October 29, 2024 – The first two Venom movies included some grisly humor, but this latest, and supposedly last, Venom movie leans more into silly humor. The once fierce alien cuts a rug in Vegas with Mrs. Chen (Peggy Lu reprising her role from the first two Venom movies). He also enjoys a sing-a-long road trip with hippies.

The Venom trilogy concludes with the introduction of a new supervillain, Knull, and his minions, called Xenophages. Knull sends his Xenophages throughout the universe in order to find some magic thing called a codex. It turns out that Eddie (Tom Hardy, who also has a writing credit on this movie, reprising his role from the first two films) and his symbiote, Venom, have a codex. They cannot get rid of their shared codex without one of them dying.

Eddie and Venom are on the run, both from the Xenophages, and from government alien hunters stationed at Area 51 in Nevada. The military alien hunters are part of a secret government program called Imperium which captures aliens and imprisons them in a secret facility far underground. The capture team is led by Rex Strickland (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor of “12 Years a Slave”).

Eddie and Venom hitch a ride on a plane headed for New York, but are attacked by a Xenophage, and land in Nevada, where Eddie is befriended by Martin (Rhys Ifans of “The Amazing Spider-Man”) and his family, who are heading to Area 51 to see it before it is decommissioned (a government cover up to keep Imperium a secret). The family ends up on Nevada's “Extraterrestrial Highway” (Nevada State Highway 375) including the “black mailbox” at Alamo, Nevada (which was actually a white mailbox the last time I saw it).

Eddie and Martin part ways in Las Vegas, where Eddie just happens to meet his old friend Mrs. Chen for one last dance before a Xenophage and Imperium forces crash the party. The ridiculous coincidences continue as Martin and his family show up again, along with a guy who is supposed to have died in “Venom: Let There Be Carnage.”

An essential ingredient in any science fiction movie are pretty women, and this movie has two, Doctor Teddy Paine (alternately spelled Payne) and Xenomorph researcher Sadie Christmas (played by Clark Backo of “Happy Place”). They both work at Imperium. A seemingly superfluous Teddy Paine (played by Juno Temple of the “Ted Lasso” series) back story about the long ago death of Teddy's twin brother is tacked on for some reason. Perhaps this sequence was included in the movie because Teddy is considered an important Marvel character.

While this is supposed to be the last Venom movie, a mid-credits scene indicates otherwise, and you can never say never in science fiction. After all, Marvel has brought back dead characters before, like Black Widow and Gamora. At any rate, Tom Hardy is a fabulous actor, and he is very good here, as is Rhys Ifans as the UFO enthusiast.

This movie is loaded with inconsistencies and unlikely coincidences, but it is also full of humanity and good-natured fun. There are some very nice moments between Eddie and Mrs. Chen, and also between Eddie and Martin's young son, Leaf (Dash McCloud of “Old Dads”). This is a flawed, but enjoyable movie. It rates a C+.

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