Comic book movies have come a long way in the last fifty years, from “you believe a man can fly” to “you believe a horse can do Venom.” And if you saw that four-legged monstrosity in the Venom: The Last Dance trailer start screeching and screaming, you can rest easy knowing that Tom Hardy’s third tango with a symbiote will likely deliver exactly what you’re hoping for. The Last Dance tests Hardy’s chemistry with himself in a road trip film that fully embraces the deeply strange tone of this Spider-Man-without-Spider-Man spin-off franchise. Where The Last Dance really shines is in how it sustains that tone, with a terribly formulaic plot that makes this superhero encounter film more difficult than it could have been.

The main appeal remains Tom Hardy’s dual, dueling performances as Eddie Brock and Venom, and the bickering chemistry the actor has built with himself through the first two films… which is ironic, considering the themes of symbiosis at play. With both earthly and alien forces bent on separating Eddie and his symbiote friend, Hardy plays the former’s confused, paranoid tics and tense physicality harder than ever, and you get the sense that he’s constantly on the brink of a breakdown. Eddie isn’t quite willing to allow himself to become one with Venom, and his struggle with the uglier side of being a “lethal protector” represents the only reliable source of drama in The Last Dance.

While neither Venom nor Venom: Let There Be Carnage had particularly surprising plots, they drew on Eddie’s career as a journalist, each adopting the trappings of a different genre to suit the specific story Eddie was investigating. The Life Organization’s grisly goals of uniting humans and symbiotes in Venom fit into a sci-fi/body horror framework, while Let There Be Carnage spotlighted serial killer Cletus Kasady with a crime procedural-inspired plot. But The Last Dance focuses on Eddie and Venom on the run after two films of wreaking havoc on San Francisco, and Hardy’s human character feels a little less convincing without that investigative angle to fall back on. A Las Vegas detour might suggest a Hunter S. Thompson-esque foray into gonzo journalism, but that Venom horse is the closest we’ll get to Raoul Duke’s hallucinatory journey into the heart of the American Dream. In the sequel, Eddie is mostly at the mercy of his symbiote, more often than not just screaming and flailing while Venom does the heavy lifting in the action and chase sequences.

As for Venom, the symbiote is as food-motivated and attention-deprived as ever, and by far the most likable character on screen. Ultimately, Venom is a lovable, goofy doofus; the immature best friend that Eddie must find space for as he grows up. He is a dummy who likes slot machines, eating brains and dancing with Mrs. Chen (Peggy Lu) to ABBA. And who among us can blame him? I didn’t really like The Last Dance, and I certainly wasn’t excited about either of the films that came before it, but Venom? I’d have a beer with that guy. I’m a simple man, and when it comes to simple, cinematic pleasures, there are few as dear to me as Tom Hardy providing the silly little voices of larger-than-life characters.

Venom is far more reliable at facilitating The Last Dance’s comic relief than its symbiote-fueled action. While the visual effects have improved a lot since the first film, The Last Dance has little sense of novelty after two outings where Venom used his tendrils in about as many ways as you can imagine. There is a plot device at play that makes Eddie and Venom particularly vulnerable to the quickly and it becomes an increasingly predictable way to divert the Xenophage’s attention at best. At worst, it’s an irritating source of irresponsibility in times when Eddie and Venom know they need to back off.

There’s little variety to The Last Dance’s rhythm – run, fight, hide, repeat – and even at its most chaotic, the action can never match the daring and creativity of the central relationship between Eddie and Venom. It feels like a step back from Let There Be Carnage, which found a much better balance between these two elements. Kelly Marcel – who wrote both previous Venom films – makes her directorial debut here, and I hoped that an expanded role for the writer who first illuminated the unique combination at the heart of the franchise would deepen the dynamic between man and would mean a parasitic alien. But ultimately, this is a big-budget superhero movie, and Marcel doesn’t really find a balance between the epic and the intimate.

There’s also a big villain vacuum to contend with. A cold open turns Knull, the creator of the symbiotes, into a brooding and existential threat – but only if he can escape his captivity. The Last Dance is in no rush to release him. Venom holds the key to making his escape possible, but Knull is forced to delegate his capture to his symbiote-hunting squirt. It’s a design choice that I feel like standing up and clapping for as I write it down, but which becomes outdated by the tenth time it happens.

Despite being a tough physical match for Venom, the Knull is rarely seen, rarely talked about, and aside from sending the Xenophage out in the first place has virtually no impact on the story – think Thanos The Avengersnot Infinite war. It’s sequel-baiting of the highest order, and if you’re going to subtitle your movie The Last Dance, it’s going to feel more blatant than usual. Chiwetel Ejiofor’s General Strickland continues to hold the bag and, as written, he’s only an antagonist in the sense that he stands in Venom’s way. His motivation for wanting to boot the symbiotes from Earth by any means necessary is entirely reasonable, and there’s no depth or specificity for Ejiofor to play as he pieces together the government’s response to the alien battle arriving on Earth. There’s also a shadowy organization pulling the strings whose name likely appears in very small letters on a computer screen in a scene where an administrator issues menacing orders—more promises for a sequel that has no guarantee of happening. Like I said, we’re setting up a lot of new factions and players for a movie that would supposedly end this whole Venom thing.

Venom: The Last Dance Finale trailer stills