazz appear in quite a few films outside of the comics. He was in Batman Begins, he was in Birds of Prey, he was in the Gotham television series. But yeah, the dude's fairly creepy in that he's probably the least fantastical Batman villain in that he's just a serial killer who...

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carves a tally mark into his skin for each kill that he's had and his body is covered in tally marks. Yeah, I've seen versions of the character in the comics where his tally marks are kind of sparse along his body, but I've also seen renditions where they like cover almost his entire body and they're across his forehead and his back and everything like that and it just makes me wonder like what does he do when he runs out of room? I don't know. Just stretch that scrot.

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That's a horrifying visual. So yeah, a particularly scary response to a scary question. Great answer, Cyrus. Our next honorable mention goes to Mason Thompson, who said, I hate scary things. I'm gonna be straight up. I hate scary things. Why do you wanna be scared of something? Tell me, why do you wanna be scared of something? We could go off like auras and stuff, but like, if we're talking base looks, I'm going upside down, man, from

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DC it oh I do not like it it's terrifying it's get out get out of my face so yeah the upside down man was a villain that Wonder Woman's version of the Justice League dark faced in the comics dude is super creepy he's all white he has no face except for a mouth like where his eyes should be it's it's a disturbing look you know it's almost like something out of like stranger things or something like that you know

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So yeah, a relatively new and obscure character, but definitely creepy. To answer Mason Thompson's question, the reason we like to be scared, people who like horror films, is because it gives you an adrenaline rush and kind of amps you up mentally to, I think, better prepare the horrors that are out there in the real world. Like, if you watch, like, Paranormal Activity, you will be prepared when you're walking through your house at night and you hear a loud creak or something like that. You're gonna be like, you know what?

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I've already mentally gone through this, so I'm not afraid. Yeah, you will be ready for that shit. Right, so it just helps you to be brave. If you can handle a fictional scenario that you're watching, you might just do better in the real world. I think that's the appeal. That said, I also hate scary things, and I refuse to watch them. I love scary things. I watched a lot of great horror movies this Halloween season. And I also feel like you have more nightmares than me. I don't though, because I'm not a wuss.

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Just man up and watch it follows already, like I told you to a thousand times. Hey, hey, I will when I'm getting ready. I just don't wanna be like recording down here in my basement, then all of a sudden like, I turn around and there's like someone right there. That's why I tell you, you have to watch it. No, I'm good. So you can be prepared for when that happens. So great answer Mason Thompson. We wanna give a quick shout out to Daniel Alonso and Michael Williams for taking the time to visit our site and record your answers. We really appreciate it.

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But the winner of this week's snow prize is Travis Herndon, who said, What's up dynamic dudes? Travis here. Shout out to my evil twin. So my answer had to be no. I mean, look at him. He looks like like if you get any from Iron Maiden and Freddy Cougar together, and this is their love child. This dude is creepy. Yeah. You can say, well, venom is scary or carnage is scary, but hey, we wouldn't have those two without this lanky ass creepy motherfucker. I'd be more terrified of him than those two any day of the week.

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What an appropriately timed answer for this Venom the Last Dance review. Null, the eldritch god of darkness in the Marvel Universe, is creepy as fuck. You know, he's all white, he has long white hair, black eyes, except for the red spots, and his smile goes all the way almost up to his ears, and a mouthful of sharp teeth. Dude is intimidating not just because of how he looks though, but also because of what he says and what he does. You know, the guy has the feats.

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to back up his claims and when he says like, you will drown in a sea of gnashing teeth and as your limbs are ripped from your body, your blood will drench the darkness or some shit like that. You know, everything he says is like a lyric to a death metal song. I'm not too familiar with Null from the comics, I'm not gonna lie. But spoiler alert, we are doing a duel between him and the White Lantern Kyle Rayner in our next episode. Yeah, that'll be a fun one. So stick around for that next week.

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Great answer, Travis, you win this week's No Prize if you the listener want a shot at winning your own No Prize. Stay tuned to later on in this episode when we will be asking another question of the week. And now that that's done, onto the news! Alright, this past week we got our first look at Spider-Man Noir from the upcoming Amazon television series titled Spider-Noir that's being produced by Sony.

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and it's starring Nicolas Cage and it was quite the surprise when the show was announced. I thought it was really nice that they cast the same actor who voiced the character in the Into the Spider-Verse film. I was really looking forward to seeing how this was going to turn out. I'll admit that I didn't have the highest of expectations when it came to things like the costume, but boy was I wrong because the set photos that we got that were released by TMZ look fantastic.

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The character design is straight out of the Into the Spider-Verse movie in that he has the fedora because in the comics he doesn't really wear the fedora, although I think they brought that on later on when they saw how good it looked in the animated movie. But he's got the trench coat on here. We see him like riding on top of a 1930s era car because the series is set during the Great Depression and we even see him like shooting out his hand to fire a web and it all looks fantastic. It's the stunt double on top of the car, most likely not Nicolas Cage, but things are shaping up pretty well.

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for the Spider and War series. Do we know that for sure? Cause I know Nicolas Cage does a lot of his own stunt driving. Well, he's not driving. He's standing on top of a car. Same thing. No, I'm pretty sure it's a stunt double. The way he's crouched and everything like that just make it more plausible that it's the stunt double. Though we have seen Nicolas Cage in the costume sans his mask. And I thought he looked pretty cool. I mean, the costume is very basic. It's all black with a black trench coat, but not gonna lie, that's still kind of cool. Well,

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The costume is his Uncle Ben's World War I Airman uniform. Oh, that's cool. With a trench coat on top of that. So that's pretty cool. As we discussed on this podcast earlier, they did make some changes to the Spider-Man Noir story in that this is gonna be Ben Reilly instead of Peter Parker, who in the comic books is actually a clone of Peter Parker, but I don't think he's gonna be a clone here. He's just named Ben Reilly in this particular universe. Yeah, I'm guessing Kevin Feige from Marvel Studios made them do that.

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I'm actually surprised to hear that this is on Amazon Prime. I thought it was going to be on Disney Plus. No, Amazon Prime. Interesting. It's going to be a crime show, although I believe it's also going to have some supernatural elements to it. So if it's done like in the vein of something like Batman, the doom that came to Gotham or something like that, I think that'd be pretty cool. You wish. If it was only half as cool, you'd enjoy it. That's true. That's true. But with this first look at his costume release, I'm really looking forward to seeing what else we get.

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from this series. We don't have a release date yet, I believe, but I'm already eagerly anticipating it. Yeah, you have to imagine it's going to come out sometime next year. Yeah, probably late next year or early 2026 is my guess. Speaking of release dates though, we got the really sucky news this past week that Blade has been removed from its 2025 release date that was set to be next November. It is sucky news, I guess it's not really surprising news considering that if they wanted to make that release date,

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They would have already probably started shooting and we definitely would have had a new director by this point, ever since Yann Demange left the project. Now this doesn't mean that the movie is cancelled, it's just been delayed. And Marvel has picked up like three new release dates going into 2028 I believe, so it's entirely possible that they're just choosing to sit on the Blade movie until they have you know, the right script and the right director for the project. I'm just wondering why this keeps happening to this movie.

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I don't know. Is it really that hard to crack a good Blade story? Because I feel like we've done it at least three times already. You mean the first three Blade movies? Yeah. I mean, I would not count Blade Trinity as a good Blade story. They at least gotta make sure they do better than that with this reboot. Yeah, but that film had problems outside of just the story. And I feel like the problem that this new movie keeps running into is that they can't agree on what the story is creatively.

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Yeah, maybe. I mean, reports say that the previous scripts that were submitted had Blade as not the main character, and he was more of like a side character in his own film, which didn't make sense, so something is not quite going right from the conception phase, I think. But I am really excited to see Mahershala Ali as the Blade character. I know that a lot of people are hoping that Wesley Snipes comes back into the role.

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I think that's just wishful thinking. I think he's kind of aged out of it by this point. And I thought they gave him a pretty decent sendoff in the Deadpool and Wolverine film. There's only been one Blade. There's only ever gonna be one Blade. I really like Mahershala Ali as an actor. And I just think he'd be fantastic in the role. So here's hoping they kind of crack that story and this Blade movie could pick up a release date in 2026 or 2027 or something like that.

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It's interesting that you're saying that he was written into stories where he wasn't the main character, even though he's the title character supposedly, because I'm seeing current rumors that they may just skip the Blade movie and skip straight to a Midnight Suns film. Yeah, that's one of the rumors that's going around. I really hope that's not the case. I think that would be an instance of Marvel pulling a DC, which they definitely don't want to do.

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And I say that because, you know, they threw together the Justice League movie without giving all the characters on the team their own films, which I think was a mistake. They should do it the Marvel way, like they did with the Avengers, where the characters had their own films leading up to the movie. You know what they should do? Just give each of the Midnight Sun characters their own special presentation, like holiday type film. Just do that. Like you don't need to do a full feature length thing. Just do a short and then have the Midnight Sun's movie.

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I wouldn't hate that. I mean, they gave a special presentation to Werewolf by Night, which I thought was really solid. I had a lot of fun with that one. So, I would not be unhappy with that. But as we mentioned earlier, like, Blade fights vampires, right? Just make a movie about that. Make it interesting. It shouldn't be that hard to figure this story out. And with that in mind, that brings us to our question of the week.

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Give us your best 30 second film pitch for the MCU's Blade movie. Now we're looking for you fan fiction writers out there to dig deep and give us a quick pitch of what basically the plot is for what you think the MCU's Blade movie should be. Record your answer at dynamicduel.com by clicking on the red microphone button in the bottom right hand corner of the screen, which will prompt you to leave us a voicemail. Your message could be up to 30 seconds long, and don't forget to leave your name in case we include you on the podcast.

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We'll pick our favorite answer and award that person a dynamic duel no prize that we'll post to Instagram. Be sure to answer before November 2nd.

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That does it for all of the news for this episode. Now let's go ahead and move on to the main event where we review the latest Sony Spider-Man universe film Venom, The Last Dance.

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Alright, Venom The Last Dance was written and directed by Kelly Marcel and stars Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Juno Temple. Director Kelly Marcel also wrote the first two installments of the Venom franchise and took over as director for this latest go-round, which I kind of thought was interesting because I found it probably the best directed installment of the bunch. Yeah, it definitely felt like the most cohesive in regards to both the direction and the writing. Yeah, it kind of felt-

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more like an MCU film than the previous two installments did, right? Yeah, I can see that. I was kind of dreading this movie, especially after the lackluster film before this, Venom Let There Be Carnage, which we gave two and a half stars. But with Venom The Last Dance, I found myself not thrilled with the movie, but satisfied in a way that I wasn't with the last one, because I had some fun with this film, kind of like the first movie. There's some cool action, some humor that lands.

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and some good character beats. So if you haven't seen Venom the Last Ants and plan to, listen no further because this is a spoiler review. My biggest gripe with the second film, Let There Be Carnage, was that Venom was reduced to a caricature of himself and the movie leaned a little bit too far into his goofy side as a means of subverting this scary looking monster.

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And that really doesn't change here too much with this movie. We do have, you know, Venom making margaritas, singing to David Bowie, and dancing to ABBA. As fucking ridiculous as that can be for fans of the comic book character, The Last Stance at least has one thing going for it over Let There Be Carnage, and that's that this third film actually has good stakes. You know, there's an actual feeling of danger to the proceedings.

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And the movie actually had balls to sacrifice the title character, I think, in a way that felt meaningful. And I can respect that. And I actually thought that those stakes helped offset some of the goofiness that we see here. Because, you know, this film had the potential to be pretty dark otherwise. Yeah, it has pretty dark themes, right? There's oftentimes throughout the film where Venom's kind of talking about how things would be better for Eddie, maybe, if the two were separate. But...

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that you don't really want to be separate. So then it kind of has this ominous foreshadowing that kind of hangs over the entire film, I would say. Yeah, and in that sense, the humor and the jokes that were at play here actually had purpose, unlike the second movie where the jokes were mainly just for shits and giggles. Because we all know that Carnage wasn't nearly as menacing as he could and should have been. But things like, you know, Venom's instant addiction to gambling, the symbiote horse...

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Those things just worked for me in this movie in a way that they didn't in the second film. I'll say that Venom 3 has the greatest amount of spectacle too out of all the films. All the action beats I thought were on point including the fight in the dog pit, the airplane fight, the river chase. That fucking fight at the end of the movie at the Empyrean base at Area 51, holy shit man. Like seeing all those multiple symbiotes.

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and how they each have their own fighting style going up against some of the most impressive movie monsters I've seen in a long time, the Xenophages. That shit was badass. Dude, I want to see a Xenophage go up against a Xenomorph Queen on Max Destruction. The Kamacho twins have to do that battle. That would be pretty cool. I mean, the Xenophages move pretty well though, like whether it's through the air with their super leaping ability or running on the ground.

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and their fucking woodchipper heads, right? When I saw them devour one of the Imperium soldiers and like basically all of his blood and guts shot out the back of the creature's head, my jaw dropped. And I was like, what the fuck did I just see? I've never seen anything like that in a monster movie. So just when you think you've seen it all, Venom III has some surprises up its sleeve. Are the xenophages from the comics? They are, yeah. They're not creations of null.

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but they are natural alien predators of the symbiotes. Gotcha. Really what the xenophages should be, and fans of the comic books will know this, they should have been symbiote dragons. Those are the eldritch creatures that Null has created, and symbiote dragons have the ability to kind of spew out symbiotes of their own. And that would have been cool to see here, but I can understand why they went with the xenophages, because if you start introducing dragons into the Venom franchise,

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then things kind of start feeling a little bit fantasy based and you want to keep things kind of alien and monstrous. But it would have been cool to see Grendel in this movie, who is one of Null's first symbiote dragons that got trapped thousands of years ago on Earth. Hmm. That shit went entirely over my head, but it sounds cool. And you have to imagine that maybe we'll get to see that in future installments within Sony's Spider-Man universe.

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Yeah, and I'm glad you brought that up because it is really hard to know what to think about this movie at the end of it in regards to future installments for Sony's Spider-Man universe. Now, this is supposed to be the last time we see Tom Hardy suited up as Venom and as Eddie Brock. And yet the movie set up so many cool threads that we're not sure will ever be picked up in future installments. And you might even call them plot holes in this sense, but things like Null.

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Things like the shadowy organization behind Imperium. Things like that, you know? What's gonna happen there? Is Sony's Spider-Man universe gonna continue or is it going to falter? Who knows? Ideally, the best case scenario is that Spider-Man 4 involves the character of Venom and they pick up a lot of these dangling threads. In that regard, I hope the movie actually does really well at the box office, because it would be nice to have that best case scenario happen, essentially.

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Yeah, I feel like a lot of people have been speculating that Noah will be a part of Spider-Man 4. And I think Marvel Studios has been hesitant to confirm that. I think they're waiting to see how well this Venom movie does. So if you do want to see Venom in Spider-Man 4, the more people that see this last Venom movie, the better. Yeah, in theaters too. I think that would be best for everybody.

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Because, you know, it's worth seeing on the big screen, I think. There are some pretty solid visual effects here. I think the visual effects for the symbiotes are better also than the previous two installments. So I accidentally saw this movie in 3D, like I got my tickets and they're like, oh, here's your 3D glasses. And I was like, what? Gosh, dang it. And it was like the last showing of the night. So I was like, whatever. But it wasn't terrible, actually.

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I could think off the top of my head of some pretty cool scenes that I think would have been cool in 3D, like the airplane scene. Yes. Like when Venom's floating head is talking to Eddie, things like that. There were definitely some shots that they did that I felt like were tailor made for 3D, where it's like, okay, yeah, that was totally meant for me to like, trying to reach out and touch it. And actually, my daughter who saw the film with me did exactly that. That's cool. I bet you Lasher was really cool in 3D.

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with her tentacles. Oh yeah, yeah, all of the symbiotes were really cool in 3D. Nice. Now you mentioned before that the plot threads might be plot holes. I don't think that's the case. I definitely think they're plot threads that could be picked up in another film so I don't fault them for that. That said, I do think this film has plot holes such as how the hell did Venom know that Area 51 had this like acid shower bath thing? That's a great question. He wouldn't have known. Yeah. It made for a dramatic death scene though.

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Like I felt really bad for Venom actually, you know, seeing this character that we've grown to know and love over the course of three films die in such a horribly painful and tragic way. I think it was hard for Eddie to watch, too. And I guess some other things that aren't quite plot holes, but are just kind of weird is like what was up with Dr. Payne's whole backstory and, you know. Dude, I get into that. Okay. That whole fucking thing was so bizarre.

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We'll get there though in the character breakdown. Speaking of which, let's go ahead and do that now. First, let's talk about Venom slash Eddie Brock, played by Tom Hardy. You know, if this is the last time we ever see Tom Hardy as the character of Eddie Brock, which I hope it's not, I want to say that Tom Hardy's performance should go down as one of the most technically brilliant physical performances ever committed to the screen. Even if there's like some probably speed ramping involved, I think his movements when Venom is in control

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make it actually seem as if they're involuntary, as if he has strings that are being pulled like a puppet. I think a lot of people might wonder why such a gifted performance on par with Charlie Chaplin or Peter Sellers would be wasted on a franchise as goofy as Venom. But you know what? I still respect it. For my money, there was no other actor better suited to the role of Eddie Brock. So again, let's just make sure that he either returns in Spider-Man 4 or maybe even in the MCU.

26:59
I do agree that it was a great physical performance, but I had the same problem with Tom Hardy's acting in this film as I have in previous Venom films, and that is he kind of mumbles a lot. And also it's really hard to understand his Venom voice in some instances. I noticed that here too. Like I understood it, but then I was thinking, man, I hope other people got that because that was kind of an important plot point that Venom just stated when he was giving like exposition regarding the character of Null and the codex and things like that.

27:29
Yeah, I understood everything. For the most part, Venom was saying regarding exposition. That said, as I'm sure we'll get into later, the exposition in this film is kind of terrible. I can see where you can make that point. The dialogue was not great in this movie, especially between Rex Strickland and Teddy Payne. Yeah. How they're like commenting, I'm like, oh, here we are now in the Imperium headquarters beneath Area 51. You know, it's just, it's too obvious. Right? It's like, what? What are you guys doing? Yeah.

27:58
Is this your first time here? What's going on? Yeah, like talk like normal people, right? Exactly. Story-wise, Eddie's prime motivation was to go to New York, which really didn't work for me because he was going there because he had dirt on a judge and wanted to blackmail them into clearing his name. Like, how does that remotely seem like a good idea? I will grant him that the character was drunk when he had the idea, but still, like, blackmailing a judge, you know, committing a crime doesn't seem like a great way to exonerate yourself of other crimes.

28:27
It just seems like a good way to rack up more charges, honestly. And honestly, like if you're going to do something like that, wouldn't it be simpler just to, you know, threaten the prosecuting attorney or like the case judge or something like that? Yeah, I guess that's true. I'll say that there were some great character moments for Eddie. I was genuinely moved in the camper scene with the Moon family when Venom was commenting on how it would have been nice to have a family and how Eddie would have made a great dad.

28:55
Those scenes with the kid were a great and kind of tragic peek into what could have been for Eddie Brock. And of course, you know, the sacrifice at the end was also really touching as Eddie sees this creature that he didn't always get along with but had over time really connected to die in this really painful way. And like seeing Eddie remember his and Venom's moments together across the franchise was also a nice touch as he was at the Statue of Liberty. I choked up a bit.

29:23
Yeah, no kidding. There was a kid who was straight up balling in my theater at the end of this movie. Oh, dang. He was crying from the time Venom was killing himself all the way to when Eddie was looking at the Statue of Liberty. I was like, calm down, kid. Poor kid. Not only is this a movie, he was an alien.

29:44
You know, like as much as you don't want to see Venom and Eddie be separated, I think the movie did do a nice job of signaling that it was time. You know, Eddie looked worn, he looked tired, he definitely signaled that he was dealing with a lot like when he killed the Imperium soldier in the river. It kind of made the loss of Venom a little bit more acceptable, I think, just because it kind of felt like it was that time. But you know, I expect we'll see Venom back before long, hopefully. Let's go ahead and move on to Commander Rex Strickland.

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who was played by Chiwetel Eziofor. Eziofor is a better actor than what the script gave him. There wasn't nearly enough for him to do for an actor of his caliber. And I kind of feel bad that he just came across as kind of a generic angry military guy. I kind of felt like this was a paycheck for a number of actors who appeared in the film. That said, they didn't do a bad job. They made the most somewhat of what was on the page.

30:40
It just felt like, why are you in this movie? Why are you even accepting these lines? You're better than this. It's really strange, though, particularly what she would tell Ejio for because his character, Rex Strickland, is actually kind of a major character in the King of Black storyline. In the comics, Rex Strickland was a soldier in Vietnam who was given an ancient symbiote found on Earth by S.H.I.E.L.D. in order to become a super soldier.

31:06
and he helped Eddie out when his mind was stuck in the symbiote hive mind in the King and Black story arc. And I kept thinking that at some point, Rex was going to bond with the symbiote and we were going to get to see the Tyrannosaurus symbiote, but that just never happened. Like at the end fight scene against the xenophages, a symbiote should have bonded with Rex. And I was kind of really confused when that didn't happen. It makes me wonder why they bothered making this military guy, Rex Strickland, to begin with. You know, he should have been.

31:35
General Orwell Taylor, who we theorized his character was from the trailers. Yeah, who knows? Maybe in earlier drafts of the script, he was that character, but for some reason they decided to go with Dr. Payne as the symbiote. And Dr. Payne's not even a fucking character from the comic books. There's a Thaddeus Payne who was like a villain that went up against a venom whose power was that he couldn't feel pain, but he never bonded with a symbiote or anything. It's weird. Speaking of Dr.

32:05
This character will go down in history as having the worst flashback in cinematic history. I'm not even sure why that whole scene with her brother on the beach and the lightning storm was even necessary considering it had no reason to be in this movie. No, you're right. Like, they tried to develop her character way more than what was necessary considering the role that she had to play in the plot. You know, I think that screen time actually would have been better spent on an actual character from the comics like Rex Strickland instead of Dr. Payne.

32:35
And like really she had less to do than her associate, Dr. Sadie Christmas, who was also an original character. What? She was original too? What the hell is going on? I don't know. I have no idea. But it was weird that they both got symbiotes, but Rex Strickland did not. So backwards. You kind of just degraded this film for me a little bit, because that sounds really dumb. Yeah, it is dumb.

32:59
But I think what kind of elevates the film back up a half a star is just seeing how cool Lasher and Agony were in the movie. Lasher being the green symbiote that Sadie Christmas had and Agony being the purple long-haired symbiote that Dr. Payne got. Well, at least they're the symbiotes characters from the comics. Yes. Yeah, I'm pretty sure the orange one was Phage. And we already saw Riot in the first movie. He was the main antagonist of the first film. So we saw all the life foundation symbiotes between the two films.

33:29
But there were even more symbiotes in this movie, like the fire guy, the blue snake looking one. Those were all original and they were pretty cool. What was the name of that guy in the cell? Detective Patrick Mulligan. What was his symbiote? I don't know the name of his symbiote. In the comic books, Detective Patrick Mulligan is the wielder of the Toxin symbiote, who is the offspring of Carnage. Now, we thought that in this movie we'd get to see Toxin, but that definitely was not Toxin in the container.

33:58
And there's a line in the movie about how Patrick Mulligan survived the events of the Carnage movie because he had bonded with a symbiote, but that it had left his body and evaded Rex Strickland's forces. So Toxin, the symbiote, is still out there somewhere around San Francisco, but they bonded a new symbiote to Patrick Mulligan in this movie. The blue one that I don't know the name of. Well, that's stupid because apparently symbiotes could graft to fucking anybody.

34:26
Yeah, that's a thing that is not in keeping with the first film, because in the first film, the Life Foundation found that the symbiote had to be like a proper match to the host, kind of like an organ donor type situation. Otherwise, the test subject would get really sick and then die. But here, the symbiotes were just crafting on to all kinds of scientists and soldiers, and it seemed like they were doing just fine. And animals, which actually, I thought that was kind of cool. That was really cool. I liked the symbiote horse. I liked the symbiote fish. That was really cool.

34:54
and the frog was pretty interesting. And all the different cool animals we got to see in the end credits. I know that's not like in the story, but it was just also really cool to see visually. Yeah, yeah. Let's go ahead and move on to Martin Moon, who is played by Reese Ifans. Going into the movie, I thought it was going to be really hard to get over the idea of Reese Ifans playing the character because he's also, you know, Kurt Connors the lizard from the Amazing Spider-Man franchise. And we saw him recently in the No Way Home film, you know, and seeing him here.

35:21
just cemented the idea of the Venom films taking place outside of the Spider-Man universe and it's just something you hate to see, you know? And I'm not 100% sure Martin Moon was entirely necessary to the plot in this film, but I will say that over time he grew on me and I did begin to appreciate his appearance because it offered a chance for some solid character development for Eddie, you know? Like Martin Moon was almost like his spirit guide on his journey and he kind of reminded the audience of...

35:49
the humanity basically that was at stake in this film. Sure. Yeah. Kind of brought some like real life stakes to the final battle. And that here was this ordinary family that, you know, could be killed. Yeah. The family kind of ramped up the danger and ramped up the levity to the proceedings, I think. There were some funny moments with the family. Yeah, definitely some funny moments. But like you, I also am not 100 percent sure they were even needed in this film. I would have much rather seen more backstory regarding Noel.

36:18
Or at least see Null in action in some way. I don't know. Yeah, I think the best way to see Null in action would have been through flashback, kind of seeing him take on the Celestials or something like that before his eventual imprisonment by the Klyntar alien race. Yeah, I wanted to see more of that for sure, because it was kind of confusing in that I knew he was like the main bad guy of the film. And yet, by the end, we didn't get to see him fight Venom. That surprised me.

36:45
Yeah, it was kind of like the primary antagonist of the film was really the Xenophage. They also had Rex Strickland, but he's not nearly as cool as Null, I'll say that. No, yeah, you're right. Speaking of Null, he was played by Andy Serkis. I thought the design was straight out of the comic books. I thought they gave him a really great setup. It's unfortunate there was no payoff and

37:06
So you just have to hope that we'll see him again sometime in the future and that they're just really playing the long game, which they should do. You know, Null should not be a one and done villain. You know, he's kind of like Thanos. We should really see him spread out over the course of multiple films as a major threat. Yeah, if Kevin Feige doesn't hop on this setup that Sony gave him, then that is a huge shame. I don't think Sony would let him. I think they're planning their own thing with their own Spider-Man universe. Well, then I don't care anymore because that's just stupid.

37:36
Do I really want to see Madame Webb go up against Null? No. Morbius? No. Craven? Absolutely not. I'd watch it. Shut up. Let's go ahead and move into our story highlights.

37:56
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38:15
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38:42
The movie starts as we see Null, the eldritch god of darkness and creator of the symbiotes, imprisoned on Klintar by the beings he created. Looking for the codex key that will free him, he creates the xenophages, symbiote hunters, and sends them out into the cosmos to find the codex. So right when I heard the word codex I was like, oh, okay, like Man of Steel, gotcha.

39:08
No, this is entirely different. The Codex is actually from the King and Black storyline, except there the Codex was this basically Matrix hive mind that the Klyntar alien race shared and Eddie Brock got lost in it. But here they kind of reworked the Codex so that it's an actual key that forms when Asymbo resurrects its host. And what did you think of that? That change that they made? I think it worked for the story that they were telling here.

39:36
I did like how the codex was represented by that red spiral, which is basically the symbol of Null, and it shows up on the faces of the symbiotes that he is in control of. So that was kind of like a nice Easter egg. In Mexico, Eddie Brock and Venom learn about the MCU 616 universe before being pulled back into their home dimension to a similar bar. There they learn from TV news that Eddie is wanted for the alleged murder of Detective Patrick Mulligan from the last movie.

40:04
and Eddie decides they should get to New York to blackmail a judge into giving them amnesty. They leave the bar and stumble upon a dog fighting pit where they fight and devour the dog fighters. Venom and Eddie are caught in Mexico on camera alerting Imperium, a government operation working out of a secret base below Area 51. The cocktail scene was pretty funny with Venom singing tequila as he's making Eddie a margarita. I thought that was pretty funny.

40:30
But it just made me think as Eddie got transported to his home dimension bar that the Sony Venom universes seems like a slightly more sucky version of other Marvel universes. Like this universe's version of the bartender is just like a down and out version of the MCUs. This universe's version of Baron Mordo is just an army guy named Rex. This universe's version of Kurt Connors, the Lizard, is just some dirty hippie named Martin. Like everything's kind of similar, but vaguely more shitty.

40:58
Well, Kurt Connors wasn't even the MCU version in the No Way Home film. Technically, he was from a different universe. But we've never seen the MCU's version of Kurt Connors. He may be played by re-siphons still. I don't know. Who knows? That's true. That's fair. But you're right. Yeah, I guess this is like the suckiest Marvel universe ever. It just kind of killed me how much they dropped the ball on Eddie Brock's whole cameo appearance in No Way Home. Like that didn't amount to squat.

41:27
No, it didn't. It was basically just that, a cameo. Superlinks. With no real major implications, except that Venom did shed in the MCU. He did leave like a shedded piece of himself, just like he did in this movie. A shedded piece? Shedded piece. Oh, okay. What did you think of the dogfight scene? That was cool. I actually really liked that scene. I thought it was a great opening action scene for the movie. I left my ass off when Eddie Brock threw his slipper.

41:56
at one of the bad guys. The croc? Yeah. Like a chancla. And he spent basically the whole movie looking for another pair of shoes because he kept losing them. Imperium's commander Rex Strickland visits the Mexico bar to obtain a venom sample left there and detain the bartender for questioning. They're brought to Area 51 which is being decommissioned where Commander Strickland and

42:21
who is being held at the Imperium facility due to his life being saved via bonding with a symbiote. Mulligan's symbiote, which had arrived on Earth with a handful of others on a meteor that crashed at Area 51 and was being studied there, explains to Commander Strickland and Dr. Payne that they came to Earth looking for a safe haven while fleeing their creator Null and his xenophage hunters. I do have to ask, why did they need to take the bartender? For questioning.

42:48
They wanted to learn more about where Venom might be going. And yeah, so they're going to interrogate him. Do you really think he was worth an after credit scene? Because I can't believe I stayed for that. I think he was brought in for the after credit scene as a reminder to the audience that while Venom was at the bar, he did leave a shedded piece of himself. And I think that's what their insinuating head bonded with the cockroach that was there and then interacted with the vial containing the agony symbiote.

43:18
Like the spark from that container, I think, kind of signified a sort of like CPR effect on that Venom sample. So you're saying that there's a way for Eddie to get Venom back. Correct. OK, I did not make that connection. In that case, I guess that was an important scene. What did you think was the point of that whole after credit scene? I have no clue, dude. I had no clue. All right. Meanwhile, Eddie and Venom hitch a ride on the outside of a commercial airplane flying to New York.

43:46
but they're discovered by a xenophage who attacks them and forces the pair to leap off the plane, landing in the Mojave Desert. There, Venom explains that when a symbiote resurrects its host, like what Venom did to Eddie during their fight against Riot, that a codex is formed that is the key to unlocking Gnull from his prison. Venom states that the xenophage can track that codex when the symbiote takes over the host, and therefore Venom has to avoid taking over Eddie.

44:11
He instead takes over a horse to get him and Eddie across the desert. Regarding the codex, it makes you think that a symbiote would avoid ever resurrecting its host because it knows the consequences would be forming the codex. But I think that just speaks to Venom and Eddie's relationship and that Venom actually cared enough about Eddie to resurrect him and risk the formation of that codex. Right, right. Reports of the airplane attack reach Imperium and Commander Strickland sends a squad out to the desert where they find and chase Venom and Eddie through a river.

44:41
The fight forces Venom to take over Eddie, which draws in the Xenophage, who makes short work of the Imperium forces, letting Eddie and Venom escape. Back at Area 51, Mulligan's symbiote explains that unless either Venom or Eddie die and the Codex is broken, the Xenophage will obtain the Codex and release Null, leading to the death of all living beings in the universe. Fantastic stakes, as I've mentioned before. I'm really wondering that if Null actually does get released in a future Sony Spider-Man

45:10
Universe movie how these characters would ever stand a chance against him because the guy is basically all powerful. You know Morbius ain't gonna do shit against him. Neither is Madame Web or Spider-Man or Venom or all of them teamed up for that matter. Cravin. Back to the movie Eddie and Venom stumble upon Martin Moon, an alien enthusiast and his family who are on their way to visit Area 51 before it's fully decommissioned.

45:35
hopes to see an extraterrestrial, and they offer to give Eddie a ride to Las Vegas in their camper. Arriving at the Paris Casino, Eddie and Venom run into Ms. Chen, who has struck it rich gambling. She and Venom share a dance, but they're ambushed by Imperium's forces who located Eddie and Venom's location via security cameras. They separate Venom and Eddie, bringing them to the Area 51 base. I thought the gambling scene was pretty funny. If you've ever played a slot machine, you'll know

46:05
but it is really fun to pull that lever in a way that is probably unhealthy. Well, nowadays, all you have to do is push a button. You don't even need to pull the lever. But why would you? I like to pull the lever though. Best part. What did you think of the dancing scene? On one hand, you really hate to see a character like Venom dance to ABBA. On the other hand, it was kind of funny. It was more funny than I thought it would be, especially when Eddie was like, what did you guys have time to rehearse this?

46:31
That was great. Yeah, but it does make me wonder, like, was Mrs. Chen reintroduced in this film just so they could have this dance scene? I think Miss Chen was a popular enough character from the previous two films. I mean, she even showed up in the Spider-Verse movie, speaking to the spot. So I think she's just kind of become a staple of the franchise. And I think she'd be sorely missed if she wasn't in one of these films. Well, that's right. I forgot the character was in that movie. Yeah, I guess she is a staple now. I guess we'll see her in Craven next.

47:01
At the Imperium base, Eddie meets Mulligan's symbiote who tells him to free Imperium's captured symbiotes. Commander Strickland shoots Eddie in an attempt to destroy the Codex, however Imperium scientist Sadie Christmas, who had bonded with Venom in order to save him, delivers Venom back to Eddie. Venom and Eddie's reunion alerts the Xenophage to their location, who attacks the Imperium base forcing several of their soldiers and scientists to bond with the captured symbiotes.

47:30
who unite to attack the creature. Eddie and Venom try to flee as the xenophage sends a signal to Null to send more creatures and the symbiotes are overpowered. Who was your favorite symbiote out of the group? Still Venom. I liked the orange rocky looking one. I also liked the fire one, although I don't really think that makes sense. You could say that purified symbiotes no longer have the weakness to sonics and fire, but it just doesn't ring true, I think, to have a symbiote with lava powers.

47:58
That being said, it was a cool visual, especially when the Xenophage ate the Assymbia and shot flames from the back of its head. That's a spicy meatball. I am really confused as to why Dr. Christmas bonded with Venom. You said it was to save Eddie, but she didn't know that was going to happen. And why would she want to save Eddie considering the fact that she knew the stakes if they were to re-bond?

48:22
I think she knew that either Venom or Eddie was going to die there and she felt bad about it. It almost seems to me like she was just trying to straight up steal a symbiote. I don't think so considering she gave it to Eddie Brock right away. It was interesting how some of the symbiotes were like elemental, that you had, you know, your rocky symbiote, your fiery symbiote, your electrical symbiote. Right, vine symbiote. Yeah, which is not really something from the comic books, but I actually really like that as a concept.

48:50
Venom would just be like the dark ink symbiote, oil symbiote. Yeah. Is it just me or are the moon parents the worst parents in the history of parenting? And I feel like there are real parents like that too, which is wild. Let's sneak onto this military base where we could potentially, you know, get shot and bring our kids with us who can also, you know, get shot. There's no aliens here kids. That's unfortunate because I really wanted us to be attacked by aliens.

49:20
Venom and Eddie realize that one of them has to die in order to stop the xenophages. Eddie accepts his fate, but Venom separates himself to assimilate the xenophages and protect Eddie. Venom brings the creatures to acid tanks used for destroying Area 51's equipment, and Commander Strickland melts Venom and the creatures before destroying them and himself with a grenade. Eddie falls unconscious before waking up in a military hospital alone, where he learns that he's been pardoned of all charges as long as he keeps quiet about Area 51 and the

49:50
and he travels to New York City where he visits the Statue of Liberty while remembering venom. Um, how powerful was the grenade that Commander Strickland used? Because holy shit, not only did that destroy himself and Venom and the Xenophages, but it was also like a massive ass almost nuclear explosion that rained down fire across a massive radius. From one grenade, like was the acid combustible or something? That's what I was thinking, like it was flammable acid somehow. I have no idea.

50:20
There's gasoline in that acid, right? The whole acid thing just throws me like right when I saw that scene, I was like, OK, that's going to be used somehow later. I'm pretty sure. But like, why were they dissolving things with fucking acid? Makes no sense to me. That's a great question. I don't have the answer for you. It doesn't make sense. But it was kind of a cinematic way for venom to go out, you know. Sure. Did you think that Eddie was going to die when he was in the helicopter?

50:49
just kind of like bleeding out. I wasn't sure which one of them was gonna die, but when Venom healed Eddie at that point, I realized that Venom was gonna be the one to sacrifice himself. In a mid-credits scene, Null threatens the universe, and in an after credits scene, we see the Mexican bartender leave the destroyed Imperium base, along with a Venom symbiote-infested cockroach that walks near the broken bile that contained agony, which gives him an electric shock.

51:15
What did you think of the mid-credits scene? It was pretty simple. It was basically just Null saying that he's gonna burn everything and you're gonna watch. I thought it was appropriately scary, but it also just served as a reminder that we didn't get to see Null, really. Like, the guy was in shadows the whole time, we didn't get to see him fight or see what he does. Like, he's scary, but why should I be afraid of him? Well, I certainly was afraid of him. Maybe that's just because I know him from the comic books, so I know how big of a threat he is.

51:45
but I don't know how general audiences would feel about the character. They're probably less afraid than they should be, is my guess. Because that dude's no joke. It was his sword, after all, that Gorr the God Butcher got a hold of, you know, and he laid waste to a whole pantheon of gods, so you can just imagine what Null himself can do. Well, it would be nice if they made that reference, although the MCU kind of ruined that too. Yeah, yeah, Gorr the God Butcher in Thor, Living Thunder was not quite the same character,

52:14
But that's the end of the film. Overall, I enjoyed the movie, basically about as much as the first Venom film. I think Venom the Last Dance offers a heartfelt farewell to the franchise, while unexpectedly breathing new life into it, resulting in an uneven but mostly enjoyable experience. Like the first Venom movie, I'm rating Venom the Last Dance 3.5 stars, a fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

52:41
I think I would have given it a 3, although I could see how you could argue for 3 and a half. Just given the hearts of the film, I think that goes a long way. It was definitely a heartfelt goodbye at the very end, so walking out of the theater I could see 3 and a half. I don't think it was a good movie. I think the acting was fine, but I think the writing was just the bare minimum of what mediocre writing should be.

53:08
I thought the direction was probably the best of the franchise. So yeah, I could see the case for three and a half stars. Story wise, it's a three star film, but then you have that climax with the group of symbiotes fighting the xenophages and that bumps it up a half star on its own. Because I just love that scene so much. But that does it for this review guys. AG9K helped close this out.

53:32
Thanks for listening to Dynamic duel. Visit the show's website at dynamicduel.com and follow us on Instagram at dynamicduelpodcast. You can support the show on Patreon at patreon.com slash dynamicduel and joining a tier that works for you, or by rating and reviewing Dynamic duel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podchaser or on our website. Don't forget to listen to the other shows in the DynaMic Podcast Network, including Max Destruction, Senjou World and Console Combat.

54:01
Our next episode, as we've mentioned several times during this episode, we're going to have a duel as a tie into this review where we pit White Lantern Kyle Rayner against Null. Yeah, I'm a huge Kyle Rayner fan. He was Green Lantern when I first started reading comic books. So I'm super excited to showcase him finally. And I'm also glad that I learned a lot more about Null in this episode because I really didn't know anything about him. And I'm already plotting his demise, as it were. Spoiler alert, Null Fridge's.

54:30
Kyle Rayner in the next episode. So look forward to that. But that does it for this episode. We want to give a big thanks to our executive producers, Ken Johnson, John Sturawski, Zachary Hepburn, Dustin Belcombe, Mickey Mathangian, Brandon Estergard, Nathaniel Wagner, Levi Yeaton, Austin Wisselowski, AJ Dunkerley, Scott Camacho, Gil Camacho, Adam Spies, Andrew Shunk, Dean Maleski, Devin Davis, Joseph Kirstein, and Josh Leiner for helping make this podcast possible. We'll talk to you guys next week.

54:59
Up up and away, true believers. This is Major Tom to ground control. I'm stepping through the door, and I'm floating in a most peculiar way. And the stars look very different today.