Venom has always 💖been a hard character to pull off. Outright evil is increasingly harder to quantify both in the real world and media we consume. So when you try and turn a goodie two-shoes like Peter Parker into an edgelord, you make him look like a vocal incel instead of a superhero possessed by an alien symbiote. His angry outbursts are comedic rather than threatening, especially with a flowy emo fringe and assumption that all the ladies love him.
Eddie Brock is a different beast, but cinematic interpretations from Tom Hardy and Topher Grace once again paint him not as a character to be feared, but laughed at. Yes, we end up cheering for Hardy in the end as a hesitant anti-hero, but it’s unclear where this line is nowadays. Then along comes Venom in Insomniac Games’ 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Spider-Man, which thrusts Harry Osborne into the role as Peter Parker once again rocks some gooey extraterrestrial r🔜izz.
Yuri Lowenthal’s take on a symbiote suit Peter Parker is not dissimilar to those who came before. He is quick tempered🍃, more prone to v🎐iolence, and his voice cracks enough that he sounds like MatPat from Game Theory. Even from the three hours of the game I played as part of a recent preview, his behaviour around Harry Osborne and Miles Morales is overly confident and cocksure, as mood swings cause him to flip motivations on a dime even if at heart he is only trying to do the right thing. The symbiote is designed to draw out his worst impulses even if people around him get hurt. The moral quandary is compelling, but the same old behaviour really isn’t.
There’s potential for this inter🌳pretation to evolve and change though, and it might have done so already if my ears aren’t playing tricks on me. Far more aggressive lines from Lowenthal have been scaled back to sound more grounded and less comical, representing a character who at heart is still Peter Parker, but a dark force tug🀅s at his moral conscience and turns him into an angry, irrational superhero who leaves his values behind.
When it leans i꧙nto over the top moans and guttural screams it doesn’t sound scary, but instead goofy in ways that the symbiote suit doesn’t always need to. Insomniac seems to be playing things pretty straig𝓡ht in
Spider-Man 2, so this unintentional comedy feels in the way. Peter and Harry’s friendship will soon be tested, and Miles will no doubt have to face up against his mentor if and when the symbiote suit ꦯproves too much for him to handle. All of this drama feels wasted if the performance that brings it to life is one note. Not because of anything Lowenthal has done, but the direction leans into versions of the character we’ve seen endless times before.
Hopeful as I am, I’m unsure if Spider-Man 2 will subvert my expectations enough, as it has all the hallmarks of a s𒀰ymbiote-infected Peter Parker unwilling to change. Cutscenes even have him wearing all ꧟black clothes on the daily, showcasing that the alien has already infiltrated an already lacking sense of fashion. He was a bit of a loser to begin with, but as an older version of a superhero who has already put his greatest villains behind bars and has years of experience behind him, you’d expect him to approach the symbiote suit a little differently, not act out like a bratty teenager. It needs to go deeper, and the foundations are there.
Peter has just lost Aunt May, and if he fails to find a cure, will lose Harry too. That combined with a still topsy-turvy relationship with Mary-Jane and betrayal from lifelong mentor Doctor Octavius have put him in a corner. He wants to isolate himself, to be alone in his thoughts b𝓡ecause there’s a fear that putting that burden on other people will only hurt them. So when the symbiote suit comes along, it hones in on these impulses and pushes them to the worst extremes.
Peter wants to be alone, but he also wants to do everything on his own even if asking for help is the best path forward. He will hurt himself, others, and the world he is trying to protect because a stra🐎nge alien is telling him not to face these demons, but embrace the worst parts of them. That’s where this game needs to go.
