Venom: The Last Dance (4 Stars)

Venom: The Last Dance, more commonly known as Venom 3, arrives with a sense of finality, but also a feeling of diminishing returns. After the bruising odd-couple energy of Venom and the more confident comic-book silliness of Let There Be Carnage, this third instalment feels thinner, safer and oddly less sure of what makes the series work.

The most obvious problem is the script. The earlier films thrived on the anarchic push-and-pull between Eddie Brock and his alien lodger; their bickering, co-dependence and warped affection gave the chaos a human core. Here, that dynamic is still present but watered down. The dialogue leans on familiar jokes rather than sharpening them, and the emotional beats feel pre-packaged rather than earned. What once felt anarchic now feels routine.

Tom Hardy remains committed; he always does. Yet even his dual performance struggles against a story that gives him fewer interesting situations to play. In the first two films, Eddie was constantly reacting to an unstable world and an even more unstable voice in his head. In The Last Dance, he often feels like he is being carried from set-piece to set-piece, reacting less and explaining more. Exposition replaces escalation, which is rarely a good trade.

The villain problem also returns with a vengeance. One of the weaknesses in Let There Be Carnage was its rushed antagonist, but at least Carnage had a clear personality and a grotesque mirror-image quality. Venom 3 introduces threats that are bigger in scale but flatter in character. They exist to be obstacles, not provocations, which drains the confrontations of tension. When everything is cosmic, nothing feels personal.

Tonally, the film seems uncertain whether it wants to be a scrappy anti-hero comedy or a sombre farewell. The earlier films embraced their silliness; this one often apologises for it. Moments that should feel outrageous are undercut by a muted visual palette and a surprisingly cautious direction. The rough-edged, slightly disreputable charm of the first Venom is replaced by something closer to a standard studio template.

In the end, Venom 3 is not a disaster; it's watchable, occasionally amusing and competently made. But compared to its predecessors, it feels like a retreat. Where the first two films doubled down on their weirdness and let Hardy and his symbiote run wild, this finale plays things too straight and too safe. For a series built on chaos, that restraint is its greatest weakness.

Success Rate:  + 2.4

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Venom: The Last Dance (3½ Stars)

A new Marvel film, so I had to go to the cinema. I'm a Marvel addict. I was disappointed with the second Venom film, and I was scared that "The Last Dance" would be even worse, but I went anyway.

Maybe it's better, but only slightly better. The story in general is more serious, but there's still too much comedy in the interaction between Eddie Brock and the symbiote. Whose idea was it to make them a comedy duo? And why does the symbiote keep coming half out like a sock puppet? It looks ridiculous. In this film an excuse is given, but it's a weak excuse. A powerful being called Knull is searching for a codex (whatever that is) which is carried by the symbiote. It's only visible when Eddie and the symbiote are fully connected. I know, it really is a poor excuse.

No more spoilers. All I'll say is that there's an after-credits scene, but you have to wait a long time for it. In the cinema today some of the people waited, but the credits were so long that they grew impatient and walked out. When the after-credits scene finally came, only three people, including me, were sitting watching it. 

London Road (4 Stars)

How can a film about a serial killer be a psychological thriller? It all depends on how the story is framed. We never see the killer on screen. We hear his name, and we even see the house where he lives, 79 London Road, Ipswich, but we don't see Steve Wright  himself. The film is about the residents of London Road and how they deal with murders taking place in their neighbourhood.

When the killings are first reported, there's an atmosphere of paranoia. The killer could be anyone. Teenage girls ride the bus, asking one another, "Is it him? Is it him? Is it him?" The taxi driver Mark, played by Tom Hardy, talks to his customers in a way that arouses suspicions. He tells them that he's been interested in serial killers ever since he was young, and he describes what the killer must be like: he must be 28 to 35, single or divorced and a loner. These descriptions fit Mark himself, so he's fast to add that it isn't him.

The film is a musical, and the most unique thing about it is that the lyrics weren't written. They're the transcripts of the interviews made with the residents of London Road. This gives the film a stark realism, despite everyone singing and sometimes dancing.

The next door neighbour of Steve Wright is interviewed. How would you react if you found out your next door neighbour was a killer? Admittedly, you would never have been in danger, because he only targeted prostitutes, but it would still have been unsettling. It's possible that the women were killed in his home, but Steve Wright cleverly covered his tracks. The only DNA traces were slight amounts of blood found on the back seat of his car and inside his gloves.

To this day Steve Wright has never admitted his guilt. He committed the five murders shortly after moving to Ipswich, within a space of six weeks, but he's suspected of the murders of up to 15 other women when he lived in Norwich. In May 2024 he was charged with the murder of a 17-year-old girl that took place in 1999. The other cases are still open. As I said, he was a clever man. But everyone makes a mistake eventually. If he hadn't killed the women in Ipswich, he would never have been suspected of the other murders.

Success Rate:  - 13.9

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London Road (4 Stars)

Sometimes I watch a film which I have trouble rating. Usually it's a film which is different, and this is a very different film. It's a musical that's based on the serial killer Steve Wright, who killed five prostitutes in Ipswich in 2006. It's not completely original to make a musical about a true story, but this musical is unique because the songs weren't written. The screenwriter took the texts of original interviews with people in Ipswich, and these texts were sung in parlando. During the final credits the interview tapes are played, and we can recognise the words from the film's songs.

Another thing that's unusual is that we never see Steve Wright, neither before nor after he's arrested. All we see are the residents of London Road and the surrounding area.

And it's a Christmas movie!

The film begins in the quiet cul-de-sac, London Road. It's becoming a popular street for working girls, as they're euphemistically called. The local residents don't like them, and they shout abuse at them, but their attitude changes when they start to die. Their naked bodies are found nearby.

The early scenes show the road in a state of paranoia. Everyone suspects everyone else. If a man looks in any way creepy, he's a suspect. Everyone is scared, but my naive reaction is "Why?" The killer is only targeting prostitutes, so nobody else is in danger. The police give advice on what to do to stay safe, such as not going out alone or late at night. One of the residents puts my thoughts into words. The advice the police should be giving is "Don't be a prostitute and get into cars with strange men".

Steve Wright is arrested on 19th December 2006. He lives at 79 London Road. The residents are gripped by a lynch mob mentality. They don't care about the trial, he's already guilty in their eyes. As the trial drags on they're scared that he'll be found innocent. That's a twisted attitude. If a person is found innocent of murder, the reason is that he really is innocent. The residents of London Road had the attitude that they already knew he was guilty, so if the jury pronounced him innocent they would have failed.

The film doesn't really have a lead actor or actress. The scenes switch rapidly from one person to another. Olivia Colman has slightly more screen time than anyone else. Tom Hardy is prominent on the posters, but that was only to lure people into the cinemas. He appears in the film for less than five minutes as a taxi driver who was interviewed as a potential suspect. "London Road" was released in 2015, the same year that "Mad Max Fury Road" and "The Revenant" were in the cinemas. The hype didn't work. The film was a box office flop, despite positive reviews by the critics.

I wanted to buy the film on Blu-ray, but I waited in vain for a Blu-ray release. After all this time it's only been released on DVD. I don't understand the studios. I've finally given up and bought it on DVD. I'm sure I'll watch it again soon, to decide whether I really like it or not.

Success Rate:  - 13.9

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Inception (5 Stars)

In my opinion, this is Christopher Nolan's best film. It has mind-bending concepts of being in a dream inside a dream inside a dream inside a dream, and yet the story is never difficult to follow. That is to say, it isn't difficult to follow until the final scene. When Dom Cobb finally wakes up from his nested dreams and returns to his children, is he really awake, or is he still in a dream above all the other dreams?

Dom uses a spinning top to check whether he's in reality or a dream. In dreams the top spins indefinitely, in reality it stops spinning after a while and falls over. He spins the top at the end of the film, and the film cuts out before we see whether it continues spinning or not. Many fans of the film have asked Christopher Nolan whether the top stops spinning or not. His responses are always evasive, and rightfully so. If he'd wanted there to be a clear answer, he'd have put it in the film.

The answer is that it doesn't matter. Dom wants to be back with his children, and when he's with them it doesn't matter whether it's reality or a dream. All that matters is that he's happy. But what most viewers don't notice is the way Dom spins the top. Usually he spins it, then sits and watches the result. This time is different. He spins the top, then walks away. He doesn't want to see the result. What the director is saying is that Dom himself doesn't want to know whether it's a dream or not. If it doesn't matter to him, why should it matter to us?

Do I personally have an opinion whether he's in reality or a dream? No, I don't. There's evidence to support both answers. The main evidence for reality is the complexity of the architecture. Dom flies from one country to another, whereas the manufactured dream architecture is always a confined area. The main evidence for a dream is the way his children are dressed. They have the identical clothes to the ones in his dream, and they're playing in the same garden. I'm sure that Christopher Nolan planted these contradictory clues to keep us guessing.

Success Rate:  + 3.2

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Spider-Man: No Way Home (5 Stars)

Today I watched the "More Fun Stuff" version of the film in the cinema. That's a silly name. Couldn't they just have called it the Extended Version? That would have been more dignified.

I'll refrain from writing about the film itself, even though I didn't say much about it in my past reviews. I'll just comment on the More Fun Stuff changes. The added scenes, a total of 13 minutes, are almost entirely at the beginning of the film, apart from a new after-credits scene. In my opinion, the new scenes don't improve the film at all. They're mostly interviews which just slow the film down. I'm not saying the scenes are bad, I'm just saying that it doesn't matter whether they're in the film or not. If there's a More Fun Stuff Blu-ray release, I'll only buy it if it's very cheap.

The original theatrical version had an after-credits scene that was effectively a trailer for "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness". The More Fun Stuff version has an after-credits scene with Betty Brant praising her fellow students on being accepted into college. It's a cute scene, but totally unnecessary.

Here are a few sketches used in the final credits. They're simple but beautiful. I wish I were a gifted artist. Or even an average artist. I can't draw at all. On a scale of 1 to 10, I'm a zero.

Success Rate:  + 8.4

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Spider-Man: No Way Home (5 Stars)

This is the 27th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). If you think that I must be smart to remember something like that, you're over-estimating me. I have a list of the films in a spreadsheet which I keep open while writing about MCU films. I also have little green stickers on the spines of my MCU Blu-ray discs, so I know what order they should be on my bookshelf.

Logically, "No Way Home" (I'll abbreviate the title) continues from the 26 previous MCU films, but it's unique in that it incorporates elements from non-MCU films. The film is all about the multiverse, so it re-introduces characters from previous versions of Spider-Man. In particular, we see the previous actors who played Spider-Man reprising their roles.

Three Spider-Men! Or should I say three Spider-Mans? What's the rule for the plural of proper names? Someone who's as fanatical about the English language as me ought to know the answer to that question. Please don't ask me when we meet in person, because I'd be sure to turn bright red.

Welcome back, Spider-Man #1, played by Tobey Maguire from 2002 to 2007. He's aged in the last 15 years. Haven't we all? I wish they'd used makeup to make him look younger.

Welcome back, Spider-Man #2, played by Andrew Garfield from 2012 to 2014. His career was cut short when "Amazing Spider-Man 3" was cancelled. I was never happy that Peter Parker's father was made an important character, but I wish the third part of the trilogy had been made to tie up the loose ends. The final scene of "Amazing Spider-Man 2" introduced the Rhino, possibly as a member of the Sinister Six, but the next film was never made.

Accompanying the Spider-Mans into the Marvel Cinematic Universe are Doctor Octopus, Green Goblin, Sandman, Electro and the Lizard. Strangely, the wrong version of Venom was drawn into the MCU. Eddie Brock from Earth-TRN688 arrived, not Eddie Brock from Earth-96283. I assume this was a blunder, because there's no logical reason for it.

The story is continued in the 28th MCU film, "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness", which I plan to watch later this week. The two films couldn't be more different. "No Way Home" is a serious film, whereas "Multiverse of Madness" is spoilt by too much humour. Still, I'm biased in favour of Sam Raimi, so I'll make an effort to enjoy "Multiverse of Madness" when I watch it again.

Happy Hogan uses a CPAP machine to get eight hours of undisturbed sleep.

This is Zendaya's third film as Peter Parker's girlfriend MJ. She looks more attractive in each film. Remind me to publish a photo gallery showing her development from film to film.

Tasty! I'd visit her café for a donut every day.

Peter Parker doesn't have a sweet tooth. He just orders a cup of coffee.

One question is left unanswered, in this film at least: are there just three Spider-Mans or many many more? Maybe there are many versions of Mike Hood aka Dancer in the multiverse. Some of them probably write better blogs than me. I should meet them to get a few pointers. Or maybe I'm a singularity who only exists in one universe. Until then, don't forget:

I am Dancer.

Success Rate:  + 7.5

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Venom: Let there be Carnage (3 Stars)

The Venom films aren't part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Or are they? The final scene of the second film, shown in the middle of the credits, suggests otherwise.

When I saw it in the cinema last year I expressed great disappointment and said I wouldn't buy it on Blu-ray. That was an emotional reaction. I bought it last week as the third film in the Prime Day offer, buy two Marvel films and get one free. I would have bought it eventually anyway. I'm too much of a Marvel fan to skip it. I might even buy "The Eternals", if the price is low enough, but the price will have to be very low to tempt me.

I'll shorten the film's name to "Venom 2". It's a film that I really wanted to like. I was biased in its favour before I saw it in the cinema, and I'm still biased now. I watched it today looking for positive things to say about it. There are a few. Tom Hardy's acting is superb. The fight scenes are good, though not up to the fight scenes in "Spider-Man 3", made way back in 2007. That's about it. The list of negatives is much longer:

• The cinematography is dark and grubby.
• The presence of an ex-girlfriend (Michelle Williams) is annoying.
• The romance between Cletus Kasady and Frances Barrison isn't developed.
• The humour is excessive.

At least, I hope the interaction between Eddie Brock and the Venom symbiote is intended to be funny. If not, it's just stupid. The symbiote repeatedly half-emerges from Eddie's body like a ridiculous sock puppet, arguing about what he wants to do. This never happened in the comics. The symbiote was in control and determined what was going to happen. If he wanted to eat a bad guy (or a good guy) he didn't talk about it, he just did it.

Venom should be shown as a cold-blooded killer. The film shouldn't be certificate 12, it should be rated R for violence. Film fans like to criticise "Spider-Man 3", but Sam Raimi got it right. He showed Venom and Eddie Brock feeding off one another's hatred. He also showed the symbiote as a Spider-Man imitator, an aspect missing in the new Venom films.

I shan't write any more about the film. It makes me sad just thinking about it.

Success Rate:  + 2.6

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Bronson (4½ Stars)

True Stories #14

Name: Charles Bronson

Lived: 6 December 1952 – still alive

Film dates: 1953 to 2000 (approx), mostly 1974 to 2000

Film made in 2008

The film is a true story about Michael Peterson, who later changed his name to Charles Bronson. He was born in 1952 in Luton, and his main goal in life was to become famous. He couldn't sing, he couldn't act, and even as a criminal he was a failure. In 1974 he committed his first crime, robbing a post office. He stole £26.18, for which he was sentenced to seven years in prison. 48 years later he's still in prison, having spent over 30 years in solitary confinement. The British press has labelled him Britain's most violent prisoner. During his time in prison he's not only beat up guards on a regular basis. He's taken prison staff as hostages and set buildings on fire. After having his photo on the front page of British newspapers and being the subject of this film, he's achieved the fame he's always wanted.

"Bronson" is filmed in a surreal style. Charles Bronson is standing on a stage telling his life story to a barely visible audience, which laughs and applauds every time he says something spectacular. He's an entertainer. He's a clown. He's the star of the Charles Bronson Show. The use of classical music makes it obvious that the director Nicolas Winding Refn is imitating "Clockwork Orange". That's not a criticism. He does it well.

Tom Hardy puts on an outstanding performance as Charles Bronson. The highest praise came from Bronson himself. After seeing the film he said, "I honestly believe nobody on the planet could play me as Tom did. He is more like me than I am". Obviously, Tom Hardy had a great deal of respect for the man he was playing. Is it possible to respect Britain's most violent prisoner? Bronson's incarceration puts the whole prison system in question. He's spent years beating up prison guards because they're keeping him locked up. If he were released he'd stop beating them up. In fact, he wouldn't beat anyone up. While on the outside Bronson was a polite, well-spoken person. If the prisons want the violence to stop, they should release him. It's as simple as that.

Success Rate:  + 8.0

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Spider-Man: No Way Home (5 Stars)

I finally got a chance to see the new Spider-Man film today. It's been sold out for the last two weeks, unlike "The Matrix Resurrections", which hasn't been so popular with cinema audiences.

I don't want to give away too much for a new film, so I'll restrict myself to what we see in the trailer. At the end of "Spider-Man: Far From Home" it was announced to the world that Peter Parker was Spider-Man. This has disrupted his life, so he visits Doctor Strange and asks him to cast a spell to make everyone forget who he is. The spell tampers with the multiverse, so we see various enemies from other versions of Spider-Man appear to challenge him.

To get technical: this film, along with the whole of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), takes place in a universe called Earth-199999.

Sam Raimi's Spider-Man films take place in Earth-96283.

The Amazing Spider-Man films take place in Earth-120703.

Don't blame me! I didn't invent these numbers!

On a less technical level, after the merging and alliances of various film studios, there was a push to reconcile the different versions of Spider-Man with one another. This idea scared me. It's a recipe for disaster. I was pleasantly surprised that the film turned out so well. It's chaotic. Anyone who walks in who hasn't watched dozens of Marvel films over the last 18 years won't have any idea what's going on. Nevertheless, "No Way Home" accurately captures the style and atmosphere of Marvel comics. The plot gets ridiculous as it progresses – no spoilers! – but it fits the story.

Maybe just one spoiler: Wong is now the Sorcerer Supreme? That's just silly!

Venom (5 Stars)

I should have re-watched "Venom" before going to the cinema to watch the sequel on Monday, but in retrospect I'm glad I watched them this way round. It reminded me that "Venom" is an excellent film, in contrast to "Venom 2", which is a mess. Marvel is losing its path. I used to feel excited whenever a new Marvel film was announced. Now I just groan. "Venom 2" was a new low point.

That doesn't mean that there aren't problems with "Venom" itself. Venom (the character) is introduced without any connection to Spider-Man. That's a shame, but I can live with it, because "Venom" (the film) is so good. It's a first class horror film.

Success Rate:  + 6.6

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Venom: Let there be Carnage (3 Stars)

I don't remember when I was so disappointed with a Marvel film. I enjoyed the first Venom film with Tom Hardly greatly, even though it was far removed from any connection with the comics. I expected the sequel to be similar, but it wasn't. The film is less violent. Marvel Studios have tamed down the character. The original film was a 16 certificate in America, whereas the sequel has a 12 certificate. The main problem is the humour. There's too much of it, especially in the first half of the film. Venom was never intended to be a comedy figure, a funny alien from another planet.

"Venom 2", as I prefer to call it, improves when it moves into the main fight scenes in the second half, but there are still repeated silly jokes. As soon as I got home today I read what other reviewers think. Interesting. Most say that it's better than the first film. I don't understand them. Did they watch the same film as me?

I'm in no hurry to buy "Venom 2" on Blu-ray. If it's shown on a streaming service I'll watch it again and write more about it. Until then, it's a film I'd rather forget. Marvel's next film, "The Eternals", is in the cinema next week. I hope it won't be as bad.

Unusually for Marvel, there's no post-credits scene, but there's a very important mid-credits scene. Don't miss it.

Inception (5 Stars)

"Inception" is an incredible film, and I'll start off by saying that it should have been included in my top 100 films list. It's unforgivable that I forgot it. It was directed by Christopher Nolan, who has a certain cult status today. He's well known for making films that show mind-bending views of reality. I own 10 of the 11 films he's directed. Many of his fans are so devoted to him that they buy all his films unquestioningly. I'm more selective, in his case anyway. The only directors whose films I buy without needing to see them first are Sion Sono, Zhang Yimou, Quentin Tarantino and Alex de la Iglesia. They're directors who have never disappointed me.

"Inception" is about a group of extractors, as they're called in the film. They enter a person's dream to extract knowledge that the person would never reveal while awake. This would be an interesting enough story in itself, but Christopher Nolan further complicates it by inroducing the concept of dreams within dreams.

The film follows the team as they try something more difficult. Instead of retrieving something from a person's mind, they want to implant a thought that will influence his decisions when he wakes up.

But getting back to my initial statements, blunders like this omission show how difficult it is to make a top 100 film list. I'll never attempt another list like this again.

Success Rate:  + 3.2

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Star Trek 10: Nemesis (3½ Stars)

This was the least successful of the Star Trek films, but even if it had made more money it would have been the last film starring Patrick Stewart as captain of the Enterprise.  There are different factors that make it a final film. William Riker and Deanna Troi get married, rounding off the romance that's been simmering ever since the first episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation". There's also the death of Data, and it's difficult to imagine a new film in the series without him.

The enemy in this film is a man called Shinzon, who was cloned by the Romulans from Jean-Luc Picard's DNA. It gives a new meaning to the words "We're the same, you and I", which have been spoken by screen villains in varying forms for the last 50 years. It would have been too corny for Shinzon to say this, but I was still disappointed that he didn't.

Shinzon has advanced to become the leader of the Romulans, and he has a plan of how to destroy the Earth, but it's more important to him that he can defeat Captain Picard. He's obsessed with him. Captain Picard is Shinzon's nemesis, more than the other way round.

I find this film less appealing than any of the Star Trek films that went before. Something about it seems too laid back. Even when facing major crises, Captain Picard and the other members of his crew carry on talking calmly. It's as if they're burnt out after so many television episodes and so many films.

But don't they make a beautiful couple? I wish Will and Deanna all the best for a long, happy life together.

Success Rate:  - 0.9

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Venom (5 Stars)

In this film we're kept in suspense. We don't see Stan Lee's cameo until close to the end. In the 11-second scene he's walking his dog in San Francisco. Whether he's supposed to be playing himself or someone else is uncertain, but whoever he is he's knowledgeable. The few words he speaks to Eddie Brock show that he knows he's carrying a symbiote inside him.

The question can be asked whether we can have Venom without Spider-Man. The much criticised "Spider-Man 3" is a more accurate portrayal of both Venom and Eddie Brock. I miss Spider-Man in this film. He should have had at least a brief appearance. Maybe the next film will make up for it.

When watching the film on Blu-ray today I was aware of a B-Movie feeling that I didn't notice in the cinema last year. For a moment I felt inclined to lower the rating, but then I reminded myself that I love B-Movies.

The symbiote jumps from person to person, including Eddie Brock's ex-fiancee Anne. It makes her look sexy. Very, very sexy.

Tom Hardy is one of my favourite actors. In my eyes he can't do anything wrong. He gives an almost psychotic depth to the character. I hope he'll be allowed to play the character again. Nothing speaks against it. The film was a big box office success, which is enough to green-light a sequel.

Success Rate:  + 6.6

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Inception (5 Stars)

The last time I watched "Inception" in October 2014 I said I would probably write a longer review the next time I watched it. I'm sorry. Maybe next time. This is an excellent film, one of my favourite films ever, but it's difficult to write about.

Success Rate:  + 3.2

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Venom (5 Stars)

When I go to see a Marvel film in the cinema I usually write a review comparing it with the comics on which it's based. Not this time. As was already clear to be from the trailer, this film is so far removed from the Venom we know in the Spider-Man comics that it's not worth trying to reconcile it with the comics. It's a completely different character who just happens to have the same name and appearance as Venom in the comic books.

Carlton Drake is the CEO of Life Foundation, a company that's exploring space in order to find new worlds for colonisation as a solution to the Earth's overpopulation. That's a noble goal. One of his spacecrafts picks up four alien creatures from a race of symbiotes. Drake sees the symbiotes as a key to mankind's evolutionary development necessary for space travel. The symbiotes need a human host to survive in Earth's atmosphere, but humans need the symbiotes to survive in space.

Eddie Brock is a television reporter in San Francisco. He loses his job after accusing Drake of wrongdoing in an interview, but that isn't the end of his interest in Life Corporation. He breaks into the company to find proof that homeless people are dying as a result of being used in experiments. A symbiote accidentally bonds with Eddie, giving him supernatural strength and agility.

In the comics Venom is a villain. The film portrays him as an anti-hero. He has an appetite for eating living humans, but this can be channelled by only eating men who deserve to die.

I was warned before going to see the film that it had received poor reviews. After watching it for myself I don't understand why. Of the ten members of the Stuttgart film group present this evening, nine of us loved it. This is a fun film with fast moving action. The humour is toned down, not as brash as the comedy in the official Marvel Cinematic Universe. Tom Hardy, always an excellent actor, plays the role perfectly. This is one of the best films of the year.