Transforming Tom: Tom Hardy in ‘Venom: The Last Dance’.
VENOM: THE LAST DANCE **1/2 (109 minutes) M
Into the movie microwave, hit the ‘reheat’ button, wait 60 seconds and out comes Venom: The Last Dance, the third forgettable installment in the forgettable sub-franchise film series about the eminently forgettable second-tier Marvel character Venom.
Again, we have Tom Hardy – who co-wrote and produced this multiplex mulch – as former journo Eddie Brock who, as some might need reminding, shares his physical and mental self with Venom, an ugly, football-headed critter with a mouthful of uneven incisors and over-sized almond-shaped eyes who regularly emerges from Eddie’s back in fluid shape-shifting form.
The deal here is that Eddie is being pursued by a giant, angry, spider-like creature from an alternate universe (where else?) that is keen to destroy him and Venom.
The chase involves much shooting, smashing, running and things exploding, including a confrontation in Las Vegas where the noisy confrontation is barely noticed by anybody.
Everything looks and sounds the same in what is a stamped-out popcorn-pushing time killer. It’s passable, but the creature designs look too familiar while the frenetic action scenes feature an edit about once every second (sometimes less), which are wearying to watch and tough on the glazzies. And we’ve clearly had enough of multiverses, something Venom himself remarks upon.
It also need be stated lest people think their hearing is on the blink that Venom’s guttural utterances are often indecipherable, sounding much like Tom Hardy did when he played Bane in The Dark Knight Rises. So, a neat little link there.
The film does feature one bright spot, a travelling family headed by born-again hippies, with Rhys Ifans stealing plenty of moments as the self-consciously hip dad.
We are promised that Venom: The Last Dance shall be the final Venom film, but we all know by now how franchise Hollywood works, meaning they’ll keep pumping these blandfests out until one of them fails to make money.
And, of course, there’s the usual teaser in the closing credits to cover their tracks in case there is another Venom outing.
Truth be told, ain’t nobody gonna be losing sleep one way or t’other.
LEE ** (117 minutes) M
The extraordinary life of war photographer Lee Miller is the subject of an exceedingly ordinary biopic. Kate Winslet plays Miller, a feisty proto-feminist who fights to get into the thick of battle to tell the truth about warfare through her camera lens. Winslet (also a producer) does a fine job in an unglamourous role, though a lot of her utterances sound like quotes from an angry online op-ed about women’s rights rather than believable dialogue from a character witnessing war.
Mundanely directed by first-timer Ellen Kuras – who initiated the project and whose notable CV as a cinematographer is at odds with the film’s drab visual style – the movie is hobbled by a clumsy storytelling device as Miller takes questions in her living room from a vaguely interested interlocutor.
It doesn’t help that the film features comedian Andy Samberg (Brooklyn Nine-Nine) playing straight as photojournalist David Scherman. It’s a major piece of miscasting. Surely the role should have been cast with a seasoned dramatic actor, not somebody best-known for his goofball persona.
While we tend to applaud low-budget films with noble ambitions, the production values here are thin, with some very average visual effects unable to lend the story the scope it deserves.
The film does at least serve as a historical corrective by highlighting the outstanding work of a brave and exceptional photographer, including her part in documenting the realities of the Nazi death camps immediately after liberation.
To her credit, Winslet proved herself a dedicated producer on the film, paying the wages of cast and crew for two weeks to get the production through some financing woes.
Regrettably, Lee turns out to be an average movie that will play better in the stream. It also drew a sizeable blank at the box office when it was released in the US and UK.
MY FREAKY FAMILY *1/2 (87 minutes) PG
Adding to the pile of woes besetting Australian film this year comes My Freaky Family, a try-hard animated misfire that looks for all the world as though it is yet to be finished.
An Australia-Ireland co-production, the clumsy story tells of Betty, a girl who is the only member of her “freaky” family to not have magical powers.
Her endeavour to acquire them is accompanied by a tangled backstory about how her family was apparently chased out of a kingdom. (Insert subtext re Northern Ireland.)
Painful as it is to say, the film simply looks sub-par, like something we might have seen back in the mid-1990s when digital animation was emerging.
With stiff character animation and inert backdrops, the thing can’t compete with the super high-quality animation we – especially kids – have become accustomed to from Dreamworks, Pixar, Disney, BlueSky, Sony, Illumination and all the other studios that have access to the budgets needed for their films to pass muster.
Sadly, My Freaky Family doesn’t.