Regardless of its larger franchise connections, it’s clear that the Venom films’ success has been predominantly due to the odd couple bromance between Tom Hardy‘s Eddie Brock and his black symbiote friend from outer space, Venom. While the first Venom established this goofy reimagining of the characters’ dynamic, Venom: Let There Be Carnage leaned into this further with a rom-com narrative taking centre-stage (the sequel even leaned into the gay subtext, with such lines as “I’m coming out of the Eddie closet”). In what’s being billed as ‘the epic conclusion’ to the trilogy, Venom: The Last Dance gives us one last run-around for Eddie and Venom that never quite decides on a tone — although it does deliver on its titular last dance for the character…

The story starts off with a clunky exposition dump from new villain Knull (Andy Serkis, co-starring in the threequel after directing the last entry), who vows to hunt down every symbiote who imprisoned him. He’s after a MacGuffin called ‘the Cortex’, which has formed on Eddie and Venom — although for plot contrivance reasons, this is only visible when they’re in full Venom-form. After an opening act which tries to reconcile the increasingly-convoluted multiverse shenanigans of recent Marvel adaptations (the last film ended with Eddie and Venom transported to the same universe as Tom Holland‘s Spider-Man, but they just sat in a bar for most of the time), our symbiotic leads are on the run from the police, Knull’s servant the Xenophage and from Imperium. The latter is a top-secret government agency underneath Area 51 tasked with investigating symbiotes, led by Dr. Teddy Payne (Juno Temple) and Rex Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor). From there, the film switches between a quirky road trip story and vague threats about the impending doom caused by Knull.

The road trip storyline is easily the strongest aspect of the film, leaning into the dynamic between Eddie and Venom, providing some fun comic moments and even at some points offering character development (it’s clear that the two’s connection is stronger than ever, despite the ominous portends that they’ll be permanently separated before the end). Rhys Ifans — not reprising his role as Curt Connors/The Lizard from The Amazing Spider-Man and Spider-Man: No Way Home, for clarity — shows up in a comic role as an alien enthusiast heading to Area 51 in a camper van with his family (he even sings Space Oddity to Venom’s delight). An IMAX-shot underwater action set-piece is undoubtedly a highlight from a spectacle point-of-view, with some impressive stunt-work. There’s a running visual gag in which Venom possesses several different animals, although disappointingly these moments are far too brief to add to any of the action or the laughs.

Unfortunately, the potentially fun on-the-run road trip movie is interrupted by a series of tedious exposition dumps from some dull supporting characters at the Imperium facility. The editing becomes very choppy whenever we cut back to this storyline, while the horrendous ADR raises the question of how these scenes were meant to play out before being seemingly re-worked in post-production. Juno Temple and Chiwetel Ejiofor are good in their respective roles, although they have very little to work with, and so little effort has been put into the world-building that it’s difficult to get a sense of what Imperium is actually all about. Stephen Graham reprises his role as Patrick Mulligan from Let There Be Carnage, but he’s relegated to exposition dumps about the big bad (who, minor spoiler alert, is purely here for sequel-bait). Inevitably, the different storylines coalesce in the third act for a conceptually fun action finale that doesn’t feel earned and isn’t grand or exciting enough to work as a piece of pure spectacle.

As part of the Filmed For IMAX® program, Venom: The Last Dance was shot with IMAX-certified digital cameras and features 40-minutes of IMAX exclusive Expanded Aspect Ratio, which provides up to 26% more picture only in IMAX. Most of the key action sequences are presented in the full 1.90:1 aspect ratio, while the various gunfire, explosions and symbiote slithering sound particularly great with the IMAX sound system.

Venom: The Last Dance has some fun moments but ultimately feels too self-serious for its own good. Despite its promise of a satisfying end to the trilogy, there’s a lot of plot threads left dangling for some kind of continuation later down the line (either in spin-offs, sequels or some kind of crossover with other characters). If you’re a fan of Tom Hardy‘s Eddie and Venom dynamic, there’s plenty to enjoy here, but if you’re still not sold on Sony’s Spider-Man spin-off films, there’s little in this third Venom film to dance about.

And for those interested: there are two credits scenes to look out for at the end.

Venom: The Last Dance is out now in IMAX