Let’s talk about villains in super hero movies

There are a lot of great super heroes that are well cast in the movies. Villains feel harder to cast, in my opinion.

The other problem is there’s a bigger need for more quality villains than super heroes. A super hero clicks and gets a series of films, now you need new villains in each film.

I’m curious what villains in the movies you liked and what ones have fallen short. Also who’s a great villain that has yet to appear in a movie?

My favorite has been Doc Ock in Spider-Man 2. Poor Green Goblin, at least visually, has been awful. Also I want to see an amazing Doctor Doom.

I actually had a laugh when the Joker film came out last year as I had been telling my friends for years they need to make a Dr. Doom origin movie with just a hint of the Fantastic Four at the end. I think movies featuring the perspective of the bad guy would be great.

What are your thoughts and ideas on the cinematic universe of villains?

 

The Joker is the greatest villain of all.

 

I would have thought a thread like this would generate more responses.
Everybody loves a villain. Come on , people !

 

Psylocke / Olivia Munn

 

The MCU managed to lift itself into Tolkien territory by correctly casting and implementing Thanos. It's tough to see how they move forward without that compelling villain.

 

It may be too late...
After two big budget Fantastic Four movie flops ( and flopped rightfully ; they were awful ) , there might be no further attempts at them.
And that's a pity because a great movie could be made.

 

Don’t say that! I’m still hoping. He’s my all time fave and I’ve always felt he was an influence for Darth Vader.

Joker is equally amazing. Batman has a great gallery of villains and Joker is the best. Other villain rosters feel light in comparison.

 

Complete badasss?

Silver Surfer

 

Fantastic.....

Director / actors to make it work ?

 

Think the only good MArvel villain is Thanos.

Spider - Man is getting Electro again. Nothing to get your knickers in a twist.



Super Villains? If there not much good least be sexy. My take!!!!

 

Good villains tend to have a great back story.

Although not a super hero movie Javier Bardem in Skyfall you could really feel sorry for the guy.

 

Thanos was great. They did him right and got major mileage from him in the Avenger movies.

How you treat the villain can make or break the movie, even with a major superhero franchise. The expectations were high for Iron Man 3 and, for me, how they handled Mandarin was a major disappointment.

 

The recurring role of Dr.Who's regenerating Timelord nemesis, The Master.

 

Thanos and Doc Ock were great movie villains because they were so self righteous and believed they were actually justified in their heinous acts. Ultron too, to some extent, though he had more of that tragic Frankenstein thing going. They could do something similar with Galactus if they didn't turn him into a planet or whatever the hell he was in the second FF movie. Doctor Doom is just pure, world conquering evil and that is intriguing too (especially these days), but they seem to struggle when it comes to repping the Fantastic Four on the big screen, which is interesting because their stories have so much cinematic potential. They need to dispense with or diminish all the origin stuff though and just get to the meat of it.

And I don't know about a Psylocke movie but it is a shame that Olivia hasn't had a chance to headline a kick-ass action flick or two. She is to the manner born for that stuff.

 

I prefer the more every day villains, myself. I enjoyed Michael Keaton in Spider-Man: Homecoming. No pretentious vision for reshaping the universe or plans to retake the throne, just a guy pulling off what was a good scam before Spider-Man turned up. Same goes for Jeff Bridges as Obediah Stane in the first Iron Man. Get Tony Stark out of the way and the empire is all his.

That said, some of my favorite cinema villains come from the superhero genre: Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor, Heath Ledger as the Joker (though I still love Jack Nicholson's turn in Batman - he takes full advantage of the opportunity to out-Jack himself), Danny DeVito's Penguin (even though Batman Returns suffers from villain overload).

Totally agree about Doctor Doom - a favorite from the comics. Evil genius, autocratic leader of a fictional Eastern European country, cool tunic. We could blame it on the bad Fantastic Four movies, but didn't Doctor Doom also show up to make other Marvel heroes lives miserable? Hell, I even had the KISS comic book where Doctor Doom was the bad guy.

 

Marvel has been knocked for poor villains, but they have had some notable successes. Here are my favorite MCU villains counted down (my list of quality villains happened to be a perfect 10):

10. Obadiah Stain

Mainly because of Jeff Bridges. Watch the scene again when Pepper is stealing the files. One of the most tense of the franchise.

9. Mysterio

It is strange through the first half of the movie, because you know he is the bad guy even though he is so likable. When the turn comes, Mysterio's powers are fantastic, properly disorienting Spidey (and the audience). The twist at the end is one of the MCU's best, and it is all Mysterio (I still don't know if he faked his death, or was just crazy enough to ruin Spider-Man by his death).

8. Ultron

They do a great job presenting Ultron as unstable. You get the impression that he means no harm, and is just not functioning properly. It leads to some scary interactions.

7. Hela

Due to the tone of this movie, Hela is more fun than menacing. But her visual appearance, whit, and incredible powers make her a fantastic villain.

6. Red Skull

A Nazi too radical for Hitler? That is a quality villain. He should probably be higher on this list. Hugo Weaving nails the character, and it is a shame he did not like playing the Red Skull. I would have loved to see him return.

5. Thanos

I am not as high on Thanos as some. They delivered with this villain, as he is powerful, menacing, and he almost makes his insane mission sound reasonable. Past Thanos ended up being scarier than the one with the stones.

4. Killmonger

Did you think T'Challa had any chance in that fight against Killmonger? Me either. And it is devastating to see him running Wakanda (what a terrible way to choose a leader for an advanced civilization). And yet at the end, you truly feel sad for the death of his character.

3. Vulture

Michael Keeton is what makes this character. That scene in the car is one of the best in the MCU. But besides that, this is one villain that we truly sympathize with as "the working man's villain."

2. Winter Soldier

Often forgotten, since he was brainwashed and went on to be a good guy, but he is a fantastic villain in Captain America: Winter Soldier. Trained, enhanced, Soviet killer with a bionic arm? Sign me up. He provides some of the best hero/villain fights scenes in the MCU. Plus the emotional connection between him and Cap raised the stakes.

1. Loki

Any villain that you love one minute and despise the next is a great villain. You desparately want to believe each time that Loki has turned good, and then he stabs you in the back again (and again). Fans were glad he ended up on the side of good, but that is only satisfying for the times he was so bad.

 

Astute observation. A bit of a scene stealer imo in X-Men - Apocalypse.

 

I don't see the problem with The Green Goblin. I think that Willem Dafoe KILLED it in that role. He was practically more evil in a business suit than in his Gobby suit. And the mask didn't bother me - the perpetual fangs-out face with Dafoe's glaring stare within was perfectly chilling.

My personal favorite was probably Loki. Great actor, great redemptive arc. I like how his plan in The Avengers was so doomed and delusional. It made sense, given the "childish need" of his motivation.

NOBODY in the world will agree with me, but I thought that Whiplash in Iron Man II was a great villain. Mickey Rourke was great and I thought that it was perfectly possible that he might kill Iron Man. Sam Rockwell was kind of a goof but he always is.

Obadiah Stane was a pain in the ass. Great movie, easily the best Iron Man movie, but the idea of this corrupt slick exec stuffing himself into the Iron Monger suit was kinda ridiculous. You'd think that these guys could hire a ripped bodyguard to perform their assassinations for them.

Mysterio would have delighted me more if I didn't already know he was the villain. Mysterio was always my favorite Spidey nemesis in the comic book, I think his movie turn was something of a missed opportunity.

Let me say that one trend that I really do hate is that in so many of these movies, the villain has to die an ugly death at the end. In the comic books, the villain would always live to fight again, and when one did die, like Norman Osborne, it was a shocking, tide-turning event. In the movies, the villain is almost always poised to Destroy The World, and has to die at the end. Lots of character investment goes down the drain. Odd that one conspicuous exception to this was Heath Ledger's Joker, who escapes and is only foiled by the actor dying later. Wotta revoltin' development that was, huh?

 

Marvel gets lumped for cardboard bad guys, and it was for good reason at first. Some of the absolute best of those movies were more about the hero overcoming some kind of personal adversity, and the great evil he was fighting was quite secondary. The bad guy in Guardians of the Galaxy was typical of this problem -- the main conflict of the movie was getting the characters to work together, and Ronan just didn't have much personality by comparison.

It was really with Phase 3, where most of the heroes were well-established already in their roles, that they were able to give us engaging villain stories. They get a lot of credit for Killmonger in Black Panther and Thanos, of course, is more or less the hero of Infinity War. Both MCU Spider-Man movies have had fairly complicated and surprising villains, perhaps not on the level of Doc Ock and Sandman in the Raimi movies, but good nonetheless. And I was really caught off-guard by the complexity of Zemo in Civil War, one of the most understated and haunting aspects of all of those movies.

I have no idea why people think Zemo is bland just because he doesn't have superpowers and because he doesn't get into a real fight. He's one of the few characters (powered or not) in that entire sequence of movies that rises to the level of tragedy. The fact that any one of the Avengers could crush him to a pulp without effort is the point.

 

The Red Mist in ' Kick Ass '.
Evil personified !

 

The Red Skull was great.
If I'm remembering his origin correctly. he was selected from a group of soldiers to be a symbol of the Nazi party.
He became so powerful though he was feared by all.
He even appeared in Hitler's bedroom and threatened him once.

 

Also truly evil as McLovin in ' Superbad'

 

No a super hero but the best bad guy / best supporting actor / best actor of all time will be Allan Rickman

 

Actually,the first one wasn't bad, but it got worst after.

 

In 1960s TV Batman, the Riddler was the best. Maybe you couldn't go far enough with the Joker. Cesar Romero's Joker could definitely be wacked out, but the Riddler came across as more sinister.

King Tut would be great in a whole different direction.