The Venom: The Last Dance film review – a fitting farewell for Tom Hardy

VENOM: THE LAST DANCE

(15) 109mins

★★★☆☆

“SCIENCE is sacrifice” declares Juno Temple’s Dr Teddy Payne, a UFO geek who works in a secret underground lab researching alien life.

But not at the expense of an entertaining Marvel storyline.

Tom Hardy is back as the symbiote Eddie Brock for this last instalment in the Venom trilogy.

And it’s a great fun finale.

Half good-looking guy, (I’ve won sexiest man awards, Eddie quips), half genial but grotesque monster, the intertwined duo are now carrying the Codex, a key to other worlds.

But evil Knull, the creator of symbiotes, wants it back.

We find our tangled twosome in Mexico, embarking on a road trip to New York.

They’re being pursued by both military investigator General Rex Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and a rampaging Xenophage.

The monster can track the location of the Codex and has been dispatched to retrieve it, while Strickland wants to destroy it.

Both predators will ultimately hunt to kill.

After a hitchhike on top of a plane goes wrong Eddie/Venom crashland in the Nevada desert, where they catch a more conventional ride with off-grid-living Martin (a brilliant Rhys Ifans), wife (Alanna Ubach) and children Leaf and Echo.

The family are en route to the about-to-be-decommissioned Area 51 research centre, which theorists allege is an alien research site.

Leaf is scared about what they might encounter, so (nudge-nudge) Eddie/Venom assures him other intelligent lifeforms don’t exist.

Of course, the rumours are true, with other symbiotes including Patrick Mulligan/Toxin (Stephen Graham) contained there.

There’s plenty of satisfying set pieces here and a great soundtrack.

A galloping horse morphing majestically into Venom is a triumph, a camper-van singalong to Major Tom will make you snigger, and the final shapeshifting showdown delivers.

The endless bickering between Eddie/Venom is generally amusing, even if the latter sometimes sounds more like the voiceover man from a TV talent show.

At one point, Venom even helpfully Marvel-splains the plot so far to his host Eddie.

A useful recap for fans in this complicated world, and helpful for bemused Marvel Comic Universe first-timers.

LAURA STOTT

EMILIA PEREZ

(15) 132mins

★★★★☆

IT’S rare to watch anything these days that feels entirely original – but this Spanish musical-crime drama about a menacing Mexican cartel leader who hires a paralegal to help him undergo gender reassignment surgery- comes close to achieving it.

Directed by Jaques Audiard, the boundary- pushing screenplay with its spoken and sung dialogue would be so at home on the stage, at the end you almost expect the cast to appear for a curtain call.

Rita (an outstanding Zoe Saldana) is an undervalued lawyer, sick of her male boss taking all the credit for her work.

When notorious Narcos “Manitas” Del Monte kidnaps her, offering life-changing sums to help him fully transition into “Emilia” and fake his own death (both roles played by trans actor Karla Sofía Gascón) she sees a way out.

But while Emilia enjoys a renaissance in Mexico City, her past life with old wife Jessi (Selena Gomez) and two kids is implausible to leave behind.

Impossible to categorise, it’s the only film this year where scalpel-wielding Bangkok surgeons trill,” Rhinoplasty, Vaginoplasty!”

• On Netflix

THE ROOM NEXT DOOR

(12A) 107mins

★★★☆☆

LEGENDARY Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar’s English-language debut, is an adaptation of Sigrid Nunez’s 2020 novel, What Are You Going Through.

It stars Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton as old friends who reunite in a crisis.

Ex-war reporter Martha (Swinton), diagnosed with terminal cancer, is grappling with the expectation that she must fight her illness by any means.

Ingrid (Moore), a novelist who has written about her own fear of dying, is unsettled, but eventually supportive, when Martha asks her to be present when she chooses to take her own life.

Almodóvar’s style shines here, with chic costumes and beautiful interiors and the film’s setting, from New York City to its remote modern woodlands, reflects the journey of both characters and Ingrid’s inner turmoil.

There’s certainly strong performances too from both women and John Turturro, who plays their former lover.

But the dialogue feels stunted in the first half of the movie, and there’s a lack of emotional depth.

Yet the film manages to offer a humane portrayal of terminal illness and a frank and open discussion on euthanasia.

LINDA MARRIC