Venom: The Last Dance

Venom: The Last Dance

Posted on October 24, 2024 at 2:00 pm

B-
Lowest Recommended Age: Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 intense sequences of violence and action, bloody images and strong language
Profanity: Very strong language for a PG-13
Violence/ Scariness: Extended comic-book action-style peril and violence, characters injured and killed, some disturbing and graphic images, sad death
Diversity Issues: None
Date Released to Theaters: October 25, 2024

Now that Tom Hardy has taken over Venom the way the comic-book outer-space symbiote took over journalist Eddie Brock, the one-time Spider-Man universe super-villain is now…the good guy? Hardy co-wrote and co-produced this final (maybe final-ish?) chapter, its foundation is still comic-book, but its heart is a goofy buddy-movie, with Eddie (Hardy) happy to call on his wisecracking “friend” Venom to kick bad-guy butt and just to keep him company.

If the toothy Venom is going to be a good guy, we need a new bad guy. On wherever Venom came from, he/they/it was one of many whatever-they-ares that managed to imprison a super-evil, super-powerful something called Knull that can only be freed with a MacGuffin unimaginatively named the codex. And so the mysterious villain deploys some flying scorpions through various portals that take them throughout the universe to find this codex, which can only be found guess where.

Copyright Sony 2024

We first see Eddie drinking sullenly at a bar in Mexico (look for “Ted Lasso’s” Dani Rojas, Cristo Fernández, as the bartender). He and the co-inhabitant of his body, the toothy Venom, have a companionable relationship, as we see when Eddie calls on his inner Venom to take care of some scary animal-abusing bad guys. As we also see when a convenient newscast comes on a nearby television screen, Eddie is the target of law enforcement and needs a place to hide. Venom wants to see the Statue of Liberty. He/they/it is, after all, a huddled mass yearning to breathe free, tempest-tossed, and, yes, something of a wretched refuse, and grateful for being welcomed to a new home.

And so we’re off to a buddy road trip, as our single body/dual-personality heroes set off for the east coast. They don’t get very far in terms of miles, but they meet up with some interesting characters along the way, including Rhys Ifans as a hippie, alien-seeking dad named Martin, traveling in a van with his wife, daughter, and young son. As the government announces the shut-down of the notorious Area 51, it secretly opens an underground real alien study lab nearby called, unimaginatively, Area 55. It is presided over by unimaginatively named Dr. Payne (“Ted Lasso’s” Juno Temple), who finds the pulsating plasma they have collected fascinating and is unscientifically optimistic about its dangers. And it is fumed over by General Rex Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who considers whatever they are studying to be an extinction-level threat until proven otherwise. “Something terrible is always imminent,” he intones.

But we’re not here to debate policy; we’re here to see creatures fighting creatures, punctuated with over-the-top, wackiness, and that this movie delivers. “I got stuck with a superhero who can’t fly,” says Eddie, and next thing we know, Venom, who seems to be made of a substance that is part Silly Putty, in part rubber cement, has him glued to the side of an airplane, and later, thankfully, into a parachute. Then there is the Cinderella-like series of lost shoes Eddie has to cope with. And the many familiar needle drop songs, from Cat Stevens to, I’m not kidding, a dance number to ABBA’s “Dancing Queen.”

The action scenes are okay. The human characters are so thin that one’s decision to wear a Christmas tree brooch in summer is considered a trait worth commenting on (it also helps to identify post-transformation). The world-building is near-non-existent. But the film’s commitment to its off-beat goofiness makes it kinda fun.

NOTE: There is an early-credit extra scene and, for those who wait ALL the way to the end, one more scene after the credits.

Parents should know that this film is a close-to-R PG-13, with very strong language and extensive comic book/action-style peril and violence. Characters are injured and killed, with a sad death, and there are some graphic and disturbing images.

Family discussion: Why did Eddie come to think of Venom as friendly? Who should oversee science, scientists, politicians, or the military?

If you like this, try: the comic books, the other “Venom” movies and “Transformers One”

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Wonder Wheel

Wonder Wheel

Posted on November 30, 2017 at 5:36 pm

C
Lowest Recommended Age: Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for thematic content including some sexuality, language and smoking
Profanity: Strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs: Smoking, drinking, references to alcoholism
Violence/ Scariness: Peril and off-screen violence, references to mob killings
Diversity Issues: None
Date Released to Theaters: December 1, 2017
Date Released to DVD: March 3, 2018

Copyright Amazon 2017
Writer/director Woody Allen continues to explore questions of fate, chance, and choice he has addressed with much more art and understanding before in “Wonder Wheel,” a dreary, dull story set in 1950’s Coney Island. Unlike the character who talks about responsibility, Allen tries to duck his own failures by having his stand-in narrator tell us that the story is filled with metaphor and symbolism. That stand-in is Justin Timberlake as a lifeguard named Mickey who wants to write big, dramatic plays like Eugene O’Neill, and he addresses us directly in an unsuccessful attempt to make the story appear more meaningful.

Mickey, who is going to school on the GI bill after his service in the navy during WWII, is having an affair with a married older woman, Ginny (Kate Winslet). She is a waitress at a clam joint on the boardwalk, but she tells him she is a former actress who is just playing the part of a waitress. Her husband, Humpty (a blustery Jim Belushi) runs the carousel. She has a young son from her first marriage who lies, steals, and sets fires everywhere. And Humpty has a daughter named Carolina (Juno Temple), estranged since she married a mobster five years earlier, who shows up because she is on the run. She has left her husband and shared some information with law enforcement, and now goons want to kill her.

All of this could be set up in a few brief scenes, but this is a movie where everything has to be said at least twice, just to drag it all out. Slate’s Sam Adams writes that Allen is trying to justify some of the highly-controversial choices of his personal life and attack his former partner (and mother of his current wife) in this film. It is equally possible to read it as a mea culpa, with Ginny’s confession that she destroyed her one chance at personal and professional happiness when she betrayed her first husband, belatedly realizing he was the love of her life, but just could not help herself. Is this fate? A recurring character flaw? Allen does not seem interested enough to follow through.

The production design gorgeously brings to life the look of 1950’s Coney Island, the beach, the boardwalk, and the rides. Ginny and Humpty literally live under the ferris wheel that gives the film its title, reminiscent of Alvy Singer’s family living under the roller coaster in “Annie Hall.” Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro gives a romantic glow to many of the scenes, perhaps making a link between Ginny’s red hair and the fires set by her son. The actors do their best to bring the characters to life, but with a repetitive, underwritten script and sour, dreary tone, it is as though instead of putting his characters in a story he tossed them like pennies in search of an I Ching fortune. In life, we can debate the role of destiny, fatal flaws, and choice. But a writer is in control of all three for his characters, and no amount of visual flair or acting talent can obscure the failure to make those choices meaningful.

Parents should know that this film includes sexual references and situations, adultery, strong language, drinking and alcoholism, references to domestic abuse and child abuse, smoking, and references to mob violence.

Family discussion: What symbols can you identify in this story? What does the ferris wheel mean? What about the fires?

If you like this, try: “Crimes and Misdemeanors”

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James Franco: Making a Scene — Returning for a New Season

Posted on January 31, 2017 at 8:00 am

The third season of James Franco’s “Making a Scene” will be available in April on the new digital media company Blackpills.

The new season includes “Anaconda Scissorhands,” a parody fusion of Nicki Minaj’s Anaconda and Edward Scissorhands, “Famous Potter” a mashup of Kanye West’s “Famous” with the Harry Potter series, as well as “Poker Things,” a satirical collision of Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” with the Netflix original, “Stranger Things,” featuring guest stars including Josh Peck and Juno Temple.

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