Although the Mad Max and Dunkirk star appeared cut a decidedly frustrated figure in an interview earlier this week, where he claimed as much as "forty minutes" of his favourite footage ended up getting cut, you can just tell he was having fun in the part of Eddie Brock, who transforms from a rather generic protagonist at the start of the film into a genuinely interesting (and slightly bumbling) man saddled with an alien hitchhiker.
Hardy's performance is frantic, but also hilarious. He does slapstick remarkably well, and while his accent may not be the best, there's a lot to like about his performance - especially when he's juggling a three-way conversation between himself, the symbiote, and another character onscreen.
It's not irreverent to the point where you no longer feel for the character, but this is a different kind of protagonist than most comic book movies are used to. He has to manage this unexpected, bloodthirsty alter-ego out of nowhere, and it's brilliant to see play out onscreen.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
