A good villain is often essential to a good movie, but what makes a good villain. Not all truly threatening villains are good, and some weak, stupid villains are classics (Toht, for example). It varies from villain to villain, but I think the most important things are charisma (does the villain say anything memorable) and style (does he look, sound cool). Often, the key is simply good writing combined with a well-cast actor. Simple as that. Here are some types of bad villain:
Bland: Possibly the worst offense. The villain is utterly uninteresting and forgettable. Often, wooden acting is a contributing factor.
Annoying: The villain is actively irritating. Could be his voice, his mannerisms or his expressions.
DESIGNATED VILLAIN: The villain presented as someone to root against even if he really isn’t that bad. Whatever evidence of his badness is forced and tacked on. Sometimes, he’s a villain in a story that doesn’t even need one. Other times, he's out of place in the movie's universe. At worst, he is a political strawman.
CHARACTER DERAILMENT: Character is a gross misrepresentation of a fictional character.
MISCAST: Not necessarily a bad actor, just the wrong guy for the role.
WASTED ACTOR: Not a bad actor, and might have even been great for the role, but the character was terrible or the actor was taken advantage of.
COMES OFF LIKE A PUNK: Villain is completely smug, douchy or unintimidating, and not in a good way.
LOOKS SILLY: Villain simply has a bad character design.
CAN'T CUSS WORTH A DARN: Villains are generally more formal in the way they speak. There are some exceptions, but not many. Most villains should avoid dropping F-bombs if they don’t want to look like punks.
BAD ACTING: A good performance is always key to a good villain. Hammy acting can be amusing, but wooden acting is never good.
STUPID: Unintelligent villains aren’t necessarily bad ones, but when combined with other bad villain traits, it’s just another criticism worth mentioning.
Now here's a list of villains who don't quite cut the butter.
23.. Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce, Tomorrow Never Dies)
I
probably would include this among the good Bond movies if not for this
bad guy. It’s not that he’s inherently lame, it’s just that he is such a
painfully obvious parody of Ted Turner (with a little bit of Bill Gates
thrown in). That makes it a bit hard for me to suspend my disbelief.
Now, I would like to see Ted Turner being shoved into a digging mole by a
man saying “Give the people what they want!”, but that wouldn’t be too
appropriate for a Bond movie. I would like to see a cartoon in which an
evil Ted Turner surrogate tried to brainwash innocent toons into being tools for his ideological agenda, and the heroes had to fight him for freedom. That would be pretty cool.
22. The Lemons (Eddie Izzard, Thomas Kretschmann & Co., Cars 2)
Probably the most baffling choice of villains Pixar has ever made. Disabled people who want some respect for once. Also, some of theses lemons aren't really lemons. Morally ambiguous villains can work in a well-developed world, but this the case.
21. Anakin Skywalker (Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith)
It's sad because Darth Vader from the Holy Trilogy is my favorite villain of all time. It's also sad because Hayden Christensen gets blamed for this even though he isn't even a bad actor (even Mr. Plinkett said so). He's just a terribly written character. It's hard to believe that Darth Vader would kill underlings for paltry mistakes when he got where he was only through his own bottomless stupidity.
20. Dean Pritchard (Jeremy Piven, Old School)
Comedies like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Animal House have a disturbing way of wanting us to root for the bad guys and against a guy who seems to be fighting the good fight. Sure, Old School is a funny movie, and Jeremy Piven is good at playing passive aggressive characters like this, but this is a bit too much. The only really bad thing he does is extort that one student, but even that comes out of nowhere. The protagonists start an illegitimate frathouse where the engage in all sorts of debauchery and female objectification (some of it involving underage girls), and we're supposed to dislike this guy for trying to shut them down? The revelation that the “heroes” of the story bullied him in school only makes him more sympathetic: a dean trying to restore order and morality and defeat the people who wronged him once before. Oh yeah, also they made him a deer hunter because….that makes us want to root against him, I guess?
19. Colonel Isaac Johnson (Danny Glover, Shooter)
Danny Glover is okay playing well-balanced, mild characters, as well as characters who are too old for this shit, but I cannot buy him as a villain. Simple as that. I know, they’re trying to go for a calm, cool villain with a monotone, but even then it doesn’t work. You can't make Danny Glover evil, that's all there is to it. Also, his character is a typical corrupt government official.
18. Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff, Blade)
Nothing about Stephen Dorff is evil, stylish or menacing. You just can’t take this pretty boy seriously as a bad guy, and the fact that he constantly drops F-bombs in a vain effort to sound intimidating just makes him look like a punk. He’s only amusing when he gets in funny conversations with Quinn.
17. Eli Damaskinos (Thomas Kretschmann, Blade II)
You know, this guy turns up three times on this list. I don’t know what his career is like in Germany, but he doesn’t make very good movies for the States, that’s for sure. He’s a bland character, and his main physical features are looking really old in a generic vampire kind of way and wearing a bathrobe open so we can see his bony old man chest. That doesn’t remind me of my nightmares; that reminds me of visiting Grandpa for the weekend. His human lawyer is more sinister than he is. The only cool thing about him is that crazy blood cake he eats at one point.
16. Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro, 300)
Bad implications aside, subtly effeminate villains are a time-tested staple; key word being "subtly." This guy takes it so far you can’t possibly take him seriously.
15. Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang, Avatar)
It’s understandable why many people, even those who hate this movie, think this guy is cool. He’s the villain in a preachy piece of junk, which automatically garners some sympathy. He does have his moments of badassness, but he’s still a bland character who mostly talks in points lifted from George W. Bush’s wartime speeches. He seems like too much of a good-ole-boy, and I’m afraid I’m a bit too old-school for a villain like that.
14. Oren Goodchild (Jonny Lee Miller, AeonFLUX)
That’s the villain? He’s too adorable to be the villain! He looks like a thinner version of Chris-Chan with better clot-wait, considering that he actually does look a little creepy. Also, he and his brother are clones that were told by their previous clones to “be me.” The movie treats this like immortality, and that’s just stupid.
I just don’t buy this guy as a centuries-old vampire in an agelessly young body. Some people can sell that (Kate Beckinsale, bland as she is in that movie, does make me believe it), but this guy doesn’t. Also, I know the guy’s supposed to be a pussy, but they can’t at least be somewhat subtle with it? I mean, how do the other vampires even believe that he killed Lucien in the first place when he has “pussy” written all over him? I was tempted to include Viktor on this list, but it turned out that I actually find Bill Nighy's hamminess amusing.
12. Warden Hennessey (Joan Allen, Death Race)
I’ve heard Joan Allen is a good actress, but she certainly wasn’t trying very hard in this movie. This character is very bland, but when she suddenly blurts out, “Okay, c***sucker. F*** with me, and we’ll see who s***s on the sidewalk,” the whole world did a facepalm.
This guy is one of the most wooden actors I have ever seen in any movie, and it’s a good thing he’s not the main bad guy (that role is filled by the very charismatic Nick Chinlund). He’s supposed to be sinister, but he just acts like he’s stoned the whole time. Turns out, that’s not so surprising. If you take a look at this guy's filmography, it’s kinda…underwhelming.
10. Albert Laurent (Djimon Hounsou, The Island)
I'm going to do another list of foolish movie villains, but Captain Stupid and his band of dumbasses here get the honor of being on this list as well because, in addition to being stupid, they're also just lame. They're supposed to be a group of elite private military contractors made up of "ex-Navy SEALS and ex-Delta Force" but they can't seem to catch two naive clones without causing ridiculous amounts of public destruction. In one particularly ridiculous scene Ewan McGregor and his clone are side by side trying to convince Laurent who's the real person. Clone McGregor gets a bright idea and switches his ID bracelet with real Ewan McGregor right in damn front of him AND HE STILL FALLS FOR IT. He eventually decides to stop hunting the clones because he realizes he's no different from the people who persecuted him in the past. How does he come to this seemingly obvious realization? He sees that they tattooed the clones like he was tattooed by his former enemies...because he's apparently so freaking dumb that he needs to see a TATTOO to make the connection.
9. The Riddler (Jim Carrey, Batman Forever)
Dear Gosh, was he annoying. Do I even have to explain why? The funny thing is, Jim Carrey would have made a good Riddler in serious or semi-serious mode.
8. Nymphadora (Mila Kunis, Oz the Great and Powerful)
Talk about bad casting. Mila Kunis looks comically unthreatening as the Wicked Witch. What's more, she has terrible motivation: "That guy I don't know broke up with me even though we hardly started dating, so I'm going to blame him and not my evil sister who lied to me and turned me into a monster." I thought she was actually faking her infatuation for the protagonist, but it turned out she was actually heartbroken when he left, so I guess it was just terrible acting. Also, did they seriously just paint angry eyebrows smack dab in the middle of her forehead? I can see why Tonks doesn't like to go by that name.
7. Pinbacker (Mark Strong, Sunshine)
I don't know what's more annoying: that Pinbacker is an obvious religious strawman or the blatant waste of Mark Strong in this role. I don't know what Strong did to piss Danny Boyle off, but all of his footage is shown at impossibly oblique angles, blurred and with shaky cam. In other words, we don't get to see this great character actor act at all. They literally could have put any idiot in that burn makeup and the effect would have been exactly the same.
6. Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones, Batman Forever)
Not only does he look ridiculous, but they completely miss the point of his character. Two-Face is supposed to be conflicted and tragic; he’s half-good, half-evil and constantly at war with himself. This guy is pure evil, and what every light side he has is reduced to a fashion statement. Sure, they ignored Two-Face’s dichotomy in Dark Knight, too, but at least they treated him like a tragic character in that movie. He overacts almost as bad as Jim Carrey, and his evil side looks like the cook from Star Trek Voyager in a glam rocker’s Sunday best. Tommy Lee Jones is a great actor and would have made a great Harvey Dent/Two-Face, but boy, oh boy, did they mess this one up.
5. Mr. Freeze (Arnold Scharzenegger, Batman and Robin)
Yeah, I don’t need to explain this one. Bad acting on Arnold’s part, silly costume, awful one-liners. At least he wore a cool polar bear bathrobe at one point.
4. The Penguin (Danny DeVito, Batman Returns)
I don’t want to diss on Danny DeVito, but he was badly miscast in this movie. Seriously, the only thing this Italian Jersey native has in common with the Penguin is shortness, but then again this Penguin is so bafflingly out of character that it almost doesn't coutn as bad casting. He gives an inspirational speech to a bunch of damn penguins. I wish I was making that up. The Penguin has an interesting story with potential, and instead Tim Burton turned him into one of his “outcast” characters. He’s supposed to be a classy person, but instead he’s a crude manimal who can’t hide his base sexual urges and runs around in his underwear all the time. This freaking happens. His final plan makes no sense and was apparently pulled out of the writers’ asses at the last second. I do love his physical character design and his full suit...if he didn't spend so much time running around in his underwear. Also, he’s telling those penguins that it's ok to be afraid because they might not come back alive...seriously, this is worse than the Bat Credit Card. I'm not even exaggerating.
3. Major Timothy Cain (Thomas Kretschmann, Resident Evil Apocalypse)
Thomas Kretschmann pulled a hat trick. This has got to be the blandest villain I have ever seen, even without his inexplicable German accent. He just doesn’t do anything interesting, and his dialogue is pure cliché. He doesn’t come off as remotely evil, unless you have a special fear of people who wear bluetooths.
2. Megatron (Hugo Weaving, Transformers)
So you’re making a movie based on a popular cartoon and you’re figuring out whom to choose for its voice cast. Your options are:
A.) Cast the voice actor who not only gives the villain’s role a distinctive and sinister sound, but already defined the character for an entire generation
B.) Reject said voice actor because he “didn’t sound awesome enough” and cast more expensive and popular actor, only to garble his voice beyond all recognition.
If you picked A, you’re not Michael Bay. Megatron was a classic cartoon villain, and in the movies he’s just a bland dumbass with nothing remotely resembling a personality. Also, like every Transformer in that damn movie, he looks like a nondescript pile of shrapnel. I suppose his look was supposed to give him a ferocious, bestial appearance, but that’s not Megatron. Megatron is a calculating, evil mastermind, and that design does not suit him at all.
1. Hammerson (Stephen McHattie, Shoot’em Up)
“I’m the head of a gun company, so that means I’m pure evil! I kill babies, because I don’t support gun control! No, I don’t believe I’m right, I’m just evil, because I make guns!” Yes, people, that is literally what passes for political commentary in that movie. This character is nothing more than a lazily written political strawman written by someone who could not be bothered to actually be remotely intelligent or honest when it comes to politics, and that is frankly worse than any other entry on this list. (I was tempted to include Charlton Heston from Bowling for Columbine; that’s no less a work of fiction than any of these other movies.)
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