The Venom movies are absurd. An unwitting journalist (Tom Hardy) is possessed by a gooey black symbiote (also Hardy), which causes him to flail about wildly as though maneuvered by a rowdy puppeteer. Since the alien’s constant chattering blares into his mind, but remains largely out of view, his attempts to communicate with it appear to onlookers as the crazed rantings and ravings of a man talking to himself. It’s a bizarre premise, which the actor’s gonzo performance fully exploits for moments of verbal and physical comedy across the three-film franchise. Recall him jumping into a restaurant’s lobster tank for a live midday snack, or delivering phrases like, “...like a turd in the wind,” as Venom describes, with great relish, how he plans to leave one hapless victim.
For all their absurdity, however, these films are also absurdly sincere, wringing genuine sentiment from the partnership between their two leads who share one body. The first Venom film saw them realize their fractious alliance could also be a mutually beneficial one, while its sequel made the homoerotic subtext of their arrangement, well, text. (Following a “breakup” scene, the symbiote attends a rave, declaring he’s now “out of the Eddie closet.”) It’s played for laughs, but the undeniable force of their bond isn’t lost on anyone. If Venom needs Eddie to survive, then Venom has also brought Eddie back to life, as Venom: The Last Dance points out. Hardy’s wholehearted commitment to the bit doesn’t hurt either. Since 2018, Venom and Eddie’s blend of childish petulance and world-weariness make them ideal sparring partners, and The Last Dance derives its undercurrent of sadness from the idea that this might be the last time we ever see them tango.
