Venom was Tom Hardy in his purest form

The saga of Eddie Brock and Venom is over, at least for now. Venom: The Last Dance concludes the Venom trilogy with a deeply strange, silly, catchy and surprisingly moving conclusion. It may not have been the ending, or even a movie, that critics wanted from a franchise they’ve overwhelmingly mocked since its initial 2018 offering. Poison. But it’s an ending that knows exactly what it wants to be. And it certainly is an ending Tom Hardy has won.

To be honest, I love the Poison cinema. From leaning into ’90s comic book silliness, to their B-level monster movie trappings, to their insistence on breaking the superhero movie formula with every entry, these films stand out in a superhero market dominated by an increasingly complicated story.

Don’t get me wrong, those story-packed features can be great. But it’s refreshing to have movies that don’t take themselves seriously and know exactly who their audience is. This is not to say that critics or audiences who don’t like these films are wrong, nor to imply that there is some nonsense going on between critics and fans. Film criticism is subjective, as always, and when it comes to this particular film and franchise, it’s a low-stakes game.

But the game being played is fascinating because its rules remain elastic. If making superhero movies is like a game of poker, where you want to win the biggest pot possible, then the Poison Movies are the equivalent of throwing in some Monopoly money, a Rolex, and some marbles just for fun. It’s not the expected jackpot, but ultimately it’s still worth something, even if it upsets that status quo.

Much of that sense of elasticity is due to Hardy’s passion for the character and his hands-on approach to directing the series. Sure, many actors are passionate about their roles as superheroes and supervillains, but Hardy signed on to play Venom because of his The son’s love for the character.at a time when every rising star was asked to make a superhero movie because it was the right thing to do.

What could have easily been just a job for an Oscar-nominated actor of Hardy’s caliber became a passion project, with Hardy bringing a variety of influences, acting techniques, and his longtime friend and creative partner. kelly marcelwho has written and produced each entry and directs the latest installment.

There is a certain rejection of ego at play with Hardy in these films. He’s not afraid to be silly, jump into a tank of live lobsters, be doused in ketchup, or be dragged across the desert, all while making “a voice.” But an admirable quality about Hardy as performer It is his refusal to let himself be confined.

Months after giving one of the best performances of the year as Johnny in the film by American author Jeff Nichols. The cyclistshe can trip on a shoe and a voice in his head like Eddie Brock. Even more significantly, both characters, caught in the midst of anguish over the lives they could have had and the people they could have been, are treated with the same measure of love and sincerity by the actor.

The best scene in Venom: The Last Dancewhich I keep coming back to, not an action sequence but a quiet moment that Eddie and Venom experience hitchhiking in a hippie family’s caravan where Eddie contemplates existentialism, legacy and the people around him as David’s familiar interpretation Bowie. Space Oddity” plays in the distant background. Venom says, “Sometimes I think we could have been happy with a life like this,” and minutes later, “You would have been a good father, Eddie.” That’s the perfect distillation of the franchise, for a character who longed for normalcy and companionship and an actor whose role as a father helped shape these films.

These Venom movies, as silly and underappreciated as they are, are not simply a reflection of the comic character first made popular in the Spider-Man comics, but of Hardy himself and Venom: The Last Dance may be the purest expression of that. Hardy’s well-known love of dogs shapes the first major action sequence in Marcel’s film, when Venom defeats a gang of criminals behind a dogfighting operation, freeing the dogs afterwards. Hardy’s voice in Venom, as he recently told MTV, was largely inspired by his love of the hip-hop music He grew up listening. Even the queer-coded relationship between Eddie and Venom feels like an extension of Hardy’s lens of acceptance and desire not to pigeonhole people or art.

Some maintain that the Poison The franchise was an intellectual property-driven quest on Sony’s part to capitalize on the rights to Spider-Man, but I’d argue that whatever the drive, they’ve proven to be much more creative and personal than some of the studio output they’ve put out there. fans love it. . Despite all the mess, these Venom movies have become increasingly tied to the people who make them, rather than the studios who sell them.

We’re in an era where studios are quick to respond to fan criticism. Don’t you like the tone of this? We promise to do better next time. Don’t you like the casting of this character? We’ll see what we can do. Too awake? Well, of course, we can’t acknowledge it publicly, but we will make sure that any overt elements of wokeness are removed.

It’s an era of fan demand and power when it comes to most IPs. However, Tom Hardy simply doesn’t care about those things when it comes to Venom. He makes the movies he wants, for the people he wants, with the people he wants, and if you agree, great, if not, good.

There was no concerted effort to make the movies less stupid. There was no concerted effort to adhere to the tone of the most recent Venom comics, to push for an R rating, or to make movies in an effort to provide fan service and comics accuracy. This strategy has proven to be a financially successful model and has garnered a global audience of Venom enthusiasts, which has worked well for Sony, more so than any of the other entries in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe thus far.

There are certainly fans who care about studio profits and ownership rights. But what’s more valuable is the fact that we got this deeply strange, sometimes confusing, surprisingly moving and outrageous trilogy of superhero movies that feel tied to human desires.