This is a DynaMic Network podcast.
the Dynamic Duel Podcast, a weekly show where we review superhero films and debate the superiority
between Marvel and DC by comparing their characters in stat-based battle simulations. I'm Johnny
DC. And I'm his twin brother, Marvelous Joe. And in this episode, we are reviewing the latest
Marvel Sony film to hit theaters, Venom, The Last Dance. Yeah, the franchise is part of
the Sony Spider-Man universe, which has not been great. I would say that the Venom franchise
is probably the best thing about it. But how did the latest Venom movie stack up compared
to the rest of the films? We'll find out later on in this episode. Before that, we're going
to break down the comic book movie news from the past week, of which we've got two Marvel
news items. It's an all Marvel episode today. First, we have the set photos that reveal our
first look at Spider-Man Noir. and the news that the MCU Blade film has lost its release
date. As always, we list our segment times in our episode description, so feel free to check
out the show notes if you want to skip ahead to a particular topic. Our artificially intelligent
Duel simulator, AJ9K, has a quick message for our listeners, so listen up. Why hello there,
do you want even more from this podcast? Then become a part of the dynamic Duel community
on Patreon, where you can choose from three tiers. The dynamic two-oh tier gives you access
to our Discord chat server. The fantastic four tier gives you two bonus episodes each month,
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simulation results. Pitch the twins your ideas via email at dynamicduelpodcast at gmail.com.
Check it out at patreon.com slash dynamicduel. Pip pip cheerio. Thanks AJ9K and thanks to
everyone who supports the podcast. Guys, be sure to tune into the other shows on the DynaMic
Podcast Network this week, including Max Destruction, which pits your favorite action heroes from
film and television against each other. This week, hosts Scotty and Gilly are determining
the winner between Poe from Kung Fu Panda and Fiona from Shrek. On the Senjou World Podcast,
host Zachary Hepburn speculates on fights between fan favorite anime and manga characters. This
Thursday, Zach will find out who will win between Tetsuo from Akira and Tatsuo from and Lucy
Dictonius from Elfen Lied. You Elfen lied to me, bro. On the console combat podcast, hosts
John and Dean simulate battles between popular video game characters. In yesterday's episode,
they found out who would win in a fight between Freddy Fazbear from Five Nights at Freddy's
and Willie Weasel from Willie's Wonderland. Visit dynamicpodcasts.com or click the link
in our show notes to listen to all of the shows in the DynaMic Podcast Network. But with that
out of the way, quick to the No Prize! A No Prize is an award Marvel used to give out to
fans. Our version, the Dynamic Duel No Prize, is a digital award we post on Instagram for
the person that we feel gave the best answer to our question of the week. Last week, we
asked you guys, who do you think is the scariest Marvel or DC character and why? And we asked
that because Halloween is coming up in a couple of days, and we got a lot of great answers
from you guys. Let's go ahead and run down our honorable mentions as well as the No Prize
winner. Our first honorable mention goes to Colby Hentges, who said, Hey, boys, Colby Hentges,
the scariest character in Marvel or DC is Major Force. He will murder your girl and put her
in a refrigerator. I don't want none of that. Yeah, Major Force is a evil version, I guess
you could say, of the hero Captain Adam. He is notorious for killing Kyle Rayner's girlfriend
and then stuffing her in his fridge. which was just horrifying in the comics, completely unnecessarily
violent. I could see where Major Force would be very scary for that reason. Yeah, Kyle Rayner
is a Green Lantern, right? And I remember it was horrifying in the comic books because Kyle
Rayner came home, not knowing where she was, opening up the refrigerator and then finding
her there, which is something out of a slasher film, scary movie. That is absolutely horrifying.
I remember my first exposure to that was in the Green Lantern Fears Itself comic book,
graphic novel and there was a painted rendition of his girlfriend in the fridge. And I remember
just being like, what the fuck is this? Cause I had no context and it just seemed horribly
violent and scary to me. So yeah, I thought this was a pretty good answer. Yeah, it's the
event that coined the term fridging that's known in the comic world. Yeah, it has a negative
connotation where writers will use love interests deaths, primarily as plot devices for the protagonists,
you know, and not really treating them like real characters. It's a shallow move to say
the least, but in this instance here, it was a particularly scary one. Great answer, Colby.
Our next honorable mention goes to Cyrus Moore, who said, Hey guys, Cyrus Moore here. And I
think I'm going to butcher this last name, but I think Victor Zaz, the Batman villain, is
probably the scariest DC villain of all time. I mean, serial killer who kills people that
tallies. how many kills he has on his body, just a real creepy character, creepy backstory.
I think he's definitely the scariest. Yeah, we've seen Victor Zazz appear in quite a few
films outside of the comics. He was in Batman Begins, he was in Birds of Prey, he was in
the Gotham television series. But yeah, the dude's fairly creepy in that he's probably
the least fantastical Batman villain in that he's just a serial killer who... carves a tally
mark into his skin for each kill that he's had and his body is covered in tally marks. Yeah,
I've seen versions of the character in the comics where his tally marks are kind of sparse along
his body, but I've also seen renditions where they like cover almost his entire body and
they're across his forehead and his back and everything like that and it just makes me wonder
like what does he do when he runs out of room? I don't know. Just stretch that scrot.
That's a horrifying visual. So yeah, a particularly scary response to a scary question. Great answer,
Cyrus. Our next honorable mention goes to Mason Thompson, who said, I hate scary things. I'm
gonna be straight up. I hate scary things. Why do you wanna be scared of something? Tell me,
why do you wanna be scared of something? We could go off like auras and stuff, but like,
if we're talking base looks, I'm going upside down, man, from DC it oh I do not like it it's
terrifying it's get out get out of my face so yeah the upside down man was a villain that
Wonder Woman's version of the Justice League dark faced in the comics dude is super creepy
he's all white he has no face except for a mouth like where his eyes should be it's a disturbing
look you know it's almost like something out of like stranger things or something like that
you know So yeah, a relatively new and obscure character, but definitely creepy. To answer
Mason Thompson's question, the reason we like to be scared, people who like horror films,
is because it gives you an adrenaline rush and kind of amps you up mentally to, I think, better
prepare the horrors that are out there in the real world. Like, if you watch, like, Paranormal
Activity, you will be prepared when you're walking through your house at night and you hear a
loud creak or something like that. You're gonna be like, you know what? I've already mentally
gone through this, so I'm not afraid. Yeah, you will be ready for that shit. Right, so
it just helps you to be brave. If you can handle a fictional scenario that you're watching,
you might just do better in the real world. I think that's the appeal. That said, I also
hate scary things, and I refuse to watch them. I love scary things. I watched a lot of great
horror movies this Halloween season. And I also feel like you have more nightmares than me.
I don't though, because I'm not a wuss. Just man up and watch it follows already, like I
told you to a thousand times. Hey, hey, I will when I'm getting ready. I just don't wanna
be like recording down here in my basement, then all of a sudden like, I turn around and
there's like someone right there. That's why I tell you, you have to watch it. No, I'm good.
So you can be prepared for when that happens. So great answer Mason Thompson. We wanna give
a quick shout out to Daniel Alonso and Michael Williams for taking the time to visit our site
and record your answers. We really appreciate it. But the winner of this week's snow prize
is Travis Herndon, who said, What's up dynamic dudes? Travis here. Shout out to my evil twin.
So my answer had to be no. I mean, look at him. He looks like if you get any from Iron Maiden
and Freddy Cougar together, and this is their love child. This dude is creepy. Yeah. You
can say, well, venom is scary or carnage is scary, but hey, we wouldn't have those two
without this lanky ass creepy motherfucker. I'd be more terrified of him than those two
any day of the week. What an appropriately timed answer for this Venom the Last Dance review.
Null, the eldritch god of darkness in the Marvel Universe, is creepy as fuck. You know, he's
all white, he has long white hair, black eyes, except for the red spots, and his smile goes
all the way almost up to his ears, and a mouthful of sharp teeth. Dude is intimidating not just
because of how he looks though, but also because of what he says and what he does. You know,
the guy has the feats. to back up his claims and when he says like, you will drown in a
sea of gnashing teeth and as your limbs are ripped from your body, your blood will drench
the darkness or some shit like that. You know, everything he says is like a lyric to a death
metal song. I'm not too familiar with Null from the comics, I'm not gonna lie. But spoiler
alert, we are doing a duel between him and the White Lantern Kyle Rayner in our next episode.
Yeah, that'll be a fun one. So stick around for that next week. Great answer, Travis, you
win this week's No Prize if you the listener want a shot at winning your own No Prize. Stay
tuned to later on in this episode when we will be asking another question of the week. And
now that that's done, onto the news! Alright, this past week we got our first look at Spider-Man
Noir from the upcoming Amazon television series titled Spider-Noir that's being produced by
Sony. and it's starring Nicolas Cage and it was quite the surprise when the show was announced.
I thought it was really nice that they cast the same actor who voiced the character in
the Into the Spider-Verse film. I was really looking forward to seeing how this was going
to turn out. I'll admit that I didn't have the highest of expectations when it came to things
like the costume, but boy was I wrong because the set photos that we got that were released
by TMZ look fantastic. The character design is straight out of the Into the Spider-Verse
movie in that he has the fedora because in the comics he doesn't really wear the fedora, although
I think they brought that on later on when they saw how good it looked in the animated movie.
But he's got the trench coat on here. We see him like riding on top of a 1930s era car because
the series is set during the Great Depression and we even see him like shooting out his hand
to fire a web and it all looks fantastic. It's the stunt double on top of the car, most likely
not Nicolas Cage, but things are shaping up pretty well. for the Spider and War series.
Do we know that for sure? Cause I know Nicolas Cage does a lot of his own stunt driving. Well,
he's not driving. He's standing on top of a car. Same thing. No, I'm pretty sure it's a
stunt double. The way he's crouched and everything like that just make it more plausible that
it's the stunt double. Though we have seen Nicolas Cage in the costume sans his mask. And I thought
he looked pretty cool. I mean, the costume is very basic. It's all black with a black trench
coat, but not gonna lie, that's still kind of cool. Well, The costume is his Uncle Ben's
World War I Airman uniform. Oh, that's cool. With a trench coat on top of that. So that's
pretty cool. As we discussed on this podcast earlier, they did make some changes to the
Spider-Man Noir story in that this is gonna be Ben Reilly instead of Peter Parker, who
in the comic books is actually a clone of Peter Parker, but I don't think he's gonna be a clone
here. He's just named Ben Reilly in this particular universe. Yeah, I'm guessing Kevin Feige from
Marvel Studios made them do that. I'm actually surprised to hear that this is on Amazon Prime.
I thought it was going to be on Disney Plus. No, Amazon Prime. Interesting. It's going to
be a crime show, although I believe it's also going to have some supernatural elements to
it. So if it's done like in the vein of something like Batman, the doom that came to Gotham or
something like that, I think that'd be pretty cool. You wish. If it was only half as cool,
you'd enjoy it. That's true. That's true. But with this first look at his costume release,
I'm really looking forward to seeing what else we get. from this series. We don't have a release
date yet, I believe, but I'm already eagerly anticipating it. Yeah, you have to imagine
it's going to come out sometime next year. Yeah, probably late next year or early 2026 is my
guess. Speaking of release dates though, we got the really sucky news this past week that
Blade has been removed from its 2025 release date that was set to be next November. It is
sucky news, I guess it's not really surprising news considering that if they wanted to make
that release date, They would have already probably started shooting and we definitely would have
had a new director by this point, ever since Yann Demange left the project. Now this doesn't
mean that the movie is cancelled, it's just been delayed. And Marvel has picked up like
three new release dates going into 2028 I believe, so it's entirely possible that they're just
choosing to sit on the Blade movie until they have you know, the right script and the right
director for the project. I'm just wondering why this keeps happening to this movie. I don't
know. Is it really that hard to crack a good Blade story? Because I feel like we've done
it at least three times already. You mean the first three Blade movies? Yeah. I mean, I would
not count Blade Trinity as a good Blade story. They at least gotta make sure they do better
than that with this reboot. Yeah, but that film had problems outside of just the story. And
I feel like the problem that this new movie keeps running into is that they can't agree
on what the story is creatively. Yeah, maybe. I mean, reports say that the previous scripts
that were submitted had Blade as not the main character, and he was more of like a side character
in his own film, which didn't make sense, so something is not quite going right from the
conception phase, I think. But I am really excited to see Mahershala Ali as the Blade character.
I know that a lot of people are hoping that Wesley Snipes comes back into the role. I think
that's just wishful thinking. I think he's kind of aged out of it by this point. And I thought
they gave him a pretty decent sendoff in the Deadpool and Wolverine film. There's only been
one Blade. There's only ever gonna be one Blade. I really like Mahershala Ali as an actor. And
I just think he'd be fantastic in the role. So here's hoping they kind of crack that story
and this Blade movie could pick up a release date in 2026 or 2027 or something like that.
It's interesting that you're saying that he was written into stories where he wasn't the
main character, even though he's the title character supposedly, because I'm seeing current rumors
that they may just skip the Blade movie and skip straight to a Midnight Suns film. Yeah,
that's one of the rumors that's going around. I really hope that's not the case. I think
that would be an instance of Marvel pulling a DC, which they definitely don't want to do.
And I say that because, you know, they threw together the Justice League movie without giving
all the characters on the team their own films, which I think was a mistake. They should do
it the Marvel way, like they did with the Avengers, where the characters had their own films leading
up to the movie. You know what they should do? Just give each of the Midnight Sun characters
their own special presentation, like holiday type film. Just do that. Like you don't need
to do a full feature length thing. Just do a short and then have the Midnight Sun's movie.
I wouldn't hate that. I mean, they gave a special presentation to Werewolf by Night, which I
thought was really solid. I had a lot of fun with that one. So, I would not be unhappy with
that. But as we mentioned earlier, like, Blade fights vampires, right? Just make a movie about
that. Make it interesting. It shouldn't be that hard to figure this story out. And with that
in mind, that brings us to our question of the week.
Give us your best 30 second film pitch for the MCU's Blade movie. Now we're looking for you
fan fiction writers out there to dig deep and give us a quick pitch of what basically the
plot is for what you think the MCU's Blade movie should be. Record your answer at dynamicduel.com
by clicking on the red microphone button in the bottom right hand corner of the screen,
which will prompt you to leave us a voicemail. Your message could be up to 30 seconds long,
and don't forget to leave your name in case we include you on the podcast. We'll pick our
favorite answer and award that person a dynamic Duel no prize that we'll post to Instagram.
Be sure to answer before November 2nd.
That does it for all of the news for this episode. Now let's go ahead and move on to the main
event where we review the latest Sony Spider-Man universe film Venom, The Last Dance.
Alright, Venom The Last Dance was written and directed by Kelly Marcel and stars Tom Hardy,
Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Juno Temple. Director Kelly Marcel also wrote the first two installments
of the Venom franchise and took over as director for this latest go-round, which I kind of thought
was interesting because I found it probably the best directed installment of the bunch.
Yeah, it definitely felt like the most cohesive in regards to both the direction and the writing.
Yeah, it kind of felt- more like an MCU film than the previous two installments did, right?
Yeah, I can see that. I was kind of dreading this movie, especially after the lackluster
film before this, Venom Let There Be Carnage, which we gave two and a half stars. But with
Venom The Last Dance, I found myself not thrilled with the movie, but satisfied in a way that
I wasn't with the last one, because I had some fun with this film, kind of like the first
movie. There's some cool action, some humor that lands. and some good character beats.
So if you haven't seen Venom the Last Ants and plan to, listen no further because this is
a spoiler review. My biggest gripe with the second film, Let There Be Carnage, was that
Venom was reduced to a caricature of himself and the movie leaned a little bit too far into
his goofy side as a means of subverting this scary looking monster. And that really doesn't
change here too much with this movie. We do have, you know, Venom making margaritas, singing
to David Bowie, and dancing to ABBA. As fucking ridiculous as that can be for fans of the comic
book character, The Last Stance at least has one thing going for it over Let There Be Carnage,
and that's that this third film actually has good stakes. You know, there's an actual feeling
of danger to the proceedings. And the movie actually had balls to sacrifice the title character,
I think, in a way that felt meaningful. And I can respect that. And I actually thought
that those stakes helped offset some of the goofiness that we see here. Because, you know,
this film had the potential to be pretty dark otherwise. Yeah, it has pretty dark themes,
right? There's oftentimes throughout the film where Venom's kind of talking about how things
would be better for Eddie, maybe, if the two were separate. But... that you don't really
want to be separate. So then it kind of has this ominous foreshadowing that kind of hangs
over the entire film, I would say. Yeah, and in that sense, the humor and the jokes that
were at play here actually had purpose, unlike the second movie where the jokes were mainly
just for shits and giggles. Because we all know that Carnage wasn't nearly as menacing as he
could and should have been. But things like, you know, Venom's instant addiction to gambling,
the symbiote horse... Those things just worked for me in this movie in a way that they didn't
in the second film. I'll say that Venom 3 has the greatest amount of spectacle too out of
all the films. All the action beats I thought were on point including the fight in the dog
pit, the airplane fight, the river chase. That fucking fight at the end of the movie at the
Empyrean base at Area 51, holy shit man. Like seeing all those multiple symbiotes. and how
they each have their own fighting style going up against some of the most impressive movie
monsters I've seen in a long time, the Xenophages. That shit was badass. Dude, I want to see a
Xenophage go up against a Xenomorph Queen on Max Destruction. The Kamacho twins have to
do that battle. That would be pretty cool. I mean, the Xenophages move pretty well though,
like whether it's through the air with their super leaping ability or running on the ground.
and their fucking woodchipper heads, right? When I saw them devour one of the Imperium
soldiers and like basically all of his blood and guts shot out the back of the creature's
head, my jaw dropped. And I was like, what the fuck did I just see? I've never seen anything
like that in a monster movie. So just when you think you've seen it all, Venom III has some
surprises up its sleeve. Are the xenophages from the comics? They are, yeah. They're not
creations of null. but they are natural alien predators of the symbiotes. Gotcha. Really
what the xenophages should be, and fans of the comic books will know this, they should have
been symbiote dragons. Those are the eldritch creatures that Null has created, and symbiote
dragons have the ability to kind of spew out symbiotes of their own. And that would have
been cool to see here, but I can understand why they went with the xenophages, because
if you start introducing dragons into the Venom franchise, then things kind of start feeling
a little bit fantasy based and you want to keep things kind of alien and monstrous. But it
would have been cool to see Grendel in this movie, who is one of Null's first symbiote
dragons that got trapped thousands of years ago on Earth. Hmm. That shit went entirely
over my head, but it sounds cool. And you have to imagine that maybe we'll get to see that
in future installments within Sony's Spider-Man universe. Yeah, and I'm glad you brought that
up because it is really hard to know what to think about this movie at the end of it in
regards to future installments for Sony's Spider-Man universe. Now, this is supposed to be the last
time we see Tom Hardy suited up as Venom and as Eddie Brock. And yet the movie set up so
many cool threads that we're not sure will ever be picked up in future installments. And you
might even call them plot holes in this sense, but things like Null. Things like the shadowy
organization behind Imperium. Things like that, you know? What's gonna happen there? Is Sony's
Spider-Man universe gonna continue or is it going to falter? Who knows? Ideally, the best
case scenario is that Spider-Man 4 involves the character of Venom and they pick up a lot
of these dangling threads. In that regard, I hope the movie actually does really well at
the box office, because it would be nice to have that best case scenario happen, essentially.
Yeah, I feel like a lot of people have been speculating that Noah will be a part of Spider-Man
4. And I think Marvel Studios has been hesitant to confirm that. I think they're waiting to
see how well this Venom movie does. So if you do want to see Venom in Spider-Man 4, the more
people that see this last Venom movie, the better. Yeah, in theaters too. I think that would be
best for everybody. Because, you know, it's worth seeing on the big screen, I think. There
are some pretty solid visual effects here. I think the visual effects for the symbiotes
are better also than the previous two installments. So I accidentally saw this movie in 3D, like
I got my tickets and they're like, oh, here's your 3D glasses. And I was like, what? Gosh,
dang it. And it was like the last showing of the night. So I was like, whatever. But it
wasn't terrible, actually. I could think off the top of my head of some pretty cool scenes
that I think would have been cool in 3D, like the airplane scene. Yes. Like when Venom's
floating head is talking to Eddie, things like that. There were definitely some shots that
they did that I felt like were tailor made for 3D, where it's like, okay, yeah, that was totally
meant for me to like, trying to reach out and touch it. And actually, my daughter who saw
the film with me did exactly that. That's cool. I bet you Lasher was really cool in 3D. with
her tentacles. Oh yeah, all of the symbiotes were really cool in 3D. Nice. Now you mentioned
before that the plot threads might be plot holes. I don't think that's the case. I definitely
think they're plot threads that could be picked up in another film so I don't fault them for
that. That said, I do think this film has plot holes such as how the hell did Venom know that
Area 51 had this like acid shower bath thing? That's a great question. He wouldn't have known.
Yeah. It made for a dramatic death scene though. Like I felt really bad for Venom actually,
you know, seeing this character that we've grown to know and love over the course of three films
die in such a horribly painful and tragic way. I think it was hard for Eddie to watch, too.
And I guess some other things that aren't quite plot holes, but are just kind of weird is like
what was up with Dr. Payne's whole backstory and, you know. Dude, I get into that. Okay.
That whole fucking thing was so bizarre. We'll get there though in the character breakdown.
Speaking of which, let's go ahead and do that now. First, let's talk about Venom slash Eddie
Brock, played by Tom Hardy. You know, if this is the last time we ever see Tom Hardy as the
character of Eddie Brock, which I hope it's not, I want to say that Tom Hardy's performance
should go down as one of the most technically brilliant physical performances ever committed
to the screen. Even if there's like some probably speed ramping involved, I think his movements
when Venom is in control make it actually seem as if they're involuntary, as if he has strings
that are being pulled like a puppet. I think a lot of people might wonder why such a gifted
performance on par with Charlie Chaplin or Peter Sellers would be wasted on a franchise as goofy
as Venom. But you know what? I still respect it. For my money, there was no other actor
better suited to the role of Eddie Brock. So again, let's just make sure that he either
returns in Spider-Man 4 or maybe even in the MCU. I do agree that it was a great physical
performance, but I had the same problem with Tom Hardy's acting in this film as I have in
previous Venom films, and that is he kind of mumbles a lot. And also it's really hard to
understand his Venom voice in some instances. I noticed that here too. Like I understood
it, but then I was thinking, man, I hope other people got that because that was kind of an
important plot point that Venom just stated when he was giving like exposition regarding
the character of Null and the codex and things like that. Yeah, I understood everything. For
the most part, Venom was saying regarding exposition. That said, as I'm sure we'll get into later,
the exposition in this film is kind of terrible. I can see where you can make that point. The
dialogue was not great in this movie, especially between Rex Strickland and Teddy Payne. Yeah.
How they're like commenting, I'm like, oh, here we are now in the Imperium headquarters beneath
Area 51. You know, it's just, it's too obvious. Right? It's like, what? What are you guys doing?
Yeah. Is this your first time here? What's going on? Yeah, like talk like normal people, right?
Exactly. Story-wise, Eddie's prime motivation was to go to New York, which really didn't
work for me because he was going there because he had dirt on a judge and wanted to blackmail
them into clearing his name. Like, how does that remotely seem like a good idea? I will
grant him that the character was drunk when he had the idea, but still, like, blackmailing
a judge, you know, committing a crime doesn't seem like a great way to exonerate yourself
of other crimes. It just seems like a good way to rack up more charges, honestly. And honestly,
like if you're going to do something like that, wouldn't it be simpler just to, you know, threaten
the prosecuting attorney or like the case judge or something like that? Yeah, I guess that's
true. I'll say that there were some great character moments for Eddie. I was genuinely moved in
the camper scene with the Moon family when Venom was commenting on how it would have been nice
to have a family and how Eddie would have made a great dad. Those scenes with the kid were
a great and kind of tragic peek into what could have been for Eddie Brock. And of course, you
know, the sacrifice at the end was also really touching as Eddie sees this creature that he
didn't always get along with but had over time really connected to die in this really painful
way. And like seeing Eddie remember his and Venom's moments together across the franchise
was also a nice touch as he was at the Statue of Liberty. I choked up a bit. Yeah, no kidding.
There was a kid who was straight up balling in my theater at the end of this movie. Oh,
dang. He was crying from the time Venom was killing himself all the way to when Eddie was
looking at the Statue of Liberty. I was like, calm down, kid. Poor kid. Not only is this
a movie, he was an alien. You know, like as much as you don't want to see Venom and Eddie
be separated, I think the movie did do a nice job of signaling that it was time. You know,
Eddie looked worn, he looked tired, he definitely signaled that he was dealing with a lot like
when he killed the Imperium soldier in the river. It kind of made the loss of Venom a little
bit more acceptable, I think, just because it kind of felt like it was that time. But you
know, I expect we'll see Venom back before long, hopefully. Let's go ahead and move on to Commander
Rex Strickland. who was played by Chiwetel Eziofor. Eziofor is a better actor than what the script
gave him. There wasn't nearly enough for him to do for an actor of his caliber. And I kind
of feel bad that he just came across as kind of a generic angry military guy. I kind of
felt like this was a paycheck for a number of actors who appeared in the film. That said,
they didn't do a bad job. They made the most somewhat of what was on the page. It just felt
like, why are you in this movie? Why are you even accepting these lines? You're better than
this. It's really strange, though, particularly what she would tell Ejio for because his character,
Rex Strickland, is actually kind of a major character in the King of Black storyline. In
the comics, Rex Strickland was a soldier in Vietnam who was given an ancient symbiote found
on Earth by S.H.I.E.L.D. in order to become a super soldier. and he helped Eddie out when
his mind was stuck in the symbiote hive mind in the King and Black story arc. And I kept
thinking that at some point, Rex was going to bond with the symbiote and we were going to
get to see the Tyrannosaurus symbiote, but that just never happened. Like at the end fight
scene against the xenophages, a symbiote should have bonded with Rex. And I was kind of really
confused when that didn't happen. It makes me wonder why they bothered making this military
guy, Rex Strickland, to begin with. You know, he should have been. General Orwell Taylor,
who we theorized his character was from the trailers. Yeah, who knows? Maybe in earlier
drafts of the script, he was that character, but for some reason they decided to go with
Dr. Payne as the symbiote. And Dr. Payne's not even a fucking character from the comic books.
There's a Thaddeus Payne who was like a villain that went up against a venom whose power was
that he couldn't feel pain, but he never bonded with a symbiote or anything. It's weird. Speaking
of Dr.
This character will go down in history as having the worst flashback in cinematic history. I'm
not even sure why that whole scene with her brother on the beach and the lightning storm
was even necessary considering it had no reason to be in this movie. No, you're right. Like,
they tried to develop her character way more than what was necessary considering the role
that she had to play in the plot. You know, I think that screen time actually would have
been better spent on an actual character from the comics like Rex Strickland instead of Dr.
Payne. And like really she had less to do than her associate, Dr. Sadie Christmas, who was
also an original character. What? She was original too? What the hell is going on? I don't know.
I have no idea. But it was weird that they both got symbiotes, but Rex Strickland did not.
So backwards. You kind of just degraded this film for me a little bit, because that sounds
really dumb. Yeah, it is dumb. But I think what kind of elevates the film back up a half a
star is just seeing how cool Lasher and Agony were in the movie. Lasher being the green symbiote
that Sadie Christmas had and Agony being the purple long-haired symbiote that Dr. Payne
got. Well, at least they're the symbiotes characters from the comics. Yes. Yeah, I'm pretty sure
the orange one was Phage. And we already saw Riot in the first movie. He was the main antagonist
of the first film. So we saw all the life foundation symbiotes between the two films. But there
were even more symbiotes in this movie, like the fire guy, the blue snake looking one. Those
were all original and they were pretty cool. What was the name of that guy in the cell?
Detective Patrick Mulligan. What was his symbiote? I don't know the name of his symbiote. In the
comic books, Detective Patrick Mulligan is the wielder of the Toxin symbiote, who is the offspring
of Carnage. Now, we thought that in this movie we'd get to see Toxin, but that definitely
was not Toxin in the container. And there's a line in the movie about how Patrick Mulligan
survived the events of the Carnage movie because he had bonded with a symbiote, but that it
had left his body and evaded Rex Strickland's forces. So Toxin, the symbiote, is still out
there somewhere around San Francisco, but they bonded a new symbiote to Patrick Mulligan in
this movie. The blue one that I don't know the name of. Well, that's stupid because apparently
symbiotes could graft to fucking anybody. Yeah, that's a thing that is not in keeping with
the first film, because in the first film, the Life Foundation found that the symbiote had
to be like a proper match to the host, kind of like an organ donor type situation. Otherwise,
the test subject would get really sick and then die. But here, the symbiotes were just crafting
on to all kinds of scientists and soldiers, and it seemed like they were doing just fine.
And animals, which actually, I thought that was kind of cool. That was really cool. I liked
the symbiote horse. I liked the symbiote fish. That was really cool. and the frog was pretty
interesting. And all the different cool animals we got to see in the end credits. I know that's
not like in the story, but it was just also really cool to see visually. Yeah, yeah. Let's
go ahead and move on to Martin Moon, who is played by Reese Ifans. Going into the movie,
I thought it was going to be really hard to get over the idea of Reese Ifans playing the
character because he's also, you know, Kurt Connors the lizard from the Amazing Spider-Man
franchise. And we saw him recently in the No Way Home film, you know, and seeing him here.
just cemented the idea of the Venom films taking place outside of the Spider-Man universe and
it's just something you hate to see, you know? And I'm not 100% sure Martin Moon was entirely
necessary to the plot in this film, but I will say that over time he grew on me and I did
begin to appreciate his appearance because it offered a chance for some solid character development
for Eddie, you know? Like Martin Moon was almost like his spirit guide on his journey and he
kind of reminded the audience of... the humanity basically that was at stake in this film. Sure.
Yeah. Kind of brought some like real life stakes to the final battle. And that here was this
ordinary family that, you know, could be killed. Yeah. The family kind of ramped up the danger
and ramped up the levity to the proceedings, I think. There were some funny moments with
the family. Yeah, definitely some funny moments. But like you, I also am not 100 percent sure
they were even needed in this film. I would have much rather seen more backstory regarding
Noel. Or at least see Null in action in some way. I don't know. Yeah, I think the best way
to see Null in action would have been through flashback, kind of seeing him take on the Celestials
or something like that before his eventual imprisonment by the Klyntar alien race. Yeah, I wanted to
see more of that for sure, because it was kind of confusing in that I knew he was like the
main bad guy of the film. And yet, by the end, we didn't get to see him fight Venom. That
surprised me. Yeah, it was kind of like the primary antagonist of the film was really the
Xenophage. They also had Rex Strickland, but he's not nearly as cool as Null, I'll say that.
No, yeah, you're right. Speaking of Null, he was played by Andy Serkis. I thought the design
was straight out of the comic books. I thought they gave him a really great setup. It's unfortunate
there was no payoff and So you just have to hope that we'll see him again sometime in the
future and that they're just really playing the long game, which they should do. You know,
Null should not be a one and done villain. You know, he's kind of like Thanos. We should really
see him spread out over the course of multiple films as a major threat. Yeah, if Kevin Feige
doesn't hop on this setup that Sony gave him, then that is a huge shame. I don't think Sony
would let him. I think they're planning their own thing with their own Spider-Man universe.
Well, then I don't care anymore because that's just stupid. Do I really want to see Madame
Webb go up against Null? No. Morbius? No. Craven? Absolutely not. I'd watch it. Shut up. Let's
go ahead and move into our story highlights.
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The movie starts as we see Null, the eldritch god of darkness and creator of the symbiotes,
imprisoned on Klintar by the beings he created. Looking for the codex key that will free him,
he creates the xenophages, symbiote hunters, and sends them out into the cosmos to find
the codex. So right when I heard the word codex I was like, oh, okay, like Man of Steel, gotcha.
No, this is entirely different. The Codex is actually from the King and Black storyline,
except there the Codex was this basically Matrix hive mind that the Klyntar alien race shared
and Eddie Brock got lost in it. But here they kind of reworked the Codex so that it's an
actual key that forms when Asymbo resurrects its host. And what did you think of that? That
change that they made? I think it worked for the story that they were telling here. I did
like how the codex was represented by that red spiral, which is basically the symbol of Null,
and it shows up on the faces of the symbiotes that he is in control of. So that was kind
of like a nice Easter egg. In Mexico, Eddie Brock and Venom learn about the MCU 616 universe
before being pulled back into their home dimension to a similar bar. There they learn from TV
news that Eddie is wanted for the alleged murder of Detective Patrick Mulligan from the last
movie. and Eddie decides they should get to New York to blackmail a judge into giving them
amnesty. They leave the bar and stumble upon a dog fighting pit where they fight and devour
the dog fighters. Venom and Eddie are caught in Mexico on camera alerting Imperium, a government
operation working out of a secret base below Area 51. The cocktail scene was pretty funny
with Venom singing tequila as he's making Eddie a margarita. I thought that was pretty funny.
But it just made me think as Eddie got transported to his home dimension bar that the Sony Venom
universes seems like a slightly more sucky version of other Marvel universes. Like this universe's
version of the bartender is just like a down and out version of the MCUs. This universe's
version of Baron Mordo is just an army guy named Rex. This universe's version of Kurt Connors,
the Lizard, is just some dirty hippie named Martin. Like everything's kind of similar,
but vaguely more shitty. Well, Kurt Connors wasn't even the MCU version in the No Way Home
film. Technically, he was from a different universe. But we've never seen the MCU's version of Kurt
Connors. He may be played by re-siphons still. I don't know. Who knows? That's true. That's
fair. But you're right. Yeah, I guess this is like the suckiest Marvel universe ever. It
just kind of killed me how much they dropped the ball on Eddie Brock's whole cameo appearance
in No Way Home. Like that didn't amount to squat. No, it didn't. It was basically just that,
a cameo. Superlinks. With no real major implications, except that Venom did shed in the MCU. He did
leave like a shedded piece of himself, just like he did in this movie. A shedded piece?
Shedded piece. Oh, okay. What did you think of the dogfight scene? That was cool. I actually
really liked that scene. I thought it was a great opening action scene for the movie. I
left my ass off when Eddie Brock threw his slipper. at one of the bad guys. The croc? Yeah. Like
a chancla. And he spent basically the whole movie looking for another pair of shoes because
he kept losing them. Imperium's commander Rex Strickland visits the Mexico bar to obtain
a venom sample left there and detain the bartender for questioning. They're brought to Area 51
which is being decommissioned where Commander Strickland and
who is being held at the Imperium facility due to his life being saved via bonding with a
symbiote. Mulligan's symbiote, which had arrived on Earth with a handful of others on a meteor
that crashed at Area 51 and was being studied there, explains to Commander Strickland and
Dr. Payne that they came to Earth looking for a safe haven while fleeing their creator Null
and his xenophage hunters. I do have to ask, why did they need to take the bartender? For
questioning. They wanted to learn more about where Venom might be going. And yeah, so they're
going to interrogate him. Do you really think he was worth an after credit scene? Because
I can't believe I stayed for that. I think he was brought in for the after credit scene as
a reminder to the audience that while Venom was at the bar, he did leave a shedded piece
of himself. And I think that's what their insinuating head bonded with the cockroach that was there
and then interacted with the vial containing the agony symbiote. Like the spark from that
container, I think, kind of signified a sort of like CPR effect on that Venom sample. So
you're saying that there's a way for Eddie to get Venom back. Correct. OK, I did not make
that connection. In that case, I guess that was an important scene. What did you think
was the point of that whole after credit scene? I have no clue, dude. I had no clue. All right.
Meanwhile, Eddie and Venom hitch a ride on the outside of a commercial airplane flying to
New York. but they're discovered by a xenophage who attacks them and forces the pair to leap
off the plane, landing in the Mojave Desert. There, Venom explains that when a symbiote
resurrects its host, like what Venom did to Eddie during their fight against Riot, that
a codex is formed that is the key to unlocking Gnull from his prison. Venom states that the
xenophage can track that codex when the symbiote takes over the host, and therefore Venom has
to avoid taking over Eddie. He instead takes over a horse to get him and Eddie across the
desert. Regarding the codex, it makes you think that a symbiote would avoid ever resurrecting
its host because it knows the consequences would be forming the codex. But I think that just
speaks to Venom and Eddie's relationship and that Venom actually cared enough about Eddie
to resurrect him and risk the formation of that codex. Right, right. Reports of the airplane
attack reach Imperium and Commander Strickland sends a squad out to the desert where they
find and chase Venom and Eddie through a river. The fight forces Venom to take over Eddie,
which draws in the Xenophage, who makes short work of the Imperium forces, letting Eddie
and Venom escape. Back at Area 51, Mulligan's symbiote explains that unless either Venom
or Eddie die and the Codex is broken, the Xenophage will obtain the Codex and release Null, leading
to the death of all living beings in the universe. Fantastic stakes, as I've mentioned before.
I'm really wondering that if Null actually does get released in a future Sony Spider-Man Universe
movie how these characters would ever stand a chance against him because the guy is basically
all powerful. You know Morbius ain't gonna do shit against him. Neither is Madame Web or
Spider-Man or Venom or all of them teamed up for that matter. Cravin. Back to the movie
Eddie and Venom stumble upon Martin Moon, an alien enthusiast and his family who are on
their way to visit Area 51 before it's fully decommissioned. hopes to see an extraterrestrial,
and they offer to give Eddie a ride to Las Vegas in their camper. Arriving at the Paris Casino,
Eddie and Venom run into Ms. Chen, who has struck it rich gambling. She and Venom share a dance,
but they're ambushed by Imperium's forces who located Eddie and Venom's location via security
cameras. They separate Venom and Eddie, bringing them to the Area 51 base. I thought the gambling
scene was pretty funny. If you've ever played a slot machine, you'll know but it is really
fun to pull that lever in a way that is probably unhealthy. Well, nowadays, all you have to
do is push a button. You don't even need to pull the lever. But why would you? I like to
pull the lever though. Best part. What did you think of the dancing scene? On one hand, you
really hate to see a character like Venom dance to ABBA. On the other hand, it was kind of
funny. It was more funny than I thought it would be, especially when Eddie was like, what did
you guys have time to rehearse this? That was great. Yeah, but it does make me wonder, like,
was Mrs. Chen reintroduced in this film just so they could have this dance scene? I think
Miss Chen was a popular enough character from the previous two films. I mean, she even showed
up in the Spider-Verse movie, speaking to the spot. So I think she's just kind of become
a staple of the franchise. And I think she'd be sorely missed if she wasn't in one of these
films. Well, that's right. I forgot the character was in that movie. Yeah, I guess she is a staple
now. I guess we'll see her in Craven next. At the Imperium base, Eddie meets Mulligan's symbiote
who tells him to free Imperium's captured symbiotes. Commander Strickland shoots Eddie in an attempt
to destroy the Codex, however Imperium scientist Sadie Christmas, who had bonded with Venom
in order to save him, delivers Venom back to Eddie. Venom and Eddie's reunion alerts the
Xenophage to their location, who attacks the Imperium base forcing several of their soldiers
and scientists to bond with the captured symbiotes. who unite to attack the creature. Eddie and
Venom try to flee as the xenophage sends a signal to Null to send more creatures and the symbiotes
are overpowered. Who was your favorite symbiote out of the group? Still Venom. I liked the
orange rocky looking one. I also liked the fire one, although I don't really think that makes
sense. You could say that purified symbiotes no longer have the weakness to sonics and fire,
but it just doesn't ring true, I think, to have a symbiote with lava powers. That being said,
it was a cool visual, especially when the Xenophage ate the Assymbia and shot flames from the back
of its head. That's a spicy meatball. I am really confused as to why Dr. Christmas bonded with
Venom. You said it was to save Eddie, but she didn't know that was going to happen. And why
would she want to save Eddie considering the fact that she knew the stakes if they were
to re-bond? I think she knew that either Venom or Eddie was going to die there and she felt
bad about it. It almost seems to me like she was just trying to straight up steal a symbiote.
I don't think so considering she gave it to Eddie Brock right away. It was interesting
how some of the symbiotes were like elemental, that you had, you know, your rocky symbiote,
your fiery symbiote, your electrical symbiote. Right, vine symbiote. Yeah, which is not really
something from the comic books, but I actually really like that as a concept. Venom would
just be like the dark ink symbiote, oil symbiote. Yeah. Is it just me or are the moon parents
the worst parents in the history of parenting? And I feel like there are real parents like
that too, which is wild. Let's sneak onto this military base where we could potentially, you
know, get shot and bring our kids with us who can also, you know, get shot. There's no aliens
here kids. That's unfortunate because I really wanted us to be attacked by aliens. Venom and
Eddie realize that one of them has to die in order to stop the xenophages. Eddie accepts
his fate, but Venom separates himself to assimilate the xenophages and protect Eddie. Venom brings
the creatures to acid tanks used for destroying Area 51's equipment, and Commander Strickland
melts Venom and the creatures before destroying them and himself with a grenade. Eddie falls
unconscious before waking up in a military hospital alone, where he learns that he's been pardoned
of all charges as long as he keeps quiet about Area 51 and the and he travels to New York
City where he visits the Statue of Liberty while remembering venom. Um, how powerful was the
grenade that Commander Strickland used? Because holy shit, not only did that destroy himself
and Venom and the Xenophages, but it was also like a massive ass almost nuclear explosion
that rained down fire across a massive radius. From one grenade, like was the acid combustible
or something? That's what I was thinking, like it was flammable acid somehow. I have no idea.
There's gasoline in that acid, right? The whole acid thing just throws me like right when I
saw that scene, I was like, OK, that's going to be used somehow later. I'm pretty sure.
But like, why were they dissolving things with fucking acid? Makes no sense to me. That's
a great question. I don't have the answer for you. It doesn't make sense. But it was kind
of a cinematic way for venom to go out, you know. Sure. Did you think that Eddie was going
to die when he was in the helicopter? just kind of like bleeding out. I wasn't sure which one
of them was gonna die, but when Venom healed Eddie at that point, I realized that Venom
was gonna be the one to sacrifice himself. In a mid-credits scene, Null threatens the universe,
and in an after credits scene, we see the Mexican bartender leave the destroyed Imperium base,
along with a Venom symbiote-infested cockroach that walks near the broken bile that contained
agony, which gives him an electric shock. What did you think of the mid-credits scene? It
was pretty simple. It was basically just Null saying that he's gonna burn everything and
you're gonna watch. I thought it was appropriately scary, but it also just served as a reminder
that we didn't get to see Null, really. Like, the guy was in shadows the whole time, we didn't
get to see him fight or see what he does. Like, he's scary, but why should I be afraid of him?
Well, I certainly was afraid of him. Maybe that's just because I know him from the comic books,
so I know how big of a threat he is. but I don't know how general audiences would feel about
the character. They're probably less afraid than they should be, is my guess. Because that
dude's no joke. It was his sword, after all, that Gorr the God Butcher got a hold of, you
know, and he laid waste to a whole pantheon of gods, so you can just imagine what Null
himself can do. Well, it would be nice if they made that reference, although the MCU kind
of ruined that too. Yeah, yeah, Gorr the God Butcher in Thor, Living Thunder was not quite
the same character, But that's the end of the film. Overall, I enjoyed the movie, basically
about as much as the first Venom film. I think Venom the Last Dance offers a heartfelt farewell
to the franchise, while unexpectedly breathing new life into it, resulting in an uneven but
mostly enjoyable experience. Like the first Venom movie, I'm rating Venom the Last Dance
3.5 stars, a fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I think I would have given it a 3, although
I could see how you could argue for 3 and a half. Just given the hearts of the film, I
think that goes a long way. It was definitely a heartfelt goodbye at the very end, so walking
out of the theater I could see 3 and a half. I don't think it was a good movie. I think
the acting was fine, but I think the writing was just the bare minimum of what mediocre
writing should be. I thought the direction was probably the best of the franchise. So yeah,
I could see the case for three and a half stars. Story wise, it's a three star film, but then
you have that climax with the group of symbiotes fighting the xenophages and that bumps it up
a half star on its own. Because I just love that scene so much. But that does it for this
review guys. AG9K helped close this out. Thanks for listening to Dynamic Duel. Visit the show's
website at dynamicDuel.com and follow us on Instagram at dynamicDuelpodcast. You can support
the show on Patreon at patreon.com slash dynamicDuel and joining a tier that works for you, or by
rating and reviewing Dynamic Duel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podchaser or on our website. Don't
forget to listen to the other shows in the DynaMic Podcast Network, including Max Destruction,
Senjou World and Console Combat. Our next episode, as we've mentioned several times during this
episode, we're going to have a duel as a tie into this review where we pit White Lantern
Kyle Rayner against Null. Yeah, I'm a huge Kyle Rayner fan. He was Green Lantern when I first
started reading comic books. So I'm super excited to showcase him finally. And I'm also glad
that I learned a lot more about Null in this episode because I really didn't know anything
about him. And I'm already plotting his demise, as it were. Spoiler alert, Null Fridge's. Kyle
Rayner in the next episode. So look forward to that. But that does it for this episode.
We want to give a big thanks to our executive producers, Ken Johnson, John Sturawski, Zachary
Hepburn, Dustin Belcombe, Mickey Mathangian, Brandon Estergard, Nathaniel Wagner, Levi Yeaton,
Austin Wisselowski, AJ Dunkerley, Scott Camacho, Gil Camacho, Adam Spies, Andrew Shunk, Dean
Maleski, Devin Davis, Joseph Kirstein, and Josh Leiner for helping make this podcast possible.
We'll talk to you guys next week. Up up and away, true believers. This is Major Tom to
ground control. I'm stepping through the door, and I'm floating in a most peculiar way. And
the stars look very different today.