Thursday, September 14, 2017

Favorite Characters from Bad Movies, Part 2: The Return of William Fichtner







 20. KARL SAVAK
Bruce Payne, One Tough Bastard (1995)
One Tough Bastard is mostly notable for being Kurt Wimmer’s directorial debut.  I haven’t seen this movie in a while, so I could take it as enjoyable schlock upon second viewing.  The only particularly good thing about it was its amusingly flamboyant, over-the-top villain.


 19. LEX LUTHOR/GENERAL ZOD
Gene Hackman/Terence Stamp, Superman (1978)/Superman II (1980)
Gene Hackman’s Luthor is funny, even if I prefer the character as a corporate executive.  Otis, is also amusing, but mostly as a foil for Luthor.  Terence Stamp is entertaining as an over-the-top villain.  I also like the scene in which Zod shoots some guys with an M16 despite all his powers because he doesn’t give a f---.


 18. ODYSSEUS
Sean Bean, Troy (2004)
Troy eschewed all the interesting mythology of the source material, and all you were left with was a movie like Gladiator, except with inferior cinematography, action, score, etc.  Odysseus is one of the movie’s few redeeming features, and that was mostly because he was played by Sean Bean.  The least they could have done was get his recruitment scene right.  The movie’s version of his inspiration for the horse was clever, though.
HONORABLE MENTION: Aeneas and Anchises gets a nice cameo near the end. 


 17. THRAX
Lawrence Fishburne, Osmosis Jones (2001)
He’s a stylish and effective villain who’s so evil he relishes the thought of killing the people he infects (even children), plus all the anthropomorphic cells that make up the body.  He starts off like the common cold, but kills within a couple days; he even pushes himself to break each record.  His only weakness is that, unlike most disease, he doesn’t reproduce.  Lawrence Fishburne, eschewing his signature monotone, does a great job in the role that sounds nothing like his voice.


 16. JOHN CARLYLE/SPIDER
William Fichtner/Wagner Moura, Elysium (2013)
Elysium is one of those high-concept-sci-fi-premise-as-an-obvious-allegory-for-class-warfare movies that are a dime a dozen.  Carlyle may be a cartoonish caricature of a callous business man, but he’s amusingly snarky (“Now if you don’t mind, I have to not talk to you anymore.”) and I love the actor.  Meanhwile, Spider is the most complex character in the movie.  He comes off like a corrupt underworld boss and he has his own self-interest to think of, but he ends up fighting the good fight like an idealist.  He’s almost like a sci-fi Robin Hood.
HONORABLE MENTION: Max Da Costa (Matt Damon), the main character, is amusingly smarmy at the beginning of the movie, but after his terminal radiation poisoning he becomes blandly morose.  Admittedly that does make sense.


 15. SLOAN
Morgan Freeman, Wanted (2008)
Morgan Freeman’s playing a villain is an interesting twist, and he drops one of the best precision f-bombs in movie history near the end.


 14. LUCIAN
Michael Sheen, Underworld (2003)
I criticized Lucian for his questionable tactics while searching for the Heir of Corvinus in my review.  Still it was a movie driven by desperation.  Lucian is a sympathetic, complex, and sardonic antihero antagonist played well by Michael Sheen.  He’s either the only truly likable character in the series or he’s the closest thing to it.  Too bad his "wolf" form is terrible.


 13. JENNY McBRIDE
Hynden Walch, Secret of NIMH 2: Timmy to the Rescue (1998)
This is an underwhelming sequel to one of the best animated movies ever made.  Funny thing is, despite the movie’s being about Timmy, Jenny’s the real protagonist.  She’s the one who takes the initiative to go rescue the mice from NIMH while Timmy just tags along.  She even has the nerve to put the annoying comic relief character in his place.  She’s the one who actually defeats Martin.  Literally the only thing Timmy actually does in the whole movie is rescuing his brother at the end(which is heroic), but he gets all the credit for everything that happens in the movie.  And, yeah…I also have a bit of a furry-crush on her.   


 12. SANDY LYLE
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Along Came Polly (2004)
The late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman plays a straight comedy role surprisingly well.


 11. MASTER CHANG
William Fichtner, Wrong (2008)
This movie pretty much spends its whole runtime trying to pass off nonsense as humor.  This character is the only funny part of it because there’s actually logic to his madness.  As a kid, he dared a friend to throw acid in his face, only to realize he missed having an unscarred face.  So he “teaches” people to not take things for granted by stealing their pets and then returning them after some time.  His theft of the protagonist’s dog is the inciting action of the plot.  



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