Ben O'Shea Reviews: 'Venom: The Last Dance'.

Ben O'Shea stops past the studio to give his thoughts on the new film 'Venom: The Last Dance', out in cinemas now.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Great to flick with ben o'she mister telephone, how are
you mate? Still still recovering? I'm probably about that well done,
well done. Yeah, probably about ten hours ten hours of
sleep shorts so far this week, but I'm catching up,
catching up for it. What a weekend it was. And
now this movie I've got to talk to you about today.
There's some movies that I bring to you, guys, and

(00:22):
I know straight away that maybe it's not going to
be Leafa's Alley, a Venom and comic book movies. I
know don't don't float your boat, generally Rely and No
and the Venom franchise. Look, I don't have high hopes
that you're going to go along and see this one
leaf No the first film. The first film came out

(00:45):
in twenty eighteen. It's Tom Hardy as an investigative journalist,
which is where they went wrong in the first place.
Tom Hardy has got a lot of qualities. Playing a
sort of an intellectual investigative journalist is definitely not one
of them. He's not really within his not within his wheelhouse.
But he's very good at the physical stuff. We know that,

(01:07):
and so in this film, an alien symbiote attaches itself
to his character Eddie Brock, giving him these superpowers. The
only catch is this alien symbiote, Venom, is not necessarily
a really good creature, like it's pretty manevolent. It likes
to feast on human brain, for example, and it doesn't

(01:28):
care which human it is. And so Eddie does a
deal with Venom that, Okay, I will let you eat
the brains, but they have to be bad guys, and
so yeah, yeah, exactly the same. And Venom in the
comic book universe is one of the most is one
of the most beloved anti heroes of the Spider Man universe,

(01:49):
and so there was a lot of excitement when this
film came out in twenty eighteen. It was unfortunately borderline unwatchable.
The script made no sense. Tom Hardy's performance was bizarre,
and it just didn't work with this kind of cg creature,
this sort of covering his skin and then disappearing and
then appearing, and it was very, very hard to watch.

(02:12):
The sequel in twenty twenty one, Venom, Let There Be Carnage,
was a little bit better. It was directed by Andy Serkis,
who of course played Gollum, and it had wey Halson
as another sort of person who had been possessed by
a different alien symbiote, and you know, like it was
still a lot of the same problems. Tom Hardy's performance

(02:33):
was a bit weird. The cg was a bit hard
to watch, but you go, okay, that's like marginally better.
And now along comes Venom the Last Dance, which purports
to be the final film in this trilogy. We get
a sort of a conclusion, that's the point because Eddie
and Venom realized there is this, you know, big bad

(02:54):
guy somewhere else in the universe who's discovered their existence
on Earth and wants to kill them gain possession of,
you know, something called a codex. It's just a classic
mcguffin situation. And so they go on the run while
this alien creature is hunting them. All pretty standard stuff,
but they get some of the most poignant, funny moments

(03:18):
of the franchise in this film. But that is an
extremely low bar to clear. And then right at the
very and then right at the very end, when you go, okay, well,
the stakes are kind of a bit real. There's something
about to happen. Maybe not everybody is going to walk
away from this film, and so there's a chance to
give it like a little bit more meaning than perhaps
you sometimes get in these comic book movies. But they

(03:41):
absolutely stuffed up by trying to set up for future
sequels that are apparently going to start Juno Temple from
Ted Lasso as you know, as someone else is possessed
by an alien symbiot and just whatever, these future movies
look like they look like the worst thing that I've
ever seen, and so you basically go, you just you

(04:04):
just wasted all of my time watching the previous two movies,
and this one as well. I don't know, it's one
of the most egregiously shameless setups for future films that
could just completely undercuts this current film. Ben in the
Last Dance, it doesn't do Tom Hardy any favors. And
as for the character of Venom, which a lot of
nerds love, you know, it's a really really shameful way

(04:29):
to treat this character. Even though the previous couple of
movies weren't that amazing. This was meant to be the
last supper for the alien parasite. How disappointing A couple
of gags? Yeah, okay, well, how many It's such a
shame because I really like Stephen Graham's You Do. It

(04:54):
would actually be more enjoyable, I think, to take you
to this movie and just watch your reaction. Yes, let's
do that if we could. If we, I would give
that five start. Yeah, straight out of the game. But
as for Venom as the Venom the Last Dance two
and a half, two and a half, alrighty, We'll take
Lisa a long and I'll leave her brains while we're watching. Thanks,

(05:15):
Thanks Ben. Next week, Thanks guys here. Maud