Join us for this latest installment of Cape or Cap, where we dive deep into Venom: The Last Dance!

Last week was Halloween so this week, we’re reviewing Sony's latest film closing the story of their anti-hero lethal protector Venom in Venom: The Last Dance - we're talking symbiotes, Eddie Brock’s journey, and the most terrifying thing of all: whether the last dance was an elegant tango or that awkward grinding on the dance floor. We’ll break down the plot, dissect the characters, and answer your burning questions:

• Is this good storytelling?
• How does it compare to other films, comics, and larger narratives?
• What was happening behind the scenes during the creation of this production and after its release?
• And as always, is this a "cape" or a "cap"?

00:41:47 Cape or Cap Verdict

Referenced Materials:

• Venom #4 by Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman
• King in Black comic event by Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman

Hosts: Chamar Griffith and Andrew Tejada

Producers: Chamar Griffith and Andrew Tejada

Support Cape or Cap by donating once today or monthly. Follow the show on social media @capeorcap and share your thoughts with us through a direct message or email at capeorcappod@gmail.com.

Like and Subscribe to our YouTube page, and listen to the rest of the episodes wherever you get your podcasts!

So he turns into Venom form just to dance. Some would

say it's his last dance. Oh, it hurts. Hi, I'm Chamar Griffith

and I'm Andrew Tejada. We're going through superhero

productions to let you know if they're still fun or the hype

around it was dumb on Cape or cap a Black Nerd superhero

podcast you

welcome to this week's installment of Cape or cap, a

Black Nerd superhero podcast. My name is Chamar Griffith,

codename comic. Shams and I am Andrew tahata, codename Arete.

Andrew and I have known each other since 1996 that was the

year that venom, tooth and claw or and slash, the hunger

released and in tooth and claw. We had a combination of venom

and Wolverine across over there, a crossover that thankfully did

not happen in this year. It was like Deadpool just rolled the

moose. It's like, No, I have rights to him this year

tomorrow. Do you even have a universe Sony? But yeah, that's

yeah. But seriously, I would be terrified if those two had

crossed over this year. Yeah, yeah. I don't even know that.

Gosh. I mean, I guess it would be a very mid movie. It would

balance out, very good. Yeah, you know who would love it?

Thanos. You're just like, perfectly balanced. Oh, man. But

speaking of terror, terror, terrifying things, uh, today we

are covering what we love on this show to do a Calendar Man

holiday special. Yes, he is back. He is, well, he's not in

the room with us right now. He unfortunately, has invested in a

lot of things since our time together on yet another DC

animated podcast. I believe now he has like 3000 interns. He's

basically like, mini Google or something, I don't know. Oh

yeah, he's trying to get Daylight Savings changed. We

don't really know what the angle is, but that's taking most of

his time right now. But in honor of our connection with him, and

he did request this of us, we are doing a Halloween special.

Now, I know on the recording of this episode, it is after

Halloween, so we're either late due to his issues of Dayton,

like savings time, or we're just in time for 2025, Halloween. Who

knows? Yeah, and you know things are scary enough in the world.

So this is releasing before the election. So I think it's still

I think it's still time. It's still scary time. Well, let's

have some fun scary time, because today we are covering

the latest Venom movie that is right, Venom three that's

dropped in theaters in October. We are covering Venom the last

dance, a runtime of 110 minutes. This 2020, form film received a

PG 13 rating. Still trying to figure out how PG 13. All right,

so we got this film was directed by Kelly Marcel. This is her

directorial debut. Um. Kelly wrote basically the entire film

series, and today she is actually working with Tom Hardy

to write out this final film in the venom trilogy. And of

course, as K pocap standards, we do have the rating score of it

already according to Rotten Tomatoes, it currently has a 39%

on Rotten Tomatoes from critics and 80% from the audiences. So

it's a popcorn fresh or whatever they're calling it now, on

right? Tomatoes, I don't know. They don't know fruits and

vegetables over there, all right. So now we got our cast

list. We got Tom Hardy, who is returning for the third time now

as Eddie Brock, or actually, fourth time. Yeah, fourth, yeah,

we were counseling for it because of no way home. Okay,

great, yeah. Eddie Brock is being played by Tom Hardy, who

also provides the voice of venom. We got. She would tell

Oja for you know, when he's not getting sidelined from giving Dr

Strange the work today he is playing Rex Strickland just

we'll get into that Juno Temple of Ted lasso fame is here today

as Dr Teddy Payne, and I will hold on to who this character

ends up being. Reese iphens, um, is that actually how you

pronounce his name? I I believe so. Lisa, okay, well, either

way, we didn't like him in Harry Potter, after what he did as Mr.

Love go. It. And we probably were a little upset about what

he did in The Amazing Spider Man, when he kind of unalive

Captain Stacy, yeah, not a great track record in terms of

superhero movies, no. But today we'll see what happens when he

plays Martin Moon, which I will get into because the things that

happened with this character, and just the name in general,

and the Spider Man lore kind of really upset me. Uh, Stephen

Graham returns from the second film where he is once again

playing Patrick Mulligan. Um, I guess sort of we'll get into

that. Peggy Lou returns as Mrs. Chan Clark. Bucha makes her

appearance as Sadie Christmas. I believe she is also a doctor in

this film. That's not her name, that is 100% her name. Oh, my

God, at least according to um, Wikipedia, the cast list,

Reddit, the internet, you're shaking your head. I I'm sorry

for I mean, look, if anything, this works as a double holiday

special. We got someone named Christmas in here, I guess so.

Christmas came early, and finally, he was the director of

the second film of this trilogy. Today he takes a step into the

actual on screen actions of the film as Andy Serkis plays the

character, no, the creator of the symbiotes, certainly, he's

certainly there, yep, yep, yep, yep, things were filmed with

him. All right, with that, let's see if this movie bonded with us

in this capercap review of venom, the last dance. So

speaking of Andy Serkis, we start out with a hard, cold open

of we're just on some black, Inky planet. It looks pretty

scary. Honestly, not gonna lie, crawling with these creatures.

And a guy No is just saying, hey, basically, I'm the scariest

of all these creatures. They imprison me in this throne. But

if I get a codex, we're not sly. We know you stole that from Man

of Steel. He's like, but if I get a codex, I can get out of

this chair I'm stuck in and then, presumably, like, destroy

everything. And apparently the people who rebelled against Him

were his creations, the symbiotes. So I hope you were

taking notes, because everything he said is extremely important

to understanding the nuances of the plot, although they

explained those nuances 100 times and after the CGI scene,

we now go back to No way home. Yeah, so if you never saw Spider

Man, no way home, one. I mean, you may have enjoyed it, but if

you never saw, well, actually, also the second film within this

venom series, here's a quick recap. Eddie. At some point, due

to the events of no way home, thanks to magic, gets teleported

to the universe of Marvel, universe the MCU, which,

although spoilers for Deadpool and Wolverine, is marked as

Earth 616, fans, no, that's not really the case. So let's just

say, for the all intensities of this particular review, he is on

earth 616, he finds out everything explains what's going

on. He finds that there's a joke about how he's trying to explain

to the bartender that aliens exist, and the bartender says, I

know because me and my family were booked away thanks to an

alien, and they're all confused as to why people know aliens

exist. None of that matters, because Eddie gets teleported

back to his Earth, where, once again, he beats a variant of the

same bartender, now in a more rundown version of the same bar,

and it turns into an extended sequence in which he is drunk,

causing venom to be drunk, causing venom to do what I guess

every single person who ever is drunk when they're at home, if a

bunch of liquor would do and just create as many cocktails as

they can figure out, while also making the mess of the place. I

mean, I feel like I've done that once or twice, but I feel like

the way he was doing it, I would even want to clean that up.

Yeah, he wrecks. He wrecks the bar, which he thinks is his

biggest crime, until he sees a television set where he finds

out that he is being suspected from the murder of Patrick

Mulligan in the last at the in the last film during the battle

with carnage. Patrick Mulligan was Fallon was impaled due to

carnage or shriek one of them. Um, the villains, the villains

in it. Um, they usually be doing it, yeah, at the end of that

movie, you from what I recalled, they. Away from the police after

the carnage battle, yet they're somehow surprised that they're

being hunted by the police in this movie. I What? How drunk

Are you guys? You gotta understand that wasn't hungover

venom, that was pre hung over venom. We don't remember what

pre hungover does. That's

true. Um, so as they find us out, what they decide to do is

leave a coin, a little change for the bartender to pay the

damages the the coin has a little piece of symbiote on it.

Um, also, Eddie is like, Hey, I know what I should do to get out

of this. I have some dirt on a judge in New York. I'm gonna go

blackmail a judge in New York to get me out of something I did in

Los Angeles, and I'm gonna get there from Mexico. Airtight

plan, Eddie, I can't see any flaws whatsoever. But honestly,

don't even worry about that, because there's gotta be a fight

scene now, yes, because, well, this leads into villains who are

not connected to the plot in any way, shape or form. Because

Eddie, he comes across a place, a location where there's just,

unfortunately, people who are holding dogs captive in the

efforts of doing a dog fighting ring, they try and go to save

the dogs. Unfortunately, at that moment they are, they come face

to face with the people who are running the whole thing, and it

turns into an extended fight scene of Eddie using the

symbiote venom. The two of them are working very well together,

not in a typical sense where we've seen Venom use either in

like spider man three, or any other animated iteration of

venom, or even going to say, in Spider Man two, the Sony video

game, Eddie uses venom in a way where it's just like he

basically uses him to push him off surfaces and to enhance his

strength. So you see a lot of Tom Hardy just having black goo

around fist or his legs to strengthen his attacks. And he's

able to do all this to the point where he finally has everybody

captured. And in a scene from the trailer. I guess it's like a

joke to show that they're still trying to figure out how to work

together, despite showing that they've worked very well

together in this earlier fight that they try to say the classic

line of we are venom, but tend to go back and forth on the

pacing, the timing, but that's all pushed to the side, because

obviously Venom was promised that if he has guessed to fight

bad guys, he could eat their heads. And that is basically

what he does. Yep, and he frees all the dogs that were captured.

And in the distance we see an alien following him, one of the

aliens from Noel's planet, who was promised that they would be

allowed to live if they retrieved the codex that Eddie

Brock has apparently put a pin on that because that's going to

be important to rant about later. So hard cut again. This

movie loves its hard cuts. I don't know what the editor was

thinking. Just be as jarring as possible. I think I'm just gonna

assume, because there's like, 15,000 plot points in this film.

Yeah, it's like, why even hide it? We cut to a dream of a young

brother and sister on a beach talking about whatever. It

doesn't matter, but what matters is that there's lightning on

this beach. It's like the worst nighttime beach lightning storm

I've ever seen. Yeah, no, working. This is dangerous. Like

this is, this is like watching man made global warming.

Something like this is why I imagine it would look like,

yeah. Um, so the lightning strikes the brother and sister.

The brother dies, but the sister survives with a an electric

scar. We suddenly, she wakes up, and it's revealed she is a

scientist, um, who is working at Area 51 there's just no easy way

to transition from that, but not really, because she's really

working at Area 55 the place underneath area 51 and they're

decommissioning area 51 for some reason. And she works there

because her brother really wanted to study aliens. And so

she's like, since he's dead, I guess I'll just do his thing and

not do anything independent, also in a massive Mass. Of OSHA

violation. There's an at Area 51 there is a just a vat of acid

that just gets poured on anything they want to dispose

of, just in the open, no walls, no cages, no gates. You just

dump acid right like where anybody no barrier, no. There

wasn't even a warning when it goes on. Oh, my God, yes. Oh,

wow. Um, I never realized that, you know, I did think it was

weird that this, that they, they were one, using acid to just

break down all these, like, large items just out again, out

in the open. Everybody could see, I know that, like that

whole raid on area 51 this that we were planning at some point

back in the past, I feel like this would have been the time,

would have been profitable for people. He may have gotten

burns, but, um, but at the same time as we're seeing all this,

this is when we see, um, Barry Mordo, I mean, the Rex

Strickland popped through. He's running this team that basically

supposed to, supposed to keep the aliens from being seen by

the people and destroying all their technology. But not quite

like MIB, because they apparently kill on site. So I

guess this is like a branch off of the men in black that just

was more like, I guess like the LAPD version of it. I digress.

Um, but we hear that they are also on the look for Eddie. They

he gets this order to go look for some from the shadowy

figure. And they immediately start to chase where Evie is

just basically being followed, Scene after scene by soldiers

who are attacking him at various points. Meanwhile, we also see

that, um, he's as he's trying to do this journey to New York.

Eddie is like, now trying to he's talking with venom, and

you're like, you know, my life was so much different just about

a year ago, which shocked me, because I was just like, Eddie's

looking kind of rough in this like, I'm surprised. This was

only a year, yeah, this has been a long year for you, bro, man,

like he did a bit in Atlanta, but this entire time, it

definitely does set the stage of this being light. The two of

them are reaching what can be their final moments together,

because they're trying to figure out what this life look like for

them for the rest of time. They know that they're bonded

together. They know that they've had to sacrifice a lot, and

unfortunately, they're in a situation where they're even

worse off. So now that Eddie is trying to get back, he decides

he sees now at least, he tried to figure out, how can he maybe

even, like, fly over to New York. Unfortunately, he does get

attacked by Strickland's guys, as they basically, I guess at

one point have an intense Walker fight that also leads to Eddie

swimming with them. Yes. So this is another editing thing. So

right before this fight, I just want to, just have to this is

like, we have a brief interaction with Strickland, who

is, um, talking to the scientists. He gets mad at one

scientist for having a Christmas pin that her dead mother gave

her. I He's like, it's not Christmas. He's like, Yeah, I

know my mom gave this to me, Jesus Christ guy, um, I want to

see his anti Christmas movie, um, but he talks with toxin,

who, apparently, is the guy who, oh yeah, Patrick Mulligan, who

the guy who was supposed to be killed in last movie didn't die.

They had him a life support. They gave him a symbiote. All of

this would have been really interesting to see happen

instead of being expositioned. Also, I'm really mad, because

technically, this isn't toxin. Oh God, this is not even the

backstory of toxins. Well, you know what? I'm not that

surprised. You have all the rights to do it. Why not just

make it so gotta ask Sony um toxin tells them basically,

because at a point, there was a point where Venom revived Eddie,

when Eddie was dead, that that created a codex that the Codex

could free. No Sure, and so as soon as he finds this out, the

general Strickland's like, I gotta go get him immediate cut

to him doing that. Like, what? What was the time? How much time

passed between that conversation and him having the water fight?

I.

And in the water fight the venom and this and Eddie get

temporarily desponded, leading Eddie to have to fight a soldier

and kill a soldier with his bare hands. And after this, after

this, Bailey survived this fight due to intervention from the

xenophage chasing them, and he is really devastated, because

during that fight, he lost his shoes.

It also adds some insight to it. Um, this was a running gag, I

would assume, because, yeah, the shoes he lost were cowboy boots

that he stole from the dog fighting ring because one of the

dogs started chewing up his Crocs and Venom suggested he

wear the cowboy boots. So now, once again, Eddie has lost his

shoes, but fortunately, he relies on the kindness of

strangers during this existential crisis he goes

through where he meets the moon family, a family of alien

Loving, I guess, very relaxed individuals, I would say a

father, mother and two kids who are on their way to area 51

after learning that the whole place was going to be

decommissioned, their hopes and dreams is to go there and find

an alien and see one in real life. And Eddie, obviously. I

don't know why he but I'm assuming just because it's he

wants to keep a secret identity and whatnot, doesn't share that

he actually has an alien with him. Um, he says he even

believe, says that. Like he doesn't believe, he believes in

aliens, but he doesn't really think they're real, trying to,

like, throw them off the scent of him or anything. I also

assumed it was like an attempt to make sure that he didn't get

caught by the police. But I'm just like my guy, these people

have been in living in a camper for the last, probably what

looks like 50 years. I think you're fine. So as they're

driving along, um, Venom is having this like one there's a

musical break now, yes, fortunately, though it's not. Is

not as much as Joker two, but we do have this internal monolog,

or dialog between Eddie and Venom, where venom is like, you

know, Eddie, you could have had something like this. I really

wish that we had something like this. And he just wishes that

Eddie could have had a better opportunity recognizing, I

guess, how much he has caused Eddie's life to change since

this entire bonding experience that they had, since the first

movie, yeah, and it is a moment of, you know, really, you know,

well written self reflection. Don't know what movie it's

supposed to be in, because it doesn't fit this movie at all.

So they're on the trip, and they eventually get to Vegas, and

there's a very extended bit where Eddie tries to walk in

with his dirty clothes, but he can't, so a guy pees on his

feet, and he has to take the guy who pees on his feet suit. It's

just, just things don't have to happen. Sometimes there are some

scenes you don't need to show, um, you know, in every movie,

and this is all of them. Um, so he goes into the machine the

casino conveniently runs into his neighbor slash friend, Miss

chan elsewhere, Strickland, having so devastated after

losing all those soldiers in the alien versus alien battle, gets

authorization From a shadowy person whose identity we never

discover he gets, he's like, Strickland, like, Can I use the

six? And they're like, yes, you have alteration for the six. Now

I'm thinking, in my naive mind, this might be a Sinister Six

thing. Maybe they're going to pull together some of, maybe for

real vulture, Morbius, you know, I don't know. So we're going to,

we're going to put in a pin in that because Eddie goes back to

Mrs. Chen's room because she's been winning a lot, and she

demands a dance with venom. It is established, the only way

venom can be seen by his alien enemy is if he turns into Venom

form. So he turns into Venom form just to dance. Some would

say it's his last dance. Oh, it hurts that. Oh, gosh. I need to

talk to everyone who. Is involved in the naming of this.

If that is the case, should be banned from cinema for at least

25 days after that. Obviously, because he's in Veno form, he

immediately, I gotta say this, this creature, I think, is

called the xenophage, or something like that. It's a

pretty interesting creature, mainly because it's a giant,

like praying mantis with like a tree chipper in its mouth. So

every single time they're able to take any one of his victims,

it will take it, bring it to his mouth, and it will just spray

out the back. So it's intimidating. It's a very

intimidating creature. I'll give it that. The most intimidating

thing about it is because Venom's Codex is Brian's, sorry,

Venom's Codex shines so brightly as soon as he goes on. It could

be like 50, 130,000 miles away. I don't know how big the Earth

is, but it will always go and be able to find it somehow arrive

two seconds later, even though it does not have the power of

flight, teleportation or super speed, and also it immediately

stops when Venom gets out of his venom, full Venom form, right?

But it's like, if it just went the direction it lost, it

probably would have gotten there. Could just stop suddenly,

and it pisses me off, yeah, but right before the Xena phage can

reach venom, during the dance where someone had to animate the

CGI toes, I'm so sorry. Um, all of a sudden the six show up. And

you know who the six are, regular goddamn guys, because

this movie doesn't know how to have fun. Oh, my God, this

pissed me off so much. Because, well, I mean, they did it in the

first movie, and we'll get to this. But it is kind of shown.

But there's a point in venom, lethal protector, the comic in

which venom has five symbiotes that he has to fight off

against. It's one more number. We could have done something

here. So now that venom, or Eddie Brock, has to fight off

against the six regular soldiers. They do get the upper

hand. They are able to split venom from Eddie, which causes

the xenophage to not attack everybody for some reason,

instead, just runs away. They take Benham and Eddie into the

facility where Eddie now comes face to face with Patrick

Mulligan or not, toxin, I'm not going to give him the credit and

call toxin, because I did like toxin when I was a kid, because

I thought was, like a cool idea. My inner child will be very

upset right now, so they talk about what happened, and they're

like, We gotta get out of here, because he's coming. No, be

here. You gotta make sure that, no, doesn't get the codex that

will free him. And all this is happening while, once again,

Strickland is just very dismissive towards the both of

the doctors. Doctors, Chris, I think it is Christmas. I mean,

yeah, the internet said it, I'm I forgot about the pin, but I'll

be like, I'll be tight if they just gave her a random name

because of a pin. Um, but Chris? Dr, Christmas and Dr, Temple, so

at one random moment after being berated by Strickland, dr,

Christmas just goes to a random person in the room and ask about

family, and I'm still don't get what, why the question was made,

because we had no understanding of who her character was. In the

entirety of this film, she was definitely treated as just like

a second in command to Dr temple who was getting crazy filmed

backstory, but with no context. And if you thought Dr temple

didn't have any context, needed to Dr Christmas. So ultimately,

she follows along to where the Venom symbiote is being taken

down because it's revealed that they have six other Venom

symbiotes in the facility. She follows down there and then,

unfortunately, they are all attacked by a xenophage. And in

order to help out, she somehow gets a Venom Symbiote on her,

turning into she venoms. And second appearance of she venom

in a live action production to help free Eddie, who

unfortunately takes a bullet during the firefight, and

thankfully, though, with venom back in play, is able to get the

bullet out of Betty, helping him to recuperate, yeah,

um, this is where the movie, okay, I'll admit it started to

look a little fun here because, um, I'm not going to spend too

much time on this, because the movie didn't care to do this

enough. But the family and the alien. Family from before they

arrive in the facility, break into area 51 they make a joke

about child services. Should take the kids away, and

honestly, yes, yes, they should be separated from these from

parents who break into area 51 with the large acid pit. Um. So

the family arrives, and at the same time the xenophage does so

they get their wish. They get to see an alien and realize it's

horrible inside. In the chaos of the xenophage arriving,

xenophage takes out a bunch of people, including Jim who Sadie

Christmas screams, tavare lungs, who's had like one scene prior

to this moment, but it's so played as this emotional moment.

But luckily, Jim is brought back to life when a symbiote bonds

with him, and we have other we get a total of six symbiotes

running around that a bonded with scientists that I guess

they were close to even on the first movie. It was a real point

that symbiotes just can't bond with anybody. Forget about that,

Joe. Forget about it. The whole movie. What's about that?

Meanwhile, Yo, you want to send me yo, yo. We got you. We got

you. Everybody gets a symbiote like we on Oprah, Marvel or

something. It was wild and including a symbiote who, like

fused with another symbiote. So it could be a two headed

symbiote. I want that movie. I'm sorry I'm doing it early my RT

alterations. I want the love story of these two symbiotes

who, as soon as they found human host, fused into one body,

Steven Universe style, yes, cement their love only to be

savagely and cruelly killed after being ripped apart by

xenophage. That happens we're there's no point in discussing

it. Oh, they, most of them, die. Jim. Oh, man, I love Jim, the

fire symbiote with the fire lash. I want to see that movie

too. That's my second RT alteration. What's that deal?

Let me just follow that. Can we just get a venom for like, I'm

fine if it's not Tom Hardy, but we need either a venom four or,

you know, I will say we're probably getting a little

exhausted from so many television series that give like

one episode, perm Symbio. But I want to see them come back like

you have just loose Symbios out there who are just doing their

own thing, and they have amazing abilities, more so that we saw

with venom, like in the first movie, he faced off someone who

was basically like him in the second movie. What was the Oh

yeah, Carnage. Question mark, his son, right, right? You saw

how Venom decided he was going to be an absentee father. But

besides the point, we want to see the movie where it's like,

if you're going to expand the universe of venom, especially

with the universe of symbiotes, especially when you have, I'm

assuming, all the rights, because you're using a lot of

the characters, and have enough of them to create the actual

comic book story that's connected with them. You know,

it probably will look a lot like Captain America Civil War,

where, you know, it was supposed to be a battle of superheroes,

and you just got five guys and his friends is beating up

beating up each other in a large airport. But we would have

appreciated that if you just gave us the opportunity to see

symbiotes in action and in action you do before they're all

killed, except for she vet him and Venom himself. And they try

a bunch of things, but ultimately, the xenophobes keep

regenerating. Funny that these regenerating creatures are so

concerned about null killing them, because they seemingly can

regenerate from any injury. So don't know what this this was

scared or No, he's in a chair. So at this point, they realize

venom and Eddie realize there's really nothing they can do. And

a bunch of more xenophages show up, and they're going to keep

coming. And we know one of them has to die. At least one of them

has to die to get rid of this Codex. So venom and Eddie agree

to go in together. They draw in all the xenopages by expanding

their body, and they start dragging their body to the acid

pit. And at this point, when they get to the acid pit, Venom

pulls an ejectocedo Cuz on Eddie and launches Eddie a wave into

safety, although there's any safe zone near a pile of acid,

as proven by Strickland, who he was stabbed in the middle of

this, it doesn't matter. They didn't gave him no backstory or

character. I'm sorry, but since the acid pit does require a

finger pit and Iris, you. I read to turn on Strickland turns it

on while getting horribly burnt by the acid. But I do think the

look of his face while he was getting burnt by the acid was

probably the look on Chiwetel face when he read the script and

realized this was it. And yeah, and acid does its thing. And

yep. And that's, that's it, bye, Venom, yeah, I will say there's

a little was a little touching scene where it was a little

touching for me when Venom decides to shoot Eddie out to

protect him and just take on all the xenophosis to burn them by

acid, which I don't know how he figured that would work. They

hadn't seen the pit. They weren't always there. They

wouldn't know it was there. I did think it was a little

touchy. Sorry. I could have keep a straight face on here, because

the plot said so this is why they would have just figured out

that it was a vat of acid. It's somewhere in the facility. I do

have an actual alteration later about that, but we'll get to it

later. But I did think it was a little touching when Venom upon

saving Eddie and telling him to go live his life, he takes like

you think he's going to try to re bond with them so that Eddie

could, like, pull him back out. But no, he instead grabs a lead

door. I'm assuming it was lead. I don't know what material is

unable to stop acid from getting burned, getting getting burned

by acid, but he uses it to cover Eddie in very calm way, like he

tucks away a little kid telling them a bedtime story. And I can

look speaking of faces, Tom Hardy's face on that to me, it

was just like, why are we even doing this? So after the acid

sprays everywhere, Eddie wakes up. He tries to Eddie wakes up,

tries to talk to venom, but nobody answers. Our random

general, just a random joke. Oh, no, no, we missed some random

poignant scene for character closure or development for Dr

temple. Oh, sorry. How could I forget? Because she was struck

by lightning, yeah, in the middle of this, Dr Temple is

running away with Christmas, and they're about to die in the acid

explosion, and she, you activates the symbiote that

gives her, like lightning powers, and she can run real

fast, like The Flash. And it's late. It's late. She also has

cool, long hair. She'll give her that. Okay, yeah, but it's it's

late. It's too late. That should have happened 1015, minutes ago.

Yeah,

it's it just, it's so great, um, but, and she doesn't come back

before the end of the movie. Um, that's it. That's the last you

see of her. So good luck with that. Um, also sorry, but Jim

was mortally wounded right in that the battle scene. And

doesn't the Codex get created when somebody who's morally

wounded is brought back to life by venom. Yep, did Jim have a

codex? We'll get into that anyway. Eddie wakes up. A random

general tells them, hey, guess what, your crimes are expunged.

Don't tell anybody about this, and we're all good. Eddie

returns to New York City, sees the Statue of Liberty, and

there's a montage to memories. Bring back memories, bring back

the previous movies a little bit, but mainly this movie a

flashback,

you know, sorry, but deadpool three already had a better and

more emotional montage. I'm sorry, guys, you came in too

late for that one. Yeah, yeah. And with that, like any 2000s

early 2000s film set in New York, we closed out to a panning

out shot of the Statue of Liberty, done at a very fast

pace, leading us to our credits, where we see various animals who

have been venom. Five they, I don't think half of them

actually appeared in our film here, but it was just cool to

see kind of like artwork. And of course, we get our post credit

scene. Um, so we did see earlier in the movie that with the

destruction of the Codex, that was with venom, um, he null

seems to be like, sent further away somewhere like he just, I

don't know something happened. He's just in anguish, and it

seemed like he was teleported away. Our post credit scene,

though, does show that no is alive and well. We get a better

look at his face. It's a lot like the the Dark Elves from

Thor Dark World. I'm sorry to bring up that movie, and he's

saying that, you know. Know that he is gonna make his comeback. I

I don't know how, because, I mean, based off of just inside

universes, I don't know there's other ways, but also outside of

your universe, according to the laws of like, what legal rights

Sony has versus what legal rights Marvel has it. We're

still in the we're still in the bubble. And then we also get

another final post credit scene where we did see earlier that

the I am unfortunately forgetting his name, and I did

not grab it for this episode, but he is famous from Ted lasso

as well, where he loves football. He was our bartender.

He was taken into custody after Venom left his bar, he was taken

in by Strickland. He somehow survives the entire explosion of

area 51 and area 55 along with the attacks from the xenophase.

So he's walking out confused all while we see the random little

piece of venom that was left behind and taken in by

Strickland. The container it was in has cracked, and we see a

little black bug making its way out, hinting at the possibility

that venom may actually still be around in some capacity. Yep,

that's it. You know, I'm actually kind of mad that they

did memories and not not last dance. Like, no last dance.

Like, we need somebody to pick songs and movies better. Yeah.

James Gunn can't be the only one. Like, come on. Like, you

can't. You got to have a proper DJ at any given party this year.

This this year in superhero movies, lately, sorely has hated

ones. All right, so obviously, because we have gone through

this, and we probably have already hinted from the way that

we have talked about this, it is now time for our official

rating. Andrew, for you, if you had to, now that you have given

this movie the full rundown. Is this movie a cape, or has it

somehow turned into a venomous cap? Give it the biggest

venomous cap you have. My goodness gracious, the last two

movies in this in this franchise, were not great, but I

had fun, and it seemed like everyone was trying to do

something very specific venom. One it was to, you know, really

change the tone of venom. And I retrospect, I can appreciate

what they're trying to do there into carnage, was the main

person. And they really leaned into carnage, their specific

version of carnage, versus this goofy Venom really kind of

worked somehow. But here there is just nothing. There is

nothing. There's no synergy between the goofy venom and

these really boring, flat scientist characters, Joe what's

given nothing to do here, and that is a shame for an actor of

his caliber. Juno Temple and Sadie Christmas are given we

only learn through them do exposition and the odd line, but

truly, I just don't know what their ultimate goal was. Of all

this. I mean, Juno Temple's character says at one point

that, you know, she wanted to follow her brother's footsteps,

and I get it. You did it. What now? What do you want to do? I

don't, I don't have the answers to those questions. And no, sits

in a chair. The main villain sits in a chair. We're following

goons the whole time, combined with really questionable editing

and just a lot of the fight scenes are really quick. They're

really, really quick. Um, the plane fight scene was maybe less

than 30 seconds. I don't know what was going on. Also, did

that plane crash? Because the xenophage definitely went it

should have, it should have, not that we one wanted that to see

one of them. We wanted to see that at all. But the alien

turned out tore up the turbine of that plane. I don't think the

plane is going to make it. I'm sorry. So there is, I mean, I

don't know if the movie was chopped up, if there was

intentions. I don't know what happened here, but I'll give I

mean, there's really nothing, no one quick fix, but I'm just

gonna drop an RT alteration that I can't believe even in this

movie, they didn't pull out the entire time the US government is

following Eddie. They have video camera. They see he engage with

the family. Why didn't the government just capture the

family? Bring them to area 51 because there's a scene with the

fam where Venom saves the family at Area Oh, yeah. And then Eddie

and. Venom are motivated to go and sink in to break them out.

On their way in, they see the acid pit. They see the pile of

explosives, and it would make sense why they get captured in

the facility where they have home field advantage instead of

six regular ass guys. So that's that's the one thing I can't

believe didn't do it. Would not fix this movie by any means. It

would not make it weird, less weird that the lizard is running

around as a hippie in the Spider Man universe. But, man, this

movie needed something, and it just didn't have it. What do

you? What about you? What do you? What do you think about

this thing? Oh,

man. Like, I couldn't agree more. This whole thing is a

straight up cat for me. Like I have look i There were times in

which, like, I did enjoy seeing the unique fighting style that

Eddie had with venom. And, you know, maybe some lines work. A

lot of lines, unfortunately, did it. But the main issue that I

have with this entire movie is that it basically overhyped the

conflict and it failed to deliver on it. We have no who is

sharing his deep, deep connection as the like the

creator of the symbiotes, and he is warning that he actually is

on his way, like we've had two movies and seeing how symbiotes

have been such a dangerous threat to the planet in their

own various ways, not knowing that it was actually no who

probably could have been pulling the strings this entire time.

And then have it be like, Oh, well, no. Actually sent these

things down and they're he's actually against them. So it's

just like, Okay, great. We have the symbiotes who have caused

chaos, but then you have something that was already, that

already hated them, and then he's even a bigger threat, and

he just sits in the chair the entire time. You're right. He

were just like dealing with goons. He just serves as the

boogeyman, like even in Ant Man In The Wasp quantum mania, you

had the boogeyman of Kang giving Ant Man the work Paul Rudd took

hits to the face. You mean to tell me that Tom Hardy couldn't

take one from Noel at any point during this movie was supposed

to be his last movie as Venom. And the other issues I saw was

that, you know, we usually in cases like this, I would love to

just like, overlook that. Like, you know, hey, like, you are

setting up for a bigger story. You're setting up for a bigger

adventure, like we dealt with Thanos, having to spend, like,

almost half a half a decade for his build up before we finally

saw him in action. And I would have been fine if that was like

we had that build up, but then the rest of the story was great.

The entire movie only, there's only one returning character,

and that's the main character. This is the last film you can

bring anybody else back from the last two movies, except for

Patrick Mulligan, who completely changes the dynamic and the

demeanor of the character he previously played. So that, and

then to have it be that you're introducing characters like Dr

Payne and Dr Christmas, I also agree like it just felt like

they're thrown at us and given to us as if they are people who

we should have known this entire time, but now you're spending

every other five seconds trying to make sure, make it look like

they actually matter to us and actually make she care? Like,

honestly, take out all the stuff with, like, the reason why they

showing the whole scene of her getting electrocuted and the

death of her brother, don't include that line from Dr

Christmas about the sense of family for not going to build on

that entirely in some way, shape or form. Like, it just feels

like they were given some really big, poignant things, but they

never actually dive deep onto them. So now they just feel

like, Oh, you're just here to bond with symbiotes, and that's

it to make cool looking symbiotes, which, granted, these

are symbiotes from comics, but they're also not the individuals

who were bonded with these symbiotes to even begin with.

These are brand new creations, so that's why I'm upset about

that. Also the moons, look, I don't know why they were really

in there, so I don't really have notes about them, yeah, because

I don't have the bandwidth or willpower to write out, because

this movie definitely didn't. But the one thing I am upset

about with that is that you can't use the last name moon in

Sony's Spider Man universe and not connected to Cindy Moon, who

is silk, who, honestly, in my opinion, should have been a

bigger character than Spider Gwen. I say it as is because it

was an original character. It was a character who had a

connection to Peter Parker, not in the alternate reality

universe, in the main universe. And unfortunately, this is just

one of the many times that her Cindy Moon character gets

failed. And I don't know if the intention was to. That like this

kid, the oldest daughter was supposed to be Cindy, because

they definitely didn't call her that. I think maybe it was. But

then the receipts from Madame Webb came back and they were

like, Let's not do that. So just go with this last movie. Who

even cares? I'm also in the middle of it. I were you where

you were saying, because 100% right, that all across the

board, there's no recurring characters. So it really makes

it jarring what Eddie is fighting against. So if you're

gonna do new characters, another alteration I'd make, have no

possessed Strickland, and the whole time when it would make

sense later on, when it's like, why do you why does he hate

Christmas? Randomly? It's actually because it's null. He

does not care about human holidays. All he wants is to

capture venom. And if that would have been revealed at the end

that Strickland and no were fighting for control, and

Strickland ultimately it's like turning off the acid,

sacrificing himself at the same time. Venom is you might have

had, you might have had been cooking with a little bit more

gas, you know, and then I wouldn't have been as pissed

that the six were regular guys. No, I'm still going to be upset

about that, um, but it just, it just feels like the first two

for other flaws, had creativeness, had flair, and I

don't know where it went, yeah, don't know where it went for the

third one, yeah. Ultimately, this movie just earned the first

half of Venom's monker, because it was lethal. Watching this,

being so excited for a proper you know, not saying great

trilogy, but enough that will make us know that like hey, you

have gotten your accolades for the work you did. Yep. So for

now, Guardians still reigns is the best superhero live action

trilogy. Don't at me, it's true. But before we hop into the comic

book section and why, I don't know why this movie didn't an

explanation of why this movie didn't use most of the lore that

is associated with it, anything we should be mindful of, of

something behind the scenes that was that could have affected why

we saw what we saw. Yeah, the it's still very sparse, because

the movie just came out. But I can give you three quick things.

One, Andy Serkis was the director of the second movie.

People were curious why he couldn't return. He's actually

directing Animal Farm, an interpretation of Animal Farm,

something you probably read in, you know, school. Oh, I read and

watched that movie. Yeah, he's doing a new one, so he didn't

have time to do both. That's why he didn't return a banger. I'm

gonna be so upset this movie to be like 15,000 Academy Award

winning nominations or something, please. And Kelly

Marcel, who has directed TV, but never a full length film, but

had a hand in writing. Every Venom movie stepped up, and I

don't really want to put this all on her, because the edit of

this movie is truly terrible. But I don't know what the

thought was behind putting a first time director to helm the

end of a trilogy, not really sure what the thought was.

Deadline. Hollywood said that some of the underperformance of

the movie could be blamed on the World Series, game between the

Yankees and the Dodgers, which I think is a cap in itself and in

about three weeks, you'll be able to see this on Netflix,

because I think that's how long it's going to last in theaters.

Also, as a Yankees fan, listen, we already hurt and don't put

Venom on us. Yeah, that's rude. Oh, man, all right. Well, I mean

choices were made. I'm glad to see that we hear, really, that

there's a reason behind some of the stuff. I'm wishing Andy

circus the best with this animal farm movie. I'm hoping that

Kelly Marcel does not take the the the unfortunate reviews that

she's that this movie is receiving as any insight onto

her work. Because obviously you were already knocking out the

park as the writer for these films. You were enjoying, we

were enjoying that you were creating wonderful content. And

you know, we understand especially that, like one person

could put together work, but unfortunately, many other people

have input who will force that opinion on on the process and

everything so and again. Do not blame the Yankees for what

happened to venom. We are still hurting. That's I'm I'm gonna

write a strong letter to ever try to combine that because

world, the World Series, yes. All happened in the same

weekend. Those only happened at night. Okay? You had the better

part of the day to go see this movie and the help of his

performance, yeah, if you didn't want to see it, yeah, you didn't

want to see it. And also, studios don't blame superhero

fatigue. This movie is just bad. Okay, stop stop it. Stop it all

right, yeah, yeah, if you want to blame superhero fatigue on

anything, and probably would have been Joaquin Phoenix,

because he was probably just tired the superhero stuff, and

that's why he gave a poor performance.

But speaking of superhero fatigue, obviously, we have to

hop on over to the inspiration for all this stuff, and that is

the comic section of today, which I am going to be calling

null and void. Um, which is what Andy circus is presence as Noel

was in Tyre film. All right, so I will admit that this movie

does take a lot from the venom lore. Um, obviously we have

venom, obviously we have symbiotes, as well as the

introduction of Noel, who has been in comics now for the

better part of the last six years. Officially, though,

Marvel does did seem to be trying to build stuff on the

back end to help bring him into the scene, but he officially

came out in 2018 but before I talk about No, I do want to

point out some of the stuff and some of the big changes and some

of the easter eggs that might have come up in this film. As I

mentioned, Patrick Mulligan is we is taken over by symbiote.

It's not this ghost, like figure that we saw in the film. It

actually just looks like a melted version of carnage, and

that is because it is the son of carnage by the name of toxin,

and obviously, and the other thing too, because every

symbiote since venom has had or carnage has had daddy issues,

toxin hated his father, so he decided to team up with his

grandfather, venom to finally Take down carnage. And in the

comic as well, Patrick Bogan is a cop who unfortunately passes

in the line of duty. And when POM bonding with the symbiote,

the two of them become a, I guess, like lethal deputize

protector, which I would have been cool, yeah. I mean, just,

you're kind of wasting people behind the scenes here these

cages is saying, next up, dr, Teddy Payne, there is another

character in Marvel history that does not have any connection to

Venom whatsoever, and that person goes by Thaddeus Payne.

So this is a brand new creation, I'm assuming, but the symbiote

that she uses is not new. This is the symbiote that goes by the

name of agony. And as far as I could tell, though, the super

speed is new. Everything dealing with the electrical powers all

brand new. In fact, the name she was first introduced in venom,

lethal protector back in 1993 however, she didn't get the name

of agony, until much later, when she was a part of a strike team

that consisted about five to six symbiotes. Wait, that's that is

how like six guys. It sounds like six aliens. Yes, it was

six, six soldiers who actually got symbiotes placed on though

this is too You're going too fast. I just can't hear guys,

six guys. That's it. Also speaking of Doctor Payne. We

also had Sadie Christmas, who did become she Venom for a bit.

So we do get a chance to see that reappearance since the

first film, which is also in the comics. But more importantly,

she bonds with two symbiotes during our film today. The

second one happens to be Lasher, a green symbiote who has knife

pointed tendrils that come out. And we got a chance to see that

in action. Definitely more lines in this movie that feel that

Lasher has ever gotten any comic book story. Other appearances

that we did see were phage I believe this was the character

Jim. He got the phage symbiote, which is another popular one

amongst symbiote fans, and a hint of hybrid, which was when

the all the five symbiotes, the children of venom that were

released in the comic venom, lethal protector by David

Micheline and Mark Bagley back in 1993 fused together to create

a five headed hybrid symbiote, which would have been, I assume,

the two headed symbiote that this movie tried to put

together. But I guess budget was an issue. So, yeah, um, all

these names, we wouldn't actually get them until, like,

20 years later in another MARVEL Future comic where they had to

face off against carnage. But let's talk about the granddaddy

of them all. No Who was first introduced in Venom comics, but

he got his full origin story revealed in issue number four in

2018 written by Donnie Cates and Ryan Ryan Stegman. Now I gotta

say, reading through the. Comic, especially the introduction of

it. I this was my first time kind of going through it, so I'm

still reading through it. But from the big event that he had

about the king in black, which was the summer event that took

place back in 2020 from across Marvel stories, Noel explains

that he was basically the only being in the universe back in

the day at since its existence, it was just him and his kingdom

the void, aka space. He was just floating around aimlessly, doing

his own thing, until one day, the darkness of his space was

interrupted by a bright light and the gentrifying, gentrifying

force of the Celestials. Damn it, the lattes are going to be

more expensive. So with their presence, they brought light and

new worlds that occupied his space. So in a fit of rage

because he's losing his property, he takes the shadow

that is being casted from his body, and pulls a blade out and

uses that dark blade to cut off the head of one of the

Celestials. And I'm glad that you brought them guardians,

because that, my friends, is how Guardians of the Galaxy got

their home of nowhere. Ah, okay, okay. Sharp, sharp blade. Sharp

blade guy. Now Noel will turn this into a 1v 20 plus against

the Celestials. And unfortunately he does lose this

battle a little bit, and they banish him to the world Forge,

which we saw in um Avengers Infinity War, where Thor would

make storm breaker, but no obviously did not hear Nobel. So

he spent his entire time in forge working and building a new

weapon that he can use against the celestials to take back his

kingdom. And that is how we got the proto symbiote. This was a

being, but more so, like an armor and a weapon that he can

use to morph onto his body and car injure any weapon that he

ever wanted. And as Noel recounts the story of how he

created it, he said he tells the story of how he was injured

during this battle. So he unfortunately, was at his full

potential. So during this time, he had to use the fire that was

from the Forge, and the heat and the and the hammering of the

celestial hammer, Hammer that he stole to enforce his will onto

the proto symbiote, leading to the symbiote, this proto Symbio

taking on weaknesses from both fire and sound, which will then

be transferred down to his descendants. Okay, ties together

nicely. Now with this new weapon, it's round two, but

another defeat. Not as bad, though, because as Noel is

recovering on a nearby planet, he realizes that the suit that

he has can put itself onto any other smaller animal, and this

proto symbiote will create an offspring that will create a

symbiotic relationship with a lesser being. And this created

the first Venom like host, this first symbiote host. So with

that, he took his time, he grew his power, influencing and

putting his will with the proto symbiote to create more

symbiotes, and ultimately it will lead to him even creating a

symbiote Dragon, which honestly looks so freaking cool if you

ever check it out. Um, this dragon, though, caught the

attention of Thor when it was antagonizing some people, and

Thor defeated the creature, and it was such a sounding defeat

that it snapped the control that no had over all the symbiotes

that he created. Because with the proto symbiote, he was

created able to create a hive mind and force HIS WILL onto

them. And this is where we get like, kind of like that

explanation in the movie, where he was then the symbiotes now,

but in the more obviously, because the comic provides a bit

more detail, the symbiotes, after bonding with so many

beings who wanted to do good, they also created their own

sense of good, and they realized that their master was putting

them On a wrongful path, so they bonded together, went after null

and took him down in this huge battle where they locked him in

a cage, similar to what we saw here. And this also, will also

want to say that Thor would not face off. This is not the last

time that Thor would end up facing off against like a

creature of null, or some kind of byproduct of null, because

the same armor that null had, the same blade, the same thing

he used, would find its way into the hands of a being that would

slay, or, some might say, Gore, a God. So all this time. Time

The aftermath of nulls presence is echoing through the Marvel

Universe, between

Thor versus the god Slayer, the location of nowhere, how it was

created and then now this is where we see that the symbiotes

have locked away null in what was more recently explained the

planet of symbiotes, which was called clintar. But we learned

that clintar is actually not a planet. It is actually no in the

middle and 1000s upon 1000s of symbiotes swirling around,

keeping him locked in and preventing him from moving. And

clintar is actually their word for cage. So now that we have

that backstory, we do get the creation of the Knowles, kind of

like rise to power. He does break free, but the Codex issue,

this is the thing that is very confusing in this movie, so I'm

gonna try to see if I explain it quickly, because it does play

out more so in the king in black. But once again, yes, if a

symbiote saves his host from dying, it does create a codex.

And it's not just venom, as is shown in the movie. Codexes are

very basically. It's like going playing Pokemon, and just like

happening on the caterpi in the very first stages of after you

leave Pallet Town. So there are 1000s of codexes, but each one

is a separate key, and each every as many cases you can

collect, leads into no being able to escape. So that is why,

even though they kind of hyped it up like it was like no was

going to be able to free himself after just defeating Venom one

time. In reality, he would need several then um, symbiotes in

order to do this. And even speaking about venom, the name

actually comes from the fact where null was fighting against

the symbiotes, he says they've been infected by a virus or even

a venom. So that's why venom is the more popular symbiote of

within the Marvel Universe, even though lash guy, fire lash guy,

I'm voting for him, yeah. So yeah, that is it. No, I'm

actually pretty impressed with the story that they crafted for

him in comics, especially because of the fact that he has

such a strong connection to some of those unanswered questions

that we've had in the Marvel Universe, and then eventually

his hand in create, and not only the creation of certain villains

or spaces, but also, like fact, he killed the celestial which I

know that Marvel has been toying around with now, I don't know

how if they are still, because I know the Eternals two is no

longer on the block. No thanks. All right, but I be shocked to

see how they if no is going to be a bigger character in the

future, and if it's going to be a Sony production, or if it's

going to be a Marvel production, especially because they're at

the right moment, right now, where there's no real villain,

like we are just relying on, you know, the phase out of Kang and

then hopefully Dr Doom, now played by Robert Downey Jr,

becoming the thing, which I don't know if it will. I don't,

to be honest, I don't have that much confidence that this

version of Dr Doom would be as big, because, you know, there's

only really two. Like, he's a great character in the comics,

but it'd be very hard to introduce someone who doesn't

have such a like we have Thanos, who has such a rich history with

the things going on behind the scenes. And until I see

something with Dr Doom happening with that in the Marvel

Universe, I feel like no should really make this hop over. If

the plan is for him to hop over to the Marvel Universe as soon

as possible, or they'll put him in Spider Man for the

multiverse, as was the bled all along. All right. So with that,

that wraps up the comic book knowledge. That also wraps up

our episode. Any final thoughts about venom, three last dance.

Sony, just stop. Please, please. It's yeah, look, we get it. We

get it. The money is great, but come on with these movies, man,

if you're not going to try stop doing it, all right, we'd rather

never see these characters, then you do this every three months.

Please, please stop. It's just, just work on the working

conditions of what we've been hearing about, the working

conditions for the spider verse movies, and just give us the

enjoyment that we know could be a great film. And don't have to

worry about feeling like you have to check every single box

or every single person. Just make your story. We will find

ways to enjoy it same way we did with our first two films here.

All right, that wraps up our episode. Be sure to support us,

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of yourselves and remember that. I guess if you got some kind of

trauma, just follow the advice of Dr Christmas and Dr temple,

because 90% of the time taking on the symbiote might just solve

that somehow. And if your job involves you working near a pit

of acid that is outdoors, quit it ain't worth it because you're

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