Venom: The Last Dance - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Venom: The Last Dance



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:

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Movie
The Venom series has been an interesting roller coaster due to Sony having PARTIAL rights to Spiderman himself, and the fact that since they couldn’t use Spidey to introduce the infamous symbiote, they had to go a completely different multiverse route to introduce THE most popular anti-hero in all of Spiderman’s rouges gallery. I actually liked the first movie. After a ton of teasers from the internet, I wasn’t exactly thrilled going in, but coming out I had a big smile on my face. Sony made it a much smaller budgeted film than I expected, and it was more of a horror/thriller than your typical superhero film. Eddie Brock was naturally the main host (which Tom Hardy did a decent job portraying), and even with some alterations to Venom’s personality, I enjoyed what we got. The second film can only be described as “rushed” and “squandered”. I mean, they made more of the same, but just amped up the comedy a good half a dozen notches, and introduced Venom (and Spidey’s” most brutal arch enemy. Only to butcher the character of Carnage and wrap things up way too easily. It teased the introduction of Toxin with Detective Mulligan’s corpse, but I wasn’t expecting much in the way of a sequel for the obvious third installment that would be forthcoming.

Venom: The Last Dance promises us the moon by introducing none other than Knull himself, god and creator of the symbiotes, as well as the biggest baddy in Marvel history over the last decade. I knew from the very first trailer dropping that they were going to butcher Knull, as there is no way in blazes that they can do justice to the king of the void. It would take a good decade of setup ala the first 3 phases of the MCU to do it right, and with rumors that this would be the last Venom film, I was guessing he would be defeated as easily as carnage. Turns out that I was part right. Knull was not done justice, but WAS surprised by the fact that he was simply turned into a bookend McGuffin for the film. The film opens with Knull imprisoned out in the void by his own symbiote creations, stuck for eternity without a way out except by one mysterious key. A “codex” is created when a bonded symbiote/host dies, and the symbiote revives him (ala Eddie in the first film). That codex is the ONLY thing that can free Knull, forcing him to send out his symbiote hunter/killers known as Xenophages to hunt Eddie and Venom down for their master.

Well, once Eddie and Venom figure out that Knull’s minions are coming for them, they have to hit the ground running and hide as fast as possible. Luckily for the duo, the Xenophages can only lock onto the codex inside them when Venom has fully morphed into his full form with Eddie. So the duo have to keep low, not transform at all, and HOPEFULLY make it out alive. That is if the government doesn’t catch them first and transport them back to Area 51 where they’ve been experimenting on symbiotes for years. Well, of course, that happens, which leads the Xenophage right to the human base, requiring a team-up between Venom and sympathetic Dr. Paine (Juno Temple) in order to take down the hunter/killer before it’s too late.

The one thing that really stands out to me regarding Venom: The Last Dance is the word “squandered”. There are so many cool Venom comic teases from the last two films, and each film has basically named dropped and then ignored them for a rote storyline. The same thing happens here, with the Multi-verse team up with Spiderman that they hinted in the after-credits scene of the last movie getting retconned, then Detective Mulligan becoming Toxing is also shoved to the side. They half hazardly mention that his previous symbiote left Mulligan for dead, and they just bonded another nameless one onto him to act as a narrative device to let the humans know about Knull (we’re going to call him the “Baja Blast” symbiote). The same can be said for the introduction of Agony (who bonds to Dr. Paine) and most of all Knull. Knull himself is simply a bookend for the film, growling out threats while in bondage, only to be ignored for the other 95% of the runtime.
Juno and Hardy do solidly in their role (with Hardy playing Eddie Brock like a strung-out heroin junkie), but I was still put off by the slapstick humor from the second film that transferred over to this one. It gets to be a bit much with Venom cracking jokes like he’s in the MCU, and I noticed that they also changed the back story of the symbiotes a bit to make them “friends” to humanity instead of conquerors in the first film. That being said, it was fun enough for a brainless popcorn film, and certainly better than the rest of the “Spiderverse” films that Sony has been attempting lately (Looking at you Madame Web and Morbius). But still, it’s a frustrating film that just doesn’t do much to further the Venom storyline at all.




Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, bloody images, and strong language.




4K Video: Video:

While the movie isn’t exactly solid gold, the disc sports a fantastic native 4K transfer for the UHD disc, and it sparkles in just about every way imaginable. The Last Dance still utilizes the grim and dark looking color palate of the previous two films but still has more than enough pop and pizazz with the brightly colored symbiote army, as well as the Vegas scene with Mrs. Chen. Black levels are deep and inky, and I could find no signs of major crush or banding anywhere. Comparing it against the Blu-ray in the set (thank god some studios are still putting out combo packs), the 4K UHD disc handily outclasses the 1080p in every way imaginable. Especially in the black levels. There’s some minor softness here and there to blend the edges of the CGI, but overall this is an excellent Sony transfer.







Audio:

The Dolby Atmos track found on the 4K disc (the Blu-ray in the set has the typical downgraded 5.1 DTS-HD MA track) is nearly PERFECT in every way. Much like the video, there is almost nothing to complain about here. Sony makes great use of the Atmos format, blasting us in the face with a wall-to-wall action movie with some incredibly immersive moments. Helicopters roar through the overhead channels, and Venom’s crunching footsteps and powerful blows reverberate through the regular surrounds. Bass is deep and low, with several stand-out moments in the final battle that started shaking my whole room. My only little niggle that drew it down from a 5 to a 4.5 was that some of the early moments could have used a bit lower bass, as I’m pretty sure there’s a pretty steep sub 20hz filter on this sucker judging by my ears.





Extras:

• Deleted & Extended Scenes
• Venomous Laughs: Outtakes & Bloopers
• Bonded in Chaos: Tom Hardy
• Author of Mayhem: From Writer to Director
• Venom's Inner Circle
• Venom Unleashed: The Action & Stunts
• Select Scene PreVis
• One Last Dance – Tom Morello x Grandson Music Video
• Savor the Last Bite: The Venom Legacy
• Brock Bottom: Mrs. Chen Interview

Final Score: ​

Did I like Venom: The Last Dance? I wouldn’t say that, but I also didn’t dislike it that much either. I really enjoyed the first film, and while I didn’t love the 2nd, I had fun enough. Personally, I felt that this one was directly on par with the 2nd film, so if you liked that one, you should like Last Dance. Sony’s 4K UHD set looks and sounds phenomenal as always (Sony makes killer transfers), and fans will definitely want to pick it up to complete the trilogy (from what I gather, this is the last Tom Hardy standalone Venom film, as they’re trying to somehow integrate him into the MCU somehow). Rental is my final opinion on it.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Eijofor, Juno Temple, Rhys Ifan, Peggy Lu
Directed by: Kelly Marcel
Written by: Kelly Marcel, Tom Hardy
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 HEVC
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Core), Spanish DTS-HD MA 5.1, Spanish, English, French, DD 5.1
Subtitles: English, English SDH, French, Spanish
Studio: Sony Pictures
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 110 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: January 21st, 2025

Recommendation: Rental