It feels like it took forever, but we’re finally here. It’s the end of the Tomy Hardy Venom movies and for many, it’s a sad moment to see the pair go. Whilst the films themselves weren’t particularly memorable, they were a better attempt at a live-action Venom than what we got before. Sorry Topher Grace, you were awful.
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But for Tom’s “last outing” it seems audiences weren’t pleased. Across the board we’ve got a Google Audience rating of four out of five from 2836 reviews. 40 percent on Rotten Tomatoes from 183 reviews, six out of ten from 30 thousand reviews on IMDB, and a Critics Score of 41 from 46 reviews over on Metacritic. So it’s not doing great. But we’re going to run down the ending to show how this chaotic mess of goopy aliens finally fits together with the ending of Venom: The Last Dance, explained.
Note: Venom: The Last Dance was made on a budget of 120 million, but returned 317 million. Whilst it’s a box office success, the review scores don’t paint a pretty picture. Plus, we don’t know what was spent on marketing.
Warning: Spoilers For The Ending Of Venom: The Last Dance Are Below.
Venom: The Last Dance Ending, Explained
So, we’re now three films in and from the outside without watching the movie you would assume that having “The Last Dance” in the title seems pretty final. But you would be wrong as by the looks we still have at least one or two movies left in the tank. However, we’re getting ahead of ourselves, here’s the rundown.
Venom: The Last Dance has the gruesome twosome on the run. Fresh off of taking down Carnage and Cleetus Cassidy, the pair are in Mexico hiding from Symbiote Hunting Aliens, the FBI, the American Army and a special task force that’s been set up to neutralize and contain symbiotes. Quite the odds.
It all culminates in a final showdown of Venom, rescued Symbiotes, and the human military against the Symbiote-hunting aliens known as Xenophages.
The symbiotes come from the Imperium Project and the Xenophages are following venom for his Codex. As the battle rages on the Xenophages slowly kill all of the Symbiotes one by one as they’re much more aggressive and durable than them. Plus, they have two overpowered abilities in the form of an organic blender for a mouth, and extremely rapid regeneration.
The Codex is a small organic device created when a symbiote and host’s life force mix after a host is resurrected by its symbiote. Knull needs it to break out of his prison, and it’s our ‘Magical MacGuffin’ for the movie.
As the Symbiotes are whittled down it ends up just being Eddie and Venom hiding out in a crashed helicopter. The two have a little touching moment together before they walk out and lure in the Xenophage that are massing around them.
The creatures get close and suddenly Venom lashes out with his tentacles. Grabbing them and slowly absorbing them into a big gelatinous black mass above Eddie. The two then march toward an industrial bath with “Hyper Acidic” written on it.
However, Eddie is ejected by Venom at the last few steps. Brock then just just sits there as Venom sacrifices himself to destroy the Codex that the Xenophages are hunting.
Venom, with help from Rex Strickland, bathes in acid as he and the Xenophages melt away into nothing. Strickland then pops a grenade for his own cherry-on-top self-sacrifice scene and the whole area explodes violently. Eddie survives all of this by lying under a big iron door that’s vaguely covering him as Hyper Acid and fire bathes the entire area.
The Codex is destroyed along with Venom, and we see Knull inside his prison outside of our galaxy having a fit as he’s sealed away once more. We then jump ahead a bit after the big explosive spectacle where we see Eddie laying unconcious with a broken leg, to find Brock waking up in a hospital bed. There he’s told by a military officer that Venoms gone.
Eddies record has also been expunged for the services to the nation that the two of them provided in neutralizing the alien threat. Essentially wiping the slate clean and allowing Brock to start fresh and regain the life that he lost at the start of the franchise.
We’re then presented with an attempt at an emotional montage of Eddie and Venom together throughout all the films before we cut to the credits. If you’ve watched every film back-to-back by now, including The Last Dance, this scene doesn’t particularly hit hard.
They’ve baited Venom’s death at least once in every movie and by that point you’re already just sitting waiting for the reveal that he’s fine. Which they of course do once more, albeit in a post-credits scene after a final tease for another film.
Venom: The Last Dance Post Credits Scene, Explained
So to rip the bandaid off quickly, no Venom is not dead. Whilst it seems like he’s gone for good in the ending, once again he is still alive. Plus, there’s a few signs in the last back chunk of the movie that pretty much confirm we’re getting another movie at some point.
For example, we still have Agony kicking around. She’s a purple symbiote that was released by Doctor Payne and possesses super speed on the level of The Flash. There’s also Venom’s last words to Eddie which are: “It’s only bye for now”. Implying that he’s coming back.
Finally, in a post-credits scene we see a black cockroach leaving the devastated Area 51. Which is a final nod to the audience that Venom is still alive and kicking. Which you may think is not that subtle, but in another post-credits scene before this we see Knull threatening that he’s coming to Earth soon.
We also see concept art of Venom having fun in various animals, potentially making his way back to Eddie in the future for another film. So it seems like they’re trying to set up a big, and not as satisfying, Thanos-style showdown at some point in the future.
Potentially a big fight between Knull, Venom, Agony, and any other Symbiote they might decide to introduce. This would be accurate to the comics after all. Or, there could be additional unknown Symbiote survivors from the absolute massacre conducted by the Xenophages when they raided Area 55.
With how well the movie performed at the box office, despite the middling scores, the smart money is on them making one last run. They could see it as a good financial decision, so we’re not done with the Lethal Protector just yet it seems.
There’s also a bit of a void with competent or entertaining superhero movies of late. In a Post-Marvel burnout world, the Venom movies are in the perfect position to try and go out on a high note.
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