concludes the story of Eddie Brock and the Venom symbiote. In the
process of achieving some destiny for Venom and Brock, the movie
introduces a new villain out there in the universe, Knull, responsible
for the creation of the symbiotes that plague Earth and eying a return
to power. The plotline of this third movie deals with his attempt to
receive a power from the death of either Venom or Brock to assist in
this evil plan. A nasty accomplice of this cranky baddie is a
lizard/arachnid hybrid of immense size, otherwise known as a Xenophage,
that is the kind of thing kids have nightmares about seeing emerge from
the hole at the bottom of their toilets while sitting on them. And then
there are the human soldiers of Imperium who are getting involved in the
symbiote phenomenon for better or worse. By the end of this tale, the
whole point is to see a bunch of human and symbiote combinations in
battles against ugly, undesirable creatures that need eliminated.
Critics found little point to
though
audiences provided some moderate responses to perhaps salvage the
franchise for another day. With Kelly Marcel coming aboard as director
for this entry, so too did her collaborator, composer Dan Deacon, an
American electronic musician who has increasing dabbled in mainstream
film scoring during the 2020's. While his prior film music certainly did
not earn much of a mainstream spotlight,
accomplishes exactly that. He takes the opportunity to devise a score
that resembles a safely conservative product that any such emerging
composer would devise to bolster credentials for that attention. In
other words, it's a score that focuses on not screwing up. With the help
of a massive crew of support, Deacon further broadens his palette and
writes a score with a surprisingly conventional orchestral base to
coincide with his comfortable synthetic tendencies. There's absolutely
nothing special about Deacon's approach to the score, but, on the other
hand, it's a perfectly serviceable and workmanlike genre entry nestled
amongst a handful of songs. While there are challenging passages of
atonal muck, the entirety of the work provides more than adequate depth
for the narrative on screen and is actually quite listenable on its
own.
The balance between synthetics and orchestra in
Venom: The Last Dance is fine, with expected distortion during
suspense and action. On the difficult end, there are mutated foghorn
blasts of stupidity in "Sky Dive" and sheer noise in "Frequent Flyers,"
but some synthetically dominated cues, as in "Request Permission" are
non-offensive. The handling of the orchestra's strings and brass is
highly conventional for the genre, with a few tonal moments of interest
shining through. The role of voices in the work is intriguing, with
whispering vocal layers of dissonance at start of "Knull's Order" and
middle of "Hanging Out at the Waterfall" providing suspense but lovely
solo female voice and ensemble making some sparing appearances later for
attractive fantasy. The thematic narrative of the score is fairly
decent, but no themes carry over from Ludwig Göransson's 2018 music
for
Venom or Marco Beltrami's more stylish 2021 score for
Venom: Let There Be Carnage. (The lack of a prominent role for
Beltrami's bluesy theme for the two main characters during the opening
bar scene here is a disappointment.) In the middle of the score there
are several almost completely aimless filler moments that don't advance
the thematic narrative ("Ramping Up," "Strickland and Paine," "General
Bosco Banana Man," "Safer Underground," "Poking Around"), and the final
set of cues doesn't really offer any satisfying climax or conclusion,
leaving the album hanging. That said, there are two primary themes and
one secondary one that are all related in structure in Deacon's
strategy, and they do their job well enough to carry the score. Not
surprisingly, the Xenophage and Knull characters receive a common motif
that largely dominates in memory. It's a four-note idea meandering
around a restricted range, often stomping, grinding, and snarling on
brass and synthetics. In its employment as a cyclical device, it is all
over this score, almost too ubiquitous at times. This villain identity
in
Venom: The Last Dance is introduced in the bass at 0:16 into
"Knull's Order" and achieves its cyclical form for the whole cue. It
turns deceptively optimistic in that cyclical movement at the outset of
"Area 51 to 55" and informs the chopping string rhythms of "Venom and
Eddie at the River," eventually coming into better focus. The theme
menaces "Newsflash" in shades until announcing itself at the end of the
cue, explodes with massive force at the start of "Lab Battle," toils
with the legacy theme in "Remember Me," and threatens in the obnoxious
crescendo of "Say When."
The villain theme in
Venom: The Last Dance
achieves its pinnacle when choral reverence defines it in "Phoning
Home," building power over the course of its most impactful cue.
Secondary phrasing is finally revealed for the motif in the latter half
of this passage of villain's triumph. The theme creeps into "Crashing
the Party" and "Blasting Out" but largely diminishes from there.
Meanwhile, Deacon's vaguely superhero-like theme (encompassing the Venom
symbiote, Eddie, and Imperium) starts with the same progressions as the
villain motif but ascends with some hope from there. This positive idea
is highlighted in its prettiest and most heroic form on brass at 0:31
into "Area 51 to 55," utilizing percussion and chugging strings to yield
a fairly standard but well executed moment. The lines of the melody are
passed between players in somewhat obtuse ways, though, and the composer
consolidates the theme better at 1:36 with female vocal accents
providing a nice accompaniment. The hero theme struggles against the
villains' distortion in first half of "Hanging Out at the Waterfall" and
mingles with that villain identity in the tumult at 0:58 into "Lab
Battle" before retrieving its form on strings and brass at 2:09. It
offers some phrasing behind the legacy theme in "Remember Me," turns
slightly twangy in fragments on guitars in the unique diversion of
"Desert Walk," and becomes a bit grim early in "Strickland Reprimands
Paine." The hero theme floats its chord progressions through the
slightly uplifting "Sneaking Around," twists into several layers of
malice in "What Are You Doing Here," and is tortured in tonal agony at
the outset of "Phoning Home," where it tries hard to interject later.
Deacon fails to provide closure to this theme at the end of the score,
its progressions faint at the ends of "Crashing the Party" and "Poking
Around" while brass attempts unsuccessfully to wrestle it for purpose in
"Last Try" and "It's a Showdown." Finally, a legacy theme exists as an
extension of the hero material but addressing fantasy in a new stylistic
direction. It offers the most palatable material for extended periods in
the score, developed with choral and orchestral majesty in "Remember Me"
before taking a darker, more synthetic approach in "Explaining the
Backstory" and interrupting suddenly and mystically on synths at 1:01
into "It's Not Safe Here." In the end, Deacon handles in
Venom: The
Last Dance reasonably well but without much memorability. On album
the score runs shy of an hour, and the duo of "Area 51 to 55" and
"Remember Me" could represent a strong ten-minute suite of highlights.
The
Venom sub-franchise has never achieved consistency in its
tone or themes, however, which remains a frustrating disappointment.
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