"Venom: The Last Dance" is likely to continue the series' successful trend of bringing some silly alien fun to the superhero genre. But the series could have been a lot more if it added one key element from the source material.
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00:00Venom The Last Dance is likely to continue the series' successful trend of bringing some
00:05silly alien fun to the superhero genre, but the series could have been a lot more if it
00:10added one key element from the source material.
00:13The apparent final chapter of Eddie Brock and Venom's partnership, Venom The Last Dance,
00:17has latched onto theater screens.
00:19Critics seem to agree it's the best of the trilogy, but note that it's also very similar
00:23to its predecessors.
00:25Even with all its wild swings at comedy, action, and sci-fi body horror, the franchise,
00:30much like its alien protagonist, is a shapeshifting, inconsistent creature that can never really
00:35settle on what it wants to be.
00:37On my planet, I am kind of a loser, like you.
00:40But here, we could be more.
00:42Excuse me?
00:43Some fans have complained about the lack of Spider-Man in the Venom franchise, given that
00:47in the comics, Peter Parker was Venom's original host, giving the characters an inexorable
00:52link.
00:53But there are over 30 years of comic book history with Venom standing on his own in
00:57various comic book series.
00:59It's honestly something else that's been missing from all three Venom films the symbiote's
01:04serious mean streak.
01:05Showcasing that aspect could have really worked in the franchise's favor.
01:09Throughout his time in the comics, Venom has done some truly terrible things.
01:14Born out of both the symbiote and Eddie Brock's hatred of Spider-Man, Venom was bad without
01:19question.
01:20That is, until he wasn't.
01:21Eventually, Venom became a lethal protector, a brutal force for good.
01:25Together we are the Lethal Protector!
01:32This put him in line with edgy Marvel heroes and antiheroes like Blade and the Punisher.
01:37Like them, when Venom hit the bad guys, they often didn't get back up, making him terrifying
01:41even to those he was trying to save.
01:44It's the kind of edge that is distinctly lacking from the Venom movies, and its absence is
01:48even more baffling given the actor that plays his human host.
01:52Look back at Tom Hardy's filmography, and you'll find plenty of performances that prove
01:56he could absolutely pull off a truly scary version of Venom.
02:00To name just a few, Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, the Kray Twins from Legend, and Alfie
02:05Solomon's in Peaky Blinders.
02:07Sprinkle in a bit of Hardy's wandering, reclusive stranger from Mad Max Fury Road, add a hint
02:12of warrior, and Brock wouldn't have had to be the high-strung, anxious iteration we ended
02:17up with.
02:18Even after three films, Eddie and Venom are never really in sync in the way they could
02:22have been.
02:23Okay, the occasional bit of bickering was inevitable, as it's essential for any buddy
02:27story, but the two never see eye to eye in a way that makes them the antihero Marvel
02:31comics fans flock to.
02:33On the page, Brock and his bruiser of an alien symbiote are a force to be reckoned with,
02:37delivering their own version of justice for years.
02:40Yes, they've parted ways pretty often, but Venom usually finds its way back to Brock,
02:45resulting in some of the most epic confrontations in comic book history.
02:49Unfortunately, we never get anything of the sort from Hardy's stint as Brock, an issue
02:54that honestly has been consistent across all of Sony's Spider-Man universe.
02:59Several iconic villains have been reinvented as shelves of the original versions.
03:03Sometimes it takes a bad guy to make a good film, but the Venom trilogy has never had
03:07a great villain.
03:08Take Carnage, for example, a symbiote so in line with his steel-your-killer host Cletus
03:13Cassidy, it uses I instead of We, like Brock and Venom do.
03:17This disturbing detail is totally omitted from the villains' big-screen iteration, and
03:22the incompatibility between the two is even applied as a weakness.
03:25They're not a match.
03:28We are.
03:29That's right!
03:30We are!
03:33This isn't just some minor issue for comic book nerds to turn their noses up at, but
03:37a core element to the character.
03:39Sadly, the creative forces behind the movies seem to have no understanding of this.
03:44The same can be said for Null, who gets the collective screen time of a bathroom break
03:48and is, frankly, way too overpowered for the last dance in the first place.
03:53The consistent problem with Venom lies in Sony having all the right pieces to make a
03:57stellar franchise involving a hero with an edge, but opting to rip it apart in favor
04:02of more lighthearted, buddy comedy.
04:04While we sit and wait for the return of vampire hunters and one-man armies, Tom Hardy could
04:09have been an anti-hero for the ages.
04:11Instead, he'd swam in a lobster tank.