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The King’s Man buttons up a franchise bent on mayhem

The Kingsman prequel pairs outlandish action with serious spy drama

by Jesse Hassenger

So many directors seem either trapped in the comics-to-movies pipeline or burnt out by it. Plenty of filmmakers have directed game-changing, career-making superhero pictures (Tim Burton, Jon Favreau, Joss Whedon), only to step back after a less well-received sequel, while others who started small (Jon Watts, James Gunn) don’t seem able or interested enough to find their way back to more intimate projects. Something about The King’s Man director Matthew Vaughn, though, gives off the impression that he truly loves making comic book films, like a Zack Snyder unburdened by a heavy quasi-mythological vision.

The King’s Man marks Vaughn’s third foray into a comic book world (following Kick-Ass and X-Men: First Class ), but in particular, he appears to love his James Bond-ish half-spoofs based on the comics by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons. How else to explain Vaugn directing a prequel to the first two Kingsman adventures, both of which he also directed? This is the type of project often fobbed off to an editor or visual effects supervisor, someone looking for a big-budget break in their burgeoning directorial career. Instead, Vaughn clocks in happily. If anyone is going to supervise the series’ shift into a surprisingly serious-minded Dad Movie, it’s going to be Vaughn himself.

That is, surprisingly, what The King’s Man is going for: a classier and more Dad-friendly World War I action movie, with frequent but not constant tastes of the old Kingsman ultraviolence. The brash-young-man-and-proper-older-badass dynamic that existed between Taron Egerton and Colin Firth in the earlier films has been flipped into a father-son story about Orlando Oxford (Ralph Fiennes), still reeling from the death of his wife, desperately hoping that his son Conrad (Harris Dickinson) will avoid jumping into the action as geopolitical tensions escalate and Britain’s entry into World War I looms. The story is never fully passed along to the younger character; this really is Fiennes’ movie all the way, and probably more interesting for it.

Orlando is basically a proto-Kingsman, to the point where the eventual and prequel-required formulation of this independent “secret service” doesn’t have much impact. After all, Orlando is already consorting with Shola (Djimon Hounsou, mainstay of nearly all current film franchises) and Polly (Gemma Arterton), who moonlight as members of his large estate’s staff while working as industrious spies with Mission: Impossible -style specialities and weaknesses. In other words, they’re domestic workers in more ways than one.

That’s a cute idea that also speaks to the way The King’s Man desperately wants to mitigate its aristocratic tendencies while also indulging them. Conrad is told from a young age that “it’s important that people of privilege lead by example, and Orlando’s staff are super-capable heroes. But the movie still revels in his supposed equals happily calling him “your grace.” It’s an apologetically attractive look at colonialism that oddly has Fiennes recalling his character from 1998’s TV adaptation The Avengers (and agreeably weird curiosity, for what it’s worth). In the years since then, Fiennes has become an actor who seems incapable of delivering anything short of full commitment to his performances, a quality put to the test by this movie demanding he work with a straight face throughout.

This more serious business does offer a respite from the gleeful did-I-offend-you-bruv tone of the earlier movies; The King’s Man is Vaughn’s least smirky movie since X-Men: First Class , and barely recognizable as part of the Mark Millar Extended Universe. The remnants of the older movies are mostly the handful of elaborate and still extremely violent action sequences, and the film’s cartoon version of real history, which involves Tom Hollander triple-cast as King George, Kaiser Wilhelm, and Tsar Nicholas; the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand; and Rasputin (Rhs Ifans), one of the bad guy’s co-conspirators and subject of a setpiece that involves attempting to feed him a poisoned cake. Naturally, things get a bit more physical.

The action sequences, including the skirmish with Rasputin, are still done up in classic Kingsman style: a springy virtual-looking camera zipping around the amped-up fights, making sure to take notice of any and all excessive gore. The big climax feels a bit less sensationalized and more mission-driven than Vaughn’s previous entries — again recalling his X-Men installment, however slightly — with fewer (though not zero) outlandish gadgets. Considering the first Kingsma n had Sofia Boutella with knife-legs, Gemma Arterton’s sharpshooting feels almost restrained.

The film’s cartoony bits still stick out, because the journey to the line “time to kill Rasputin” (and the detour away from it; Rasputin ultimately isn’t the movie’s main event) is surprisingly lengthy, as Orlando and Conrad clash over what kind of sacrifices should be expected or volunteered by young men for their country. (This was hinted at in the earlier movies when the origin of the Kingsman organization is explained.) Is this the film series equipped to answer or even ask these questions? Is it worth all of the shifts and accommodations just to make a Kingsman prequel in a slightly different register? This is still a movie about a madman manipulating world events to vengefully pit Germany against England, where the bad guy’s face is concealed to lead up to a big reveal, despite having characterization that’s pretty much limited to “Scottish.”

Still, the tension between Vaughn’s designs on making a more old-fashioned, serious-minded war/spy picture and the usual cheeky battle royale makes The King’s Man more memorable than its predecessor Kingsman: The Golden Circle , a middling retread. Maybe Vaughn really does want to make a whole universe of movies out of a concept that previously seemed one-note. It’s not an especially noble or artistically successful pursuit, but if it keeps him out of trouble and lets the perpetually underserved Gemma Arterton fire off a few rounds, who are we to stop him?

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Kingsman: The Secret Service

One complaint that has always dogged the James Bond franchise over the years is the inescapable fact that while the films seem to be loaded with gratuitous sex and violence in theory, they never quite manage to show them in any great detail. Obviously, the decision to imply more than display has served the producers for more than a half-century, but can you imagine what it would be like if a Bond film were to include all the seamier elements that they have only hinted at in the past? The early word on the over-the-top action-comedy “Kingsman: The Secret Service” seemed to suggest that it would pay homage to the Bond films of old—the ones made before the series took its turn towards the comparatively serious with the arrival of Daniel Craig —while including all the Good Parts that had been largely absent in the past. Alas, it seems to have taken its inspiration from one of the lesser Roger Moore efforts than the classic Connerys and the result is a fitfully amusing but increasing tedious and occasionally appalling mess that plays like “The Man with the Golden Gun” with ridiculous amounts of gore and severed limbs on display, though the nipples this time around are not so much superfluous as they are distressingly nonexistent.

Based on the comic book from Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons , “Kingsman” posits a top secret British espionage group that is inspired by King Arthur and his knights (whose names the members appropriate for their code names), based in a seemingly ordinary Savile Row tailor shop and regularly saves the world without getting into all the political mumbo-jumbo that has affected the efforts of governmental spy organizations. Having lost their Lancelot after a one-man effort to rescue a kidnapped scientist ( Mark Hamill ), the group begins the process of recruiting a replacement and for his nominee, agent Harry “Galahad” Hart ( Colin Firth ) puts up Gary “Eggsy” Unwin ( Taron Egerton ), a seemingly ordinary young punk who lives with his mother and her abusive boyfriend and spends his days getting into dumb trouble. However, Eggsy is also the son of a former Kingsman who gave his life to save Harry and others when he was just a child.

Not surprisingly, Eggsy seems out of place among the far more sophisticated other candidates—only Roxy ( Sophie Cookson ) shows him any kindness or respect—and Kingsman leader Arthur ( Michael Caine ) expects him to wash out quickly. Also not surprisingly, Eggsy manages to last throughout the extended testing process designed to winnow the group down to one under the eye of Merlin ( Mark Strong ). This turns out to be slightly more intense than, say, the executive training program at Harrods—their barracks are quickly flooded while they sleep one night, there is a group skydive where they are informed that one of them is not packing a chute only after they make the jump and they are each given a puppy to raise and train. (Eggsy names his pug “JB” and in one of the films funnier jokes, we realize just how many fictional super-spies have shared those initials over the years.)

While all of this is going on, there is, of course, a diabolical plan with global implications being hatched by a megalomaniacal madman. Our super-villain is Valentine ( Samuel L. Jackson ), an astoundingly wealthy technological pioneer whose frustration at his inability to save the planet through the usual channels has led him to a more sinister approach that involves zapping the minds of the world’s population via their cell phones and driving them to kill each other off. Not everyone is to be killed of course and he has also been recruiting or kidnapping celebrities and other dignitaries so that they can help to forge a better world once the riffraff is gone. If you need any further proof that Valentine is mad, consider that he snatches Iggy Azalea but evidently does nothing for Charli XCX even though it was her awesome chorus on “Fancy” that made that song the hit that it was.

It sounds fun in theory, I guess, and there are some entertaining moments of rude irreverence here and there but the giddiness gets a bit tedious after a while. The screenplay by director Matthew Vaughn and longtime collaborator Jane Goldman is kind of like the espionage equivalent of “ Scream “—all the characters have seen all the James Bond movies and make frequent reference to their clichés. However, since the Bond movies were never famous for taking themselves seriously, what we have in “Kingsman” is a film making cartoonish jokes about films that were often cartoonish jokes. 

Another thing that I found off-putting about “Kingsman,” oddly enough, is that it is really, really violent. This may sound like a contradiction of my previously stated desire for a more overtly violent Bond film but Vaughn—whose previous credits include “ Kick-Ass ,” another savagely brutal adaptation of a Mark Millar comic book—floods the screen with flying limbs and spurting blood throughout, and, while it is all done in a deliberately cartoonish and nihilistic manner, it is still way too much of a not-that-great thing. 

On the other hand, the scene in which Valentine tests his weapon on a church congregation styled after those Westboro Baptist creeps is really grotesque—the idea of hateful monsters literally destroying each other, to the soundtrack strains of “Free Bird,” no less, sounds funny but it goes on for so long and is so brutal (including spearings, shootings and an ax to the throat) that the joke is lost. Meanwhile, the sex is oddly non-existent other than a not-particularly-amusing bit involving a kidnapped Swedish princess offering particular sexual favors to Eggsy in exchange for saving the world and then—Spoiler Alert—making good on her promise.

“Kingsman: The Secret Service” is not without its compensations. While Egerton is fairly anonymous as the callow would-be Kingsman, Firth, Caine and Strong are clearly having fun with their parts and it is amusing to see Firth dressed to look like Harry Palmer, the rival Sixties-era British spy once played by Caine. (Jackson, on the other hand, is not quite as successful as the wildly lisping villain—since the character does not make very much sense, he never quite manages to get a fix on him.) As he has demonstrated in superior efforts such as “ Layer Cake ,” “Stardust” and “ X-Men: First Class “, Vaughn is an undeniably stylish filmmaker and while this may not be a good movie, it is certainly a good-looking one. Also, the concept is promising, and, who knows, maybe when they get around to the next installment of the franchise they are clearly setting up, they will finally figure out the right tone and make a better movie as a result. Of course, I said the same thing after coming out of “Kick-Ass” and we all know how that turned out.   

Peter Sobczynski

A moderately insightful critic, full-on Swiftie and all-around  bon vivant , Peter Sobczynski, in addition to his work at this site, is also a contributor to The Spool and can be heard weekly discussing new Blu-Ray releases on the Movie Madness podcast on the Now Playing network.

• Colin Firth as Harry Hart
• Jack Davenport as Lancelot
• Michael Caine as Arthur
• Mark Strong as Merlin
• Taron Egerton as Gary 'Eggsy' Unwin
• Samuel L. Jackson as Valentine

Cinematography

• George Richmond
• Jane Goldman
• Matthew Vaughn

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Kingsman: The Secret Service

A spy organisation recruits a promising street kid into the agency's training program, while a global threat emerges from a twisted tech genius. A spy organisation recruits a promising street kid into the agency's training program, while a global threat emerges from a twisted tech genius. A spy organisation recruits a promising street kid into the agency's training program, while a global threat emerges from a twisted tech genius.

• Matthew Vaughn
• Jane Goldman
• Mark Millar
• Colin Firth
• Taron Egerton
• Samuel L. Jackson
• 1.1K User reviews
• 488 Critic reviews
• 60 Metascore
• 11 wins & 36 nominations

Top cast 99+

• Harry Hart …

• Gary 'Eggsy' Unwin

• (as Adrian Quentin)

• Little Eggsy

• Michelle Unwin

• Professor Arnold

• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia In the film and trailer, when the new Kingsman recruits have their first nights sleep interrupted by a deluge of water pouring into the dorm, on-set, the scene went horrifically wrong. As writer, producer, and director Matthew Vaughn recalls "I shouted 'action!', the computer got it wrong and vrrrrssshh, everyone was twenty feet down underwater. Cameras, sound guys. People were in waders full of water, panic, everyone diving in, and pulling people out." The set, painstakingly planned and rehearsed using height markers and computer-programmed water tanks, washed away in a nearly Biblical flood when said computers went rogue. "Those actors weren't acting, they were absolutely terrified", shudders Vaughn. "It was awful for the first day of filming."
• Goofs Many people think Gazelle has a security implant (visible by the scar behind her ear) and that her head should explode like the other conspirators' heads do when "Merlin" activates the security system. However this is because when the implant is first observed by the Kingsmen (during the video of Valentine SIM cards announcement), viewers mistake the character the scar is shown on for Gazelle. But it's not her, it's a nameless Valentine assistant (played by Johanna Taylor) that in that particular scene looks a bit like Gazelle. Gazelle does not have an implant.

Harry Hart : [to bigoted church lady] I'm a Catholic whore, currently enjoying congress out of wedlock with my black Jewish boyfriend who works at a military abortion clinic. So, hail Satan, and have a lovely afternoon, madam.

• Crazy credits There is an extra scene just after the end credits begin.
• Alternate versions The Vietnamese, Argentine and Indonesian cinema versions cut out the notorious church scene.
• Connections Featured in Take That: Get Ready for It (2015)
• Soundtracks Money For Nothing Written by Mark Knopfler / Sting Published by Straitjacket Songs Ltd / Universal Music Publishing Ltd & EMI Music Publishing Ltd. © 1985 Performed by Dire Straits Courtesy of Virgin EMI Records Ltd Under license from Universal Music Operations Ltd & Courtesy of Warner Bros. Records By arrangement with Warner Music Group Film & TV licensing

User reviews 1.1K

• bloodnguts29
• Dec 25, 2014
• Is it really true about unlimited air supply, while they are doing loo-snorkels? How does it work?
• Is there a scene during the credits of this film?
• February 13, 2015 (United States)
• United Kingdom
• United States
• Official Facebook
• Official Site
• Kingsman: El servicio secreto
• Alexandra and Ainsworth Estate, Rowley Way, Camden, London, England, UK (council estate where Eggsy lives)
• Twentieth Century Fox
• Cloudy Productions
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $81,000,000 (estimated)
• $128,261,724
• $36,206,331
• Feb 15, 2015
• $414,351,546

Technical specs

• Runtime 2 hours 9 minutes
• Dolby Atmos

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The King's Man review: Has the Kingsman prequel been worth the wait?

It's time to go right back to the beginning.

Of all the major movies delayed by the pandemic, it feels like The King's Man has gone under the radar despite being no less affected than No Time to Die .

Like Daniel Craig's final James Bond movie, the Kingsman prequel was originally set for release in November 2019. A series of moves followed from February 2020 to September 2020 and then from February 2021 to August 2021, before it finally settled on its December 2021 release date.

Its eventual arrival comes at a daunting time though, sandwiched between Spider-Man: No Way Home and The Matrix Resurrections in the US. The King's Man arrives after both of those movies in the UK on Boxing Day, but there's still the worry that it could get lost against such serious competition.

And it would be a shame if that proves to be the case. After the dreadful Kingsman: The Golden Circle , Matthew Vaughn has delivered a good old-fashioned British blockbuster that, while not flawless, delivers spy thrills and big surprises.

Back in Kingsman: The Secret Service , Harry Hart (Colin Firth) told Eggsy (Taron Egerton) how the Kingsman group was formed after World War I. A group of the British elite who lost people in the global conflict formed the private intelligence service, aiming to protect the world.

The King's Man tells this story through the eyes of Orlando Oxford (Ralph Fiennes) who left active service to join the Red Cross. Following the death of his wife during the Boer War, he committed himself to protecting his son Conrad (Harris Dickinson) from the world and even the hint of war.

However, in 1914, Oxford finds himself reluctantly drawn back into conflict as a group of tyrants, including Grigori Rasputin (Rhys Ifans), gather to plot a war that will wipe out millions.

With a mysterious leader known only as the Shepherd, the nefarious group set cousins King George, Kaiser Wilhelm and Tsar Nicholas (all Tom Hollander) against each other to spark a global battle. As Oxford faces a race against time, can he stop the villains in time to prevent a worldwide catastrophe?

The strength of The King's Man is in the way that Vaughn – who co-wrote the movie with Karl Gajdusek – weaves real-life history into the narrative. In this reworked version of history, the first Kingsman operatives were present at events such as Archduke Franz Ferdinand's assassination.

If you're not familiar with the origins of World War I, there are aspects that seem so outlandish that it must be an invention for the movie. However, Vaughn is careful to remain true to history and only adds Kingsman flourishes in the subplot of this evil cabal of villains plotting to destroy the world. The approach adds a unique and smarter element to the movie than you'd necessarily have expected.

At times, it does feel though like Vaughn wanted to make a war movie and fitted the Kingsman element into it, rather than the other way around. It means that you'll end up learning more about World War I than you really do about the beginnings of the Kingsman organisation, which isn't really the point of an origin story.

There's also a restraint to large parts of The King's Man , potentially because of the connection to a dark period of history. Where previously the series has treated violence as a bit of a jape, the prequel is more sombre in tone and there's a level of emotion the other movies lacked.

It's not necessarily what you'd expect from a series that has previously featured Elton John battling robotic dogs, but it's a welcome change. Even if the story does often meander to fit real-life history into the Kingsman series, you can't accuse Vaughn of just doing the same thing he did in the first two.

There are still the trademark Kingsman touches to be found elsewhere, such as the hyper-kinetic camerawork during the fight scenes. Since it's not overused, it makes more impact when it is, such as during a wild Russia-set sequence as Oxford, Conrad and Shola (Djimon Hounsou) take on Rasputin.

For those who thought the other Kingsman movies were excessive, there's relatively little of the hyperviolence here. It comes to the fore in the climax, including a ridiculous decapitation, but like the story, Vaughn is more restrained and it's welcome. It adds to the feeling of the prequel being a classy old-school spy blockbuster, rather than an in-your-face action-comedy.

The class shines through in the stacked cast who make the most of one-note characters, with Ralph Fiennes and Gemma Arterton the stand-outs. Harris Dickinson struggles the most with his thin character, who mostly just wants to join the fight and gets stroppy when his father won't let him.

Fortunately, Fiennes' Oxford is very much the central character here and has the most development, carrying the movie's emotional weight. Even he's outshone by Rhys Ifans in an outlandish and entertaining turn as Rasputin, while Tom Hollander is excellent as the three cousins at the centre of the conflict.

The King's Man might not entirely be what Kingsman fans expect, but Vaughn still sprinkles enough of it throughout to keep those fans entertained. The prequel doesn't really shine that much light on the secret spy organisation, but it's still a satisfying blockbuster watch for this Christmas.

The King's Man is released in US cinemas on December 22 and in UK cinemas on December 26.

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Movies Editor, Digital Spy  Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor.  Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies , attending genre festivals around the world.   After moving to Digital Spy , initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.  

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2014’s Kingsman: The Secret Service was an unexpected delight. It was basically director Matthew Vaughn stealing the reins from the Bond franchise and making it his own with a mythology that clearly owed a lot to 007 while still having the freedom to do something new and unique. However, 2017’s sequel Kingsman: The Golden Circle was a major letdown as it tried to do too much so that it felt constantly bloated and overloaded. Now Vaughn has retreated to the past for a prequel story— The King’s Man —that doesn’t even really seem to know what a Kingsman movie should be, so instead it’s a bizarre mish-mash of war drama, Drunk History , and occasional bits of espionage. It’s a movie that wants the benefit of deep pathos between a father and son but also a scene where Rhys Ifans tongues Ralph Fiennes ’ leg. But the film really falls apart because while its characters crave peace, Vaughn is a director who relishes violence.

After a brief prologue, The King’s Man begins on the eve of World War I. Nobleman Orlando Oxford (Fiennes) has devoted his life to pacifism after his wife was killed during the Boer War, and her dying wish was to protect their son Conrad ( Harris Dickinson ) from combat. However, Conrad is determined to fight in the looming war, which is being set in motion by a mysterious Scotsman known as The Shepherd and his league of criminals which includes such historical figures as Mata Hari ( Valerie Pachner ), Gavrilo Princip ( Joel Basman ), and Grigori Rasputin (Ifans). As the Shepherd and his animals manipulate European powers into World War, Orlando, his servants Polly ( Gemma Arterton ) and Shola ( Djimon Hounsou ), and Conrad try to avert disaster while Orlando tries to protect his son.

RELATED: First ‘The King’s Man’ Social Reactions Say It's Tonally All Over the Place, But With a Wild Rhys Ifans Performance

It’s fine that The King’s Man wants to have an emotional core, and Fiennes and Dickinson sell that father-son relationship well enough, especially against the backdrop of a war picture. For all of Vaughn’s panache with action scenes, it looks like the movie he’s trying to make is a character drama about a father who doesn’t want to send his young son off to war and a son who wants to fight and achieve a measure of personal valor for himself (while Orlando’s motives make sense—he watched his wife killed on a battlefield and her dying wish was to make sure their son never saw war—Conrad seems to want to fight because he’s young and it’s a matter of personal honor, so his motives are never as compelling as his father’s). If The King’s Man didn’t have to be an action movie, it would probably be a lovely and intimate little drama.

But Vaughn is most comfortable when he has violence to fall back on, and while that served him in the spy genre, which is already heightened and fantastical, as a war film, he gets lost in no man’s land. It’s difficult to take war as anything but a serious, senseless thing unless you’re fully leaning into the absurdity (a la Catch-22 and M*A*S*H* ), and the pathos The King’s Man looks to derive from the Oxford-Conrad relationship prevents absurdity. So on one side of the film, you have this deeply serious war movie and the other side you have a SPECTRE-like organization where Rasputin is drip-feeding opium to Tsar Nicolas II ( Tom Hollander ) and licking Orlando’s wounded leg in order to heal it. Yes, Ifans is doing “a thing”, but the film clearly wants Rasputin to be this fun, dazzling character, which would be fine, but then you can’t really treat your war scenes like you’re making 1917 .

I’m kind of shocked that the tone of The King’s Man veers so wildly when it’s the third one of these movies and the only guy who makes them is Vaughn. Even if you want to make the argument that the purpose of this movie is to show how the Kingsman Agency came about, the whole “Kingsman” franchise feels largely tangential to the events of this movie. If you see the Kingsman films as James Bond riffs with looney villains executing zany plots, there’s something oddly perverse about being like “What if World War I—a tragedy that killed about 40 million people worldwide for no reason—was the product of an angry Scotsman looking to take revenge on England?” It’s a movie where there can be a brutal, but lovingly executed knife fight in the trenches and then a scene later has a character bemoan the “reality” of war. Again, it’s not that war can’t serve as an absurd background, but Vaughn constantly seems uncertain of how seriously he should take his own story.

The King’s Man is a movie that’s inviting you to have fun, but not too much fun, and the herky-jerky nature of its storytelling makes it difficult for Vaughn to ever settle into any kind of groove. Part of me wishes he had just thrown out the pathos entirely and gone completely insane, which would serve as not only a way to critique the absurdity of war, but it’s also the wavelength he seems most comfortable with for his movie. If you’re going to go the Drunk History route, then you need to let folks know you’re in on the joke, but the King’s Man wants to be serious about the cost of war except when it’s exploiting it for more stylish action. It feels like at this point, Vaughn is simply using this franchise as a series of action-delivery vehicles, and The King’s Man shows that he’d be far better off in the realm of fictional spy escapades rather than throwing up the backdrops of historical tragedies.

The King's Man opens in theaters on December 22nd.

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‘kingsman: the secret service’: film review.

Old-school spycraft meets cartoonish high jinks in a comic book adaptation starring Colin Firth and Samuel L. Jackson

By Sheri Linden

Sheri Linden

Senior Copy Editor/Film Critic

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Playing a world-saving and somewhat world-weary superagent, Colin Firth is the epitome of suave, as lethal as he is elegant, in the spy thriller Kingsman: The Secret Service . His sad-eyed heroics ground the comic book adaptation, while Samuel L. Jackson brings the goofball villainy, big-time, as a mad genius who concocts a ticking time bomb of a scheme.

As he did in X-Men: First Class , director Matthew Vaughn strikes an energetic balance between cartoonish action and character-driven drama, though the tinge here is darker, with a story that hinges on matters of climate change, the insidiousness of technology and the class divide. The mix grows less seamless and the story loses oomph as it barrels toward its doomsday countdown, but the cast’s dash and humor never flag. And if the movie sometimes panders shamelessly to fanboys, that could serve it well upon its February release, when it goes head-to-head against a fantasy of another persuasion: Fifty Shades of Grey .

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Mark millar returning to spy world with graphic novel 'king of spies', 'the king's man' teaser trailer: ralph fiennes explains origin of kingsman agency.

Just as the cast combines masterly screen vets and impressive newcomers, the film embraces old-school undercover sensibilities while updating them. A self-contained adventure, as opposed to a franchise-launching introductory chapter, the screenplay by Vaughn and Jane Goldman is based on a comic book series by Kick-Ass writer Mark Millar and Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons (published by Marvel imprint Icon). Like its source material, it uses pop culture references to sharp effect. My Fair Lady , for example, provides an unlikely punch line. And there’s more than a touch of Bond — James Bond — in the globe-trotting, London-based escapades.

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Kingsman is the name of the Savile Row menswear shop that serves as HQ for an organization of impeccably dressed gentleman spies. Headed by the inscrutable Arthur (an extended cameo by Michael Caine ), they’re latter-day Knights of the Round Table. Firth’s Harry Hart, code-named Galahad, finds a new sense of purpose as mentor to petty criminal Gary “Eggsy” Unwin ( Taron Egerton ).

Sponsoring the teen as a recruit for the Secret Service, Harry’s not just trying to save a street-smart kid from a rudderless existence with his troubled mother ( Samantha Womack ) and her abusive boyfriend ( Geoff Bell ); he’s atoning for the botched mission 17 years earlier that cost the life of Eggsy’s dad ( Jack Davenport ), aka Lancelot.

That mission, a high-body-count fracas involving a kidnapped professor ( Mark Hamill ) in a ski chateau, opens the film and sets the tone of jokey mayhem and stylized gore. Making flamboyant first impressions in the scene are Jackson’s cellphone gazillionaire Valentine and his sleek, murderous assistant, Gazelle ( Sofia Boutella ), named for the flexible-blade prosthetics she wears, a la Oscar Pistorius .

In the present day, Valentine, whose idiosyncrasies include a prominent lisp and a squeamishness about blood that doesn’t stop him from wreaking havoc, is preparing to press play on a devilishly logical plan to save the human race from the devastation of climate change. The ultimate showdown grows numbing in its back-and-forth, although the screenplay’s clever use of Eggsy’s toddler sibling brings home the panic with impact.

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Vaughn and Goldman, whose previous screenwriting collaborations include Kick-Ass , root the story’s crazy gizmos, including Valentine’s use of SIM cards as weapons of mass destruction, in recognizable tech, from biometrics to satellites and mainframes.

Less recognizable, and something to behold, are Firth’s graceful martial arts moves. Exaggerated by effects and editing, they create a form of live-action animation that reaches its apex (or nadir, depending on your view of over-the-top violence) in a sequence, set to the wail of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird,” that pits Harry against the congregation of a Southern church. Nominally he’s a soldier in the culture wars, but that doesn’t quite hold up as more than a cheap shot in the context of the action.

The true engines of the movie are the chalk-and-cheese contrast between Firth’s and Jackson’s characters and the understated father-son dynamic between Harry and Eggsy. In his first major big-screen role, Welsh actor Egerton captures the character’s resentment and suspicion as well as his longing to make something of himself and to be like Harry, who can coolly lay waste to a barroom of hooligans between sips of his pint. Beyond the unexpected physicality that Firth brings to the part, he imbues Harry with a bone-dry wit.

There’s also something unfulfilled in his bespectacled eyes. The longing finds eloquent, unsentimental expression when he brings Eggsy to the Kingsman haberdashery to be fitted for his first bespoke suit and to get his first glimpse of the organization’s stylishly deadly gadgets (ace work here and throughout by production designer Paul Kirby and costume designer  Arianne Phillips ).

Lending strong, unfussy support are Sophie Cookson , as Eggsy’s chief competition and only friend in spy school, where he’s a pleb among posh upper-crust types, and the dependable Mark Strong as Scottish spy Merlin, who trains the wannabe agents and oversees the group’s inventive arsenal — the story’s equivalent of the Bondian character Q.

Reviewed in nearly final form, the widescreen feature pops with sharp action, including a brief bit of parkour and a car chase in reverse. Until choppiness overcomes the final section, all of it is choreographed with urgency by cinematographer George Richmond and enhanced by Henry Jackman and Matthew Margeson ‘s lush score.

The humor pops too, but a late-in-the-proceedings sex joke involving a Swedish princess ( Hanna Alstrom ) comes across as a desperate bid for edginess. (Not yet rated stateside, the film received a 15 certificate in Britain after some violent images were cut.) The gag is crude and out of tune with the rest of the movie. Harry Hart, it’s safe to say, would not be amused.

Production companies: Marv, Cloudy Cast: Colin Firth, Samuel L. Jackson, Mark Strong, Michael Caine, Mark Hamill, Taron Egerton, Sophie Cookson, Jack Davenport, Sofia Boutella, Geoff Bell, Samantha Womack, Bjorn Floberg, Hanna Alstrom Director: Matthew Vaughn Screenwriters: Jane Goldman, Matthew Vaughn Based on the comic book The Secret Service by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons Producers: Matthew Vaughn, David Reid, Adam Bohling Executive producers: Mark Millar, Dave Gibbons, Stephen Marks, Claudia Vaughn, Pierre Lagrange Director of photography: George Richmond Production designer: Paul Kirby Costume designer: Arianne Phillips Editors: Eddie Hamilton, Jon Harris Composers: Henry Jackman, Matthew Margeson Casting: Reg Poerscout-Edgerton Not yet rated, 128 minutes

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‘Venom: The Last Dance’ Review: The Greatest Love Story in Superhero Movie History Ends on an Entertainingly Generic Note

David ehrlich.

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By far the best thing about the “ Venom ” movies is that Venom is in them. Venom should be in all movies, but — to my great chagrin — he is almost exclusively in these ones, and so we have no choice but to be grateful that Sony has blessed us with a third installment of its most successful comic book franchise, even if this trilogy-capping adventure tends to forget that having Venom in it means that it doesn’t have to bother with all of the other bullshit endemic to its dying genre. 

2021’s “Let There Be Carnage” had the right idea when it eschewed an extinction-level villain in favor of Woody Harrelson playing a serial killer named Cletus, but Kelly Marcel’s “ Venom: The Last Dance ” — which finds the series’ longtime screenwriter matching the same run-and-gun raggedness that directors Andy Serkis and Ruben Fleischer brought to these movies before her — cheats back towards the generic superhero crap that Eddie Brock and his extraterrestrial bestie had largely managed to avoid, even as it does what it can to deepen the marriage between them. 

That isn’t much. We just about reached the limits of their union in the last film , and all that’s really left for Marcel to do here is let the “Lethal Protector” go out in a ridiculous blaze of glory. But “The Last Dance” is still a fun time when it focuses on its core friendship (or uncivil union, or whatever you want to call it), its comic sensibilities are still much sharper and stranger than anything Deadpool could ever come up with, and it’s still less of a letdown than the other recent threequel that shares its subtitle. “Magic Mike” wins out when it comes to the actual dancing, but there’s no question that “Venom” has the edge when it comes to watching a perma-hungover Tom Hardy wear his own shoulders like an inflatable neck pillow. 

Somewhere in deepest space, a gray-haired ghoul called Knull — who apparently created the symbiotes as a weapon to conquer the universe, only for them to imprison him on a colorless soundstage — has decided that he’s ready to break free, kill everything, and make good on the mega-powerful “Marvel Snap” card that bears his image (a vital component of any destroy-based deck). Escaping his shackles will require the use of the “Codex,” which is inconveniently lodged into the top of Venom’s spine for reasons that aren’t worth explaining here. 

In lieu of being able to travel (or even sit up in his space chair), Knull dispatches an alien race of Zerg-ass bug monsters to kill our beloved hero, which means that Eddie and Brock will spend the better part of this story running away from giant insects in lieu of dealing with a less generic threat. This franchise has always benefited from its lack of an overarching supervillain, but “The Last Dance” would rather cram the entire first phase of the MCU’s Thanos arc into a single film than find a more organic way of separating Eddie from Venom.

Whatever the case, the movie’s human antagonist takes a more practical approach to the problem; alien-hunting American soldier Rex Strickland wants to kill Eddie and/or Venom with extreme prejudice, and honestly he might seem like a pretty sensible guy if not for how well Ejiofor plays a jerk. The character’s prickish disposition is contrasted against Temple’s wonderfully named but woefully underwritten Dr. Payne, a symbiote-loving scientist who spends the entire film deep within the bowels of her secret lab beneath Area 51. Her character brings a real “Ted Lasso” vibe to this story about a shape-shifting goo monster who likes to eat people’s heads, and that honestly might have worked to its benefit had Dr. Payne been given anything — and I mean anything — to do besides ogle her alien captives. 

It’s only a matter of time before Eddie and Venom find themselves in Dr. Payne’s lab, as the duo — falsely accused of killing someone who’s very much alive — begin the film as fugitives in desperate need of a safe haven. Venom targets New York for lore reasons, but “The Last Dance” hardly makes it further east than Nevada, by which point it’s already run out of gas. 

The relationship between them has always been as mutable as Venom itself, and Marcel has mastered the duo’s rare ability to reflect several dynamics at once: an ego and its id, a pair of fraternal twins, an old married couple, etc. Hardy isn’t asked to do too many new tricks, but “what if an exasperated journalist who sounds like Al Capone were molecularly bonded with a hedonistic Cookie Monster from Hell?” isn’t the kind of thing that requires a ton of iteration to stay fresh. 

While Venom’s antics may not be as inspired as they were in the previous film, nor his puppy-like tenderness — once a sweet surprise — quite so unexpected, his lust for life still makes everything he does at least a little funny, whether he’s playing a slot machine for the first time in Vegas or singing a wistful cover of a certain David Bowie classic when Eddie hitches a ride with an alien-obsessed hippie played by Rhys Ifans (another Marvel alum whose presence here, like Ejiofor’s, serves to complicate this film’s broadly irrelevant but annoyingly inconsistent relationship to the MCU). 

“This is serious,” various people — Venom included! — repeatedly insist throughout “The Last Dance,” but it’s really not. Not even Knull, the self-described “Slicer of Worlds,” is scary enough to make the fate of the universe feel like it matters. But what this movie lacks in seriousness it makes up for in sincerity. Despite the film’s best efforts to melt its characters into the vast sludge of superhero cinema, the union between Eddie and Venom is simply too pure to be diluted down to nothing. Thanks to Hardy, even the least of the movies in this franchise is definitely something , and it’s something that its genre may not be able to survive without.

Sony Pictures Releasing will release “Venom: The Last Dance” in theaters on Friday, October 25.

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The Penguin Episode 5 Review: DC's Batman Universe Has Never Been This Brutal

Venom's future after the last dance addressed by director: "there are lots of symbiote stories", where to watch venom 3: showtimes & streaming status.

Let's get something out of the way before we dive in to discussing Venom: The Last Dance — I am a Venom fan. When I reviewed the first Venom movie in 2018, I gave it three out of five stars, which was on the generous side compared to other reviews. I've continued to stand by my rating six years later. The first movie was refreshing even if it felt like it was made in the early 2000s, and it had tons of unexpected charm that was only made more delightful by Tom Hardy's all-in performance as Eddie Brock and Venom.

Venom: The Last Dance

Now, I can say that Venom: The Last Dance is everything that made the first movie entertaining and more. There's more of the offbeat and oddly sentimental dynamic between Eddie and Venom, as well as more exciting symbiote action scenes, including one particularly fun sequence with Venom Horse. There are also more of the clunkier aspects from the first Venom movie. There are exposition-heavy Marvel lore dumps, especially when it comes to Knull, and scenes where the schmaltz is laid on thick. Still, despite its imperfections, Venom: The Last Dance is a wildly fun ride.

Tom Hardy Shines In Venom: The Last Dance

The marvel trilogy has always rested on hardy's shoulders.

Ever since Tom Hardy climbed into a tank full of lobsters to deliver one of the most bonkers and fun scenes from Venom , it's been clear the actor is instrumental to the success of these films. Hardy's willingness to dive headfirst into the weird and strange world of Marvel's Venom is what has always helped make the relationship between Eddie and his symbiote as compelling and entertaining as it is. In Venom: The Last Dance , Hardy holds nothing back, giving his all to his performance as both Eddie and Venom.

It's a stroke of genius to simply let Hardy run wild as Eddie and Venom.

Smartly, Venom: The Last Dance leans entirely into the dynamic of Eddie and Venom, giving the duo something of a buddy-comedy road trip storyline in what Hardy has said will be his last outing as Venom. It's vaguely reminiscent of the two-hander Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman pulled off in this summer's Deadpool & Wolverine , but with Hardy playing both the grumpy straight man in Eddie, and the manic, deranged, but ultimately good-hearted symbiote he hosts. It's a stroke of genius to simply let Hardy run wild as both characters, even as it's clear it serves the film's larger story.

The rest of the Venom: The Last Dance cast is perfectly fine. The actors seem to take the movie as seriously as Hardy (but not too seriously). Juno Temple is a standout as Dr. Payne, a scientist dedicated to researching the symbiotes captured by soldier Rex Strickland, played by an appropriately gruff Chiwetel Ejiofor. Rhys Ifans also has a delightful turn as Martin, a UFO enthusiast who's dragging his family along on a trip to Area 51. Peggy Lu's Mrs. Chen is the only franchise return, and though her role is somewhat ham-fisted into the movie, it's no less fun.

Venom: The Last Dance Is For Fans Of The Venom Movies

Director kelly marcel delivers a proper trilogy ender.

Despite Venom's connection to other Marvel characters in the comics, Venom: The Last Dance is first and foremost meant to be a capstone for this specific trilogy. It's clear from every moment that Tom Hardy and writer-director Kelly Marcel adore this version of the character that's been created across Sony's three Venom movies , and they endeavor to give him a proper sendoff. In that, they're undoubtedly successful. There may be moments when the cheesiness and sentimentality become a little goofy, but the filmmakers' hearts are in the right place, and the movie plucks at our heartstrings.

You may be disappointed if you go into Venom: The Last Dance hoping for this franchise to deliver something it never has before.

However, you may be disappointed if you go into Venom: The Last Dance hoping for this franchise to deliver something it never has before, like multiverse cameos or a showdown with a particular wall-crawler. As Venom himself says early on in the movie, "I'm so done with this multiverse sh-t." From there, it's clear that Marcel and Hardy set out to focus on Eddie and Venom and the universe they've built in this franchise, and they do so in such a way that if you enjoy these characters, you won't even miss what could've been.

DC's exceptional HBO show reminds everyone that Colin Farrell's Penguin really isn't a nice guy in memorable style.

Venom: The Last Dance shows what happens when you let a perfectly cast actor and a director with a lot of affection for the character run wild in a world of Marvel superheroes. You get a movie that's a little weird, a lot silly, and full of fun. Venom: The Last Dance isn't a perfect movie, and it may not be for everyone, but it is for everyone who's loved Eddie and Venom from the start. If you're like me, you'll be elated by the exceptionally delightful last dance with Venom, even if you're sad to see them go.

Venom: The Last Dance is in theaters on Friday, October 25. The film is 109 minutes long and rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, bloody images and strong language.

Venom 3 is the third and final installment in Sony's symbiote trilogy starring Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock. It follows the events of Let There Be Carnage, where the anti-hero fought serial killer Cletus Kasady, and Spider-Man: No Way Home, where Brock was briefly transported to the MCU through the multiverse.

• Tom Hardy goes full-tilt and delivers an exceptionally fun performance.
• Writer/director Kelly Marcel's love for the characters is evident.
• The cast are clearly having a blast.
• Some clunky exposition and overly cheesy scenes.

VENOM: THE LAST DANCE Review: The Most Cinematic, Monumental VENOM Movie To Date

The Venom franchise has often divided fans, but the finale to Sony's trilogy is easily the Lethal Protector's best movie yet, even if there's still some room for improvement. Read our verdict here...

Despite Tom Hardy’s memorable, madcap performance, 2018’s Venom failed to strike a chord with many comic book fans. As for Venom: Let There Be Carnage , it benefited greatly from Andy Serkis’ direction but was somewhat lacking in depth outside of the long-awaited clash between its title characters. Now, we have Venom: The Last Dance , Hardy’s final Venom movie and arguably this franchise’s most well-rounded effort yet. For those not on board with the direction these movies have taken the anti-hero in, it probably won't change any minds, but first-time feature director Kelly Marcel delivers arguably the biggest, best Venom movie yet which, when all is said and done, will leave you wanting more. 

In the threequel, the dynamic between Eddie Brock and Venom is far more in line with what we've been waiting to see from these characters. They’re finally on the same page and their symbiosis is that much easier to buy into, a must in a movie that relies so heavily on the strength of their bond. In Venom: The Last Dance , the duo’s attempt to reach New York and clear Eddie’s name is derailed when Knull, God of the Symbiotes, sends his Xenophage across the universe to acquire a Codex that can free him from his prison on Klyntar. Hunted, Eddie and Venom escape to Las Vegas but the only way to stop Knull might be for them to permanently end their partnership. With the duo no longer butting heads, we get a Venom who, given the chance in a future story, could be the Lethal Protector that's made him so beloved on the page.  

Knull only appears for a few moments on screen but there are enough handily delivered exposition dumps to establish what he’s after and why Eddie and Venom must stop him. Venom: The Last Dance ’s plot is relatively straightforward and there are moments which are far too contrived or convenient to push the story along. However, a solid, action-packed opening combined with a high-stakes, bombastic final act more than make up for a middle that sometimes sags (sorry, Mrs. Chen fans; she’d have been better left on the cutting room floor). With writer Kelly Marcel now in the director’s chair, it feels like she perhaps indulges her script a little too much when other filmmakers might be a bit harsher in the editing room. Still, this is an impressive feature debut and the visuals, action, and sheer imagination of what we see on screen combine to make this a high point for Sony’s Marvel Universe. Eddie Brock with a mermaid tail? It sounds ridiculous, but it’s an imaginative blink-and-you’d-miss-it moment that adds new layers to what Venom can do, all while embracing this franchise’s frenetic nature.  

Tom Hardy is at his bonkers, brilliant best as Eddie and Venom in this movie, and while he’s still very different from the comic book version of this character at times, it’s hard not to have fun with the odd-couple relationship that’s been established between the movie’s leads. With a little more serious material to work with, the actor shines in a way that deepens his dual roles and reminds us why he’s one of Hollywood’s most talented stars. Chiwetel Ejiofor and Juno Temple deliver solid supporting turns, though neither character is necessarily explored beyond what’s on the surface. Still, by the time the final act arrives, you’ll be invested enough in where they’re at and happier to spend time with them than say, Dan Lewis or Shriek. As for Andy Serkis’ Knull, his screentime is brief, but casting him was the right call. We’d have loved to see more of the King in Black, but we were told this was an introduction and the movie delivers little more than what was promised…if and when the character returns, another filmmaker will be free to expand his story as they see fit. 

Where we go from here remains to be seen, of course, but we can safely say that we’re ready for Venom and Spider-Man to meet on screen. Hardy has repeatedly said he’s done after this movie and, if not Venom 4 , we absolutely want to see more of this pairing in some capacity. By the time we reach that final act, it feels like Eddie and Venom are exactly where they need to be as an on-screen duo and we don’t just like them anymore…heck, we’re starting to love them (again, given the higher emotional stakes on this threequel, that’s essential and a credit to Marcel’s script).

The filmmaker builds on Serkis’ foundations to create a superhero blockbuster that’s leaps and bounds ahead of some  MCU efforts and a major improvement over anything we’ve seen from DC in recent years. Calling something a "popcorn movie" is oftentimes considered an insult, but Venom: The Last Dance is a perfect example of a film you can sit back, switch off, and have fun with. There are nitpicks and plenty of things comic book readers would consider changing. However, treated as its own unique spin on Venom, the movie finds wildly inventive, wacky new ways to use the Symbiote, delivers some big laughs, and doesn’t disappoint when it comes to action.

We were told The Last Dance would end Hardy’s time as the character, so there isn’t much in the way of sequel - or Spider-Man 4 - bait, despite what some may have led you to believe. A handful of characters here are sorely underutilised (Toxin fans, don’t get too excited) and there are times when the movie feels light on plot but, hey, we know what we’re getting with this franchise and fans of the Venom movies will walk away very happy. As for the rest of you...you'd best hope those rumours about Marvel Studios having plans for Venom are accurate.

VENOM: THE LAST DANCE's Rotten Tomatoes Score Has Been Revealed!

VENOM: THE LAST DANCE - Here's What Critics Are Saying About Tom Hardy's Farewell To Eddie Brock

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College sophomore Tom Backster comes from a relatively hardscrabble background, and he believes with all his heart and ambition that the fraternity life is his ticket to the firmament of society, and that is the Greek (life) tragedy of the propulsively brutal cautionary tale that is “The Line.”

We watch with an increasing sense of foreboding as this smart and seemingly decent young man loses himself in the rampant toxicity of the frat life, making one poor choice after another, oblivious to the cliff in front of him until it’s too late and he’s in mid-air, destined for a horrific crash landing.

Director and co-writer Ethan Berger frames “The Line” as a kind of elevated horror film — but the monsters aren’t supernatural, they’re privileged, misogynistic, bigoted, coke-snorting fraternity brothers at a Southern university who believe the world is theirs for the taking, and anyone who doesn’t conform to their warped belief system is an outsider, a loser, a nobody. It’s not that we haven’t seen this type of frat-life social commentary before, but Berger and the outstanding ensemble infuse his film with a docudrama authenticity. This is a not a movie you can easily shake off.

Alex Wolff (“Pig,” “A Quiet Place: Day One”) does nuanced and compelling work as the aforementioned Tom, a working-class kid who has affected an accent his mother (Cheri Oteri) dubs as “faux Forrest Gump,” the better to fit in with his “brothers” at the fictitious Kappa Nu Alpha fraternity. Tom rooms with the odious Mitch Miller (Bo Mitchell), who gets away with all manner of piggish behavior because his wealthy father (John Malkovich), who has the unforgettable name of Beach Miller, throws money at problems to make them disappear. (Denise Richards plays Mitch’s mother, and she and Malkovich are so good in a dinner scene that we’d watch an entire movie about their relationship, which seems right out of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”)

“The Line” is filled with memorable supporting players, including Lewis Pullman as Todd, the casually arrogant fraternity president; the late Angus Cloud as a particularly hard-partying KNA brother; Austin Abrams (recently stealing scenes in “Wolfs”) as Gettys O’Brien (again with the names in this movie), a charismatic and rebellious pledge who becomes Mitch’s sworn enemy, and Halle Bailey as Annabelle Bascom, a free spirit who becomes Tom’s love interest.

Tom’s fraternity brothers deride Annabelle as a “Black lesbian” and mock him for his interest in her, even though she’s clearly out of his league in every way imaginable and he should be thanking the stars she’s interested in him. It’s a sign of Tom’s woefully misguided sense of priorities that he’d rather spend his nights getting blasted with his fraternity brothers and hazing the incoming freshman class in a borderline cultish environment than in the company of Annabelle. What an idiot.

From the moment early in the film when we learn KNA has been cited in recent years for a total of 17 violations of student conduct codes, we know where this story is headed. Still, it comes as a stunning blow when the hazing rituals cross the line into potentially criminal behavior.

“The Line” ends on a telling note, with a news story playing on a TV in the background reminding us that the more certain things appear to have changed, the more they stay the same.

Review: Tom Hardy's double act can't save 'Venom: The Last Dance'

This image released by Sony Pictures shows Tom Hardy in a scene from "Venom: The Last Dance." Credit: AP

For three films now, Tom Hardy has smushed Jekyll and Hyde into one strange and slimy double act. In a Marvel universe filled with alter egos that cloak stealthy superpowers, his investigative reporter Eddie Brock doesn’t transform. He shares his body with an ink-black alien symbiote (voiced with a baritone growl by Hardy), who sometimes swallows him whole, sometimes shoots a tentacle or two out, and always chipperly punctuates Eddie’s inner monologue.

These have been consistently messy, almost willfully bad movies, but Hardy’s performance has been a strangely compelling one-body buddy comedy. It’s one thing to throw a cape on and jump the sky. It’s another to run manically through the desert with an alien voice inside barking, as Eddie's inner-alien does in the new “Venom: The Last Dance,” “Engage your core,” “Nice horsey” and “Tequila!”

The biggest dichotomy of these movies, though, isn’t the Eddie-symbiote split. It’s the contrast between Hardy’s funny, sometimes oddly touching performance and all of the CGI mess around him. There were moments of fun in the first two movies, but if “The Last Dance,” which opens in theaters Thursday, is the swan song for this spun-off, half-formed franchise, it confirms that the “Venom” films never quite figured themselves out.

In “The Last Dance,” Kelly Marcel, co-writer of the first two “Venom” films, takes over directing, following Andy Serkis (2021’s “Venom: Let There Be Carnage”) and Ruben Fleischer (2018’s “Venom”). We rejoin Venom (the fusion of Eddie and his alien-entity soulmate) in Mexico where they’re on the run from the law. But a new threat is also emerging.

The movie opens with Knull (Serkis), the symbiote creator who, from some icky distant and dark corner of space, dispatches aliens to retrieve a “codex” found within Venom’s spine that, if obtained, will lead to the annihilation of both humans and symbiotes.

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To me, bringing a typical comic book-style doomsday plot is about the last thing a “Venom” movie needs. The best sequences in the first two movies are no more complicated than Venom craving lobster or ordering pizza. Smaller stakes better suit its warped comedy. The touchstone for these movies shouldn’t be the Marvel playbook but old episodes of “The Odd Couple.”

Instead, we’re thrown into a pretty immediately boring Area 51 setting where an elaborate lab headed by Dr. Teddy Payne (Juno Temple) studies the symbiotes it has trapped with the help of a military division led by Rex Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor, lending more gravitas to the movie than it deserves). Once the alien insect things arrive seeking the codex, there’s plenty of running and fighting, with a UFO-enthusiast family in a VW bus (Rhys Ifans plays the dad) thrown into the mix. The ensuing battle ultimately, as the title promises, threatens to divide Venom for good.

But the promise of the “Venom” series, really, is that the mainline Marvel stuff would intrude less here. This is a B-movie realm of the multiverse with little appetite for solemnity, nobility or two-and-half-hour running times. They can feel a little like tossed-off knockoffs, which is both their appeal and their frustration.

I kept rooting for the surprisingly lifeless “The Last Dance” to pull way back on its save-the-world plot (and its CGI) and lean more into its most potent effect: Hardy’s split-personality double act. If this is to be a last hurrah — which, granted is a dubious idea for anything even adjacently connected to “Spider-Man” — it’s a shame that we never saw more of Venom in daily life. Eddie is a journalist after all. One can only imagine how he and the symbiote might have debated more pressing concerns than the fate of the universe, like Oxford commas.

“Venom: The Last Dance,” a Columbia Pictures release, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association for intense sequences of violence and action, bloody images and strong language. Running time: 110 minutes. Two stars out of four.

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Your Monster Review: Melissa Barrera Gets Emo with Her Hot Wolfman Roommate

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Not every horror comedy is destined to be a classic. For every Beetlejuice and Fright Night, there’s Tremors 4: The Legend Begins and There's Something in the Barn. That's why we can appreciate something in the middle, such as revered writer Diablo Cody's quirky Lisa Frankenstein, a recent film that feels closely related to writer/director Caroline Lindy’s new outing, Your Monster . Lindy’s tale lands like a latter-day Beauty and the Beast (at least the 1980s TV series version) doused with humor and modern-day relationship angst with a blatant reminder that true connection comes from within.

The story tracks a downtrodden and quiet actress named Laura Franco (Melissa Barrera from In the Heights ) who’s forced to dust herself off emotionally and move forward with her life. Laura just never imagined that the terrifying, yet oddly charming monster (Tommy Dewey from Casual ) secretly living in her closet would be her path to salvation. For the most part, the premise works in this film, which is as much about falling in love with your inner rage as it is with truly loving yourself. It’s a nutty, oddball romantic-comedy-horror movie that wins you over with its frights and big heart.

When Brokenhearted Gal Meets Pesky Monster

Your monster.

Soft-spoken actress Laura Franco's life crumbles, but she regains her voice after encountering a terrifying but oddly charming Monster living in her closet.

• A fun horror comedy with a strong physical performance from Tommy Dewey.
• The film balances different tones well, and has a good soundtrack.
• Melissa Barrera's character is a wet blanket and the film drowns in her angst.
• There are perhaps too many subplots.

Your Monster immediately wins you over with its strong performances that enhance filmmaker Caroline Lindy’s script, which, at times, leans too heavily into the me-me-me suffering of our dear Laura here. The effective soundtrack digs in the knife deeper, although there’s a quirky thrill in hearing Georgia Gibbs’s "You Can Never Get Away from Me" or Brenda Lee’s "Someday You’ll Want Me ," among other heart-tugging classics. We get it: Laura is in free fall.

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Imagine her surprise (and ours) when “Monster” emerges one day from her cluttered closet and bemoans the fact that she’s hanging around the house too much while he, too, has been doing that for some time. What? Laura has a roommate? It’s a kooky meet-cute, but it goes down well. There’s an instant affection and curiosity for Monster, thanks to Tommy Dewey, who’s perfectly cast in the role, channeling, well, his sexy/aloof character in Casual with some Joel McHale tossed in for good measure.

A freak-out or two later from Laura, and the duo come to terms with their living situation. Basically, they agree to live together, as roommates. Like other roommate comedies, from New Girl to What We Do in the Shadows, we’re pulled through a tale that ultimately finds these two very different characters having to bend and/or compromise if their arrangement is going to work. The set-up gives Laura a distraction from her severed relationship with Jacob (Edmund Donovan from Tell Me Lies ) and also gives Monster a chance to interact with another human being, which, in turn, draws out his own humanity.

A Mixed Bag of Genres

The plot must go beyond that, however. And in this film, it wanders into a lot of places, switching genres at any given beat. The filmmaker usually makes these somewhat abrupt transitions work, leaning into the overall quirky vibe of the film. It may take getting used to. You see, Laura and Jacob aren’t really done, as there’s a stage musical to launch, which Jacob is involved with as its pretentious director. Welcome to your new stage musical film . Still, more fun than frivolous.

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The tone shifts yet again when Monster decides to give his stay-at-home beastly non-duties a rest and meet Laura at a Halloween costume party. His identity would be “safe” there and there’s nothing finer in his eyes, perhaps, than seeing Laura dressed as the Bride of Frankenstein. Aside from Jacob, Laura has another rival in Jackie (Meghann Fahy) and alleged “best friend” Mazie (Kayla Foster), who plays a significant role in the event unraveling here.

But is Monster actually scary? Sometimes. There’s a hilarious bit when Laura sees the true extent of his strength and the horror of what this beast is actually capable of. It’s enough to scare off her existential sorrows, but Laura likes to hang onto those, and the film nearly drowns in that weepy device. Still, there’s great fun in watching it play out and seeing how anything gets resolved, if at all.

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Inevitably, Laura and Monster realize that they have grown to care for each other. But is it more than just platonic (and more than Monster being an externalized manifestation of her inner angst)? It's here that the main actors shine the brightest, creating a believable rom-com-like will they/won't they whatever . Think of how well Diablo Cody managed to pull that off in Lisa Frankenstein, and it's similar here, but the filmmaker seems to save her best hand for the ending, which appears to lead you in one direction but fully surprises by the final frame.

That makes Your Monster a solid go-to for the Halloween season. Beyond that, the edgy vibe and a stand-out performance from the marvelous Tommy Dewey make this screwball horror comedy pure fun. The film lures you into its web of intrigue and keeps you interested. Aside from a few creative potholes, the filmmaker steers the story effectively, making Your Monster a witty, often biting, and altogether quirky monster mash that ultimately rises to the occasion. Your Monster hits theaters October 25.

• Movie and TV Reviews

• Melissa Barrera