Venom has finally left the building, and what a wild ride it's been. A trilogy that seemed to constantly snatch victory from self-inflicted defeat, the Venom films stand as a testament to the ingenuity of reinvention. After the bafflingly huge box office of the first film, the two sequels drove directly into the most absurd elements of the first film, ripping them away from any attempt at self-seriousness, while still maintaining a level of sincerity. It may have seriously irked comic book fans who wanted an accurate portrayal of Venom, but I argue they missed out on a franchise that dared to swing hard on its chaotic yet charming identity. They may not have truly known what kind of films they were, but they were always unafraid to risk falling on their face to make unique moments.
'Venom' Was a Bad Film That Course Corrected the Franchise
This all springs from the fact that the first film, Venom, was an abject disaster of a film, the kind of studio-mangled dumpster fire that we tell children about to scare them away from being filmmakers. It was a confounding narrative mess with a wildly inconsistent tone, despite being a simple story of Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) using his reporter background and the alien symbiote attached to his body named "Venom" (Hardy) to stop Elon Musk-wannabe Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed) from spreading symbiotes on Earth. Marketed as a "get ready to root for the bad guy" origin story a la fellow future trainwreck Morbius, promising bloody retribution and icky morals, the film becomes more of an Abbott and Costello gag fest, with Eddie and Venom spending most of their time bickering at each other and biting the heads off of cartoon thugs. People can barely be bothered to remember why Drake wanted to take over the world or why loser Eddie is inexplicably with God's gift to humanity, Michelle Williams. What people do remember about the first film is Eddie frantically diving into a lobster tank at a fancy restaurant, Venom's dorky banter with local convenience store clerk Mrs. Chen (Peggy Lu), or Venom punching angry neighbors while Eddie constantly apologizes for him. It's these moments of buffoonery where the film finds a real spark of hilarity, and the sequels were smart enough to embrace that screwball stupidity.
The Sequels Experimented with Tone and Intention
Venom: Let There Be Carnage is a gonzo fever dream, spewing out a bare-bones conflict between Eddie and symbiote-steroided killer Carnage (Woody Harrelson) and zooming forward at breakneck speed. Foregoing any nuance or sense of taste, it allows director Andy Serkis to play around with the series' tone and prioritize vibes above all else, and the vibes here are "toxic romcom with 2000s emo aesthetic." The whole film is less of a story and more of a caffeinated primal scream. The dynamic between Eddie and Venom has become full-on lovers in a sitcom, with the two trying to live a peaceful life together. There's an entire scene devoted to Venom going to a nightclub drenched in rainbow colors where he announces he's "out of the closet" to a crowd full of ravers, indicating that Hardy and company are fully aware and proud of the homoerotic subtext of Eddie and Venom. I should be mad at a film with this kind of shallow queer representation in 2024, but in comparison to any of the representation you'll see in an MCU film, it's the greatest gay love story in superhero film history. Plus, I can't be mad at a film that has Naomie Harris as a supervillain in a wedding dress and platform boots, whose only superpower is screaming really loud.
That smashing together of earnest emotional investment with bursts of bonkers insanity is what makes the Venom films, even Venom: The Last Dance, such an odd treat. In a time when it feels like superhero films are finally drying out and consuming themselves alive, the Venom films are content to be an excuse for Tom Hardy to exorcise all of his silliest ideas purely for the sake of "why not?" Free from the pressure of carrying a universe, the films were allowed the freedom to basically follow their own whims, even as they tended to fail on basic storytelling levels. The films were never constructed to stand up under any narrative scrutiny, but were instead built to be mad scientist experiments in how far a mainstream film can be allowed to embrace its inner gremlin. The films still gave us the mandatory CGI slop and the promise of yet another adventure (even down to un-asked for post-credits scenes), but they gave us something far more valuable: proof that superhero films can embrace play in a way that feels genuine and not like studio-mandated "fun." Criticize it all you want, but at least it's an ethos.
Eddie Brock, balancing life with the alien symbiote Venom, faces a complex struggle with a powerful new adversary threatening their existence and the world. As a turbulent alliance forms between man and symbiote, the duo embarks on a thrilling journey of survival, challenging their limits and ethical boundaries.
Release Date October 25, 2024
Director Kelly Marcel
Runtime 110 Mins
Venom: The Last Dance is now playing in theaters.
English (US) ·