The Bond Movies Ranked

With the release of Spectre, I’ve decided to do a full ranking of the Bond movies. 

28. Octopussy

1983

Roger Moore

D: John Glen

**********

One of the more forgettable Bonds.  The only really memorable things about this entry are the buzzsaw yo-yo and the fact that Bond dresses up like a clown (a nuclear bomb was about to go off, so he dressed up like a sad clown).  Exiled Prince Guy may be the most forgettable Bond villain in the franchise.

 

27. For Your Eyes Only

1981

Roger Moore

D: John Glen

**********

It has its moments, but it’s pretty dull.  The plot seems underdeveloped despite its plodding runtime.  The villain is only memorable in that he’s played by Julian Glover, whom I know from stuff.  The subplot involving his ice-skating client is particularly pointless.  I was promised from hype that I’d get a deconstruction of revenge movies, but Bond only half-heartedly discourages the Bond girl (a relatively strong one to the movie’s credit) with a platitude, and her revenge is taken from her. This is hypocritical considering how the first scene involves Bond’s gleefully (and anticlimactically) killing Blofeld after paying his respects to his dead wife.  I get the feeling that the franchise at the time was just a way to see if people would watch the same movie over and over again.  While not as maddeningly wrong as Wolfen, For Your Eyes Only was bland enough to supplant that movie as my least favorite of 1981. 

26. Moonraker

Roger Moore

1979

D: Lewis Gilbert

**********

Some memorable parts, but a very slow watch and a pathetic attempt to ride Star Wars’ coattails.  Oddly enough, Jaws’ redemptive relationship may be one of the more compelling romances in the series.

25. Thunderball

Sean Connery

1965

D: Terence Young

**********

Raw Footage: The Movie.  Though it started out okay, it’s one of the most poorly-paced and dull movies I’ve ever sat through.  Then again, I was watching this with a group of people, resulting in a reinforcement loop of our complaining about how boring the movie was.  That’s probably why it’s so low on the list.

24. License to Kill

1989

Timothy Dalton

D: John Glen

**********

Another attempt to make Bond serious, but it lacks any of the style and fun the franchise is known for.  It seems more like a generic, forgettable revenge flick than a true Bond film.  Timothy Dalton, however, is an underrated Bond.

23. Die Another Day

2002

Pierce Brosnan

D: Lee Tamahori

**********

It has some fun moments, but it’s way too silly and over-the-top. 

22. Live and Let Die

1973

Roger Moore

D: Guy Hamilton

**********

Standard Roger Moore fare with a Blaxploitation twist.  Some style and a couple memorable characters (Tee Hee and Baron Samedi), but mostly dull.  I never thought I would be so bored by a chase scene.  That boat chase lasted over twenty minutes. 

21. Casino Royale

1967

David Niven (Non-EON)

D: Ken Hughes, Jon Huston, Joseph McGrath, Robert Parrish, Val Guest, Richard Talmadge

**********

One of the most visually stylish Bond movies, but it got killed by poor pacing, pointless sideplots, and cringeworthy attempts at humor that far outnumbered the good jokes.  Watch Austin Powers instead.

 20. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

1969

George Lazenby

D: Peter R. Hunt

**********

Gets a point for attempting to add some depth to the character, but it was pretty underwhelming.  George Lazenby is awkward as Bond, but I prefer him over Roger Moore.

19. The World Is Not Enough

1999

Pierce Brosnan

D: Michael Apted

**********

When I saw this as a 14-year-old, it was my favorite Bond movie.  But now that I get the bad double entendres, I find it irritating because there are so damn many of them.  Shame, because it’s an otherwise fun movie.  I think Renard is an underrated villain.  Christmas Jones isn’t the worst Bond girl, but she probably gets a lot of flak because the movie was made in 1999, when people should have known better, and immediately followed two movies that featured rather strong protagonists. 

18. The Man With the Golden Gun

1974

Roger Moore

D: Guy Hamilton

**********

It’s an okay movie with some moments of style, but it had a bit too much goofiness and an anticlimactic ending.  If he had more screentime, JW Pepper (Clifton James) would win the Penguin Award for characters who single-handedly ruined their own movies.  GoldenEye should have had a multiplayer feature in which the winner was whoever hot to kill an NPC JW the most number of times.  Scaramanga (Christopher Lee) was an interesting villain who deserved a better movie.  

17. Never Say Never Again

1983

Sean Connery (Non-EON)

D: Irvin Kershner

**********

Irvin Kershner went from making the best sequel ever made to making, well, RoboCop 2.  Never Say Never Again is somewhere in between.  It’s basically a flawed but more watchable remake of Thunderball. 

16. The Living Daylights

1987

Timothy Dalton

D: John Glen

**********

Not particularly good, but it did have a pretty good chase scene.  The movie features something that makes every Northrop F-5 that has ever been passed off as a MiG in a movie feel better about itself: a Russian C-130.  To make things worse, there’s an RAF C-130 earlier in the movie! 

15. Spectre

2015

Daniel Craig

D: Sam Mendes

**********

Made the mistake of concluding the reboot like a trilogy.  Then again even the worst Craig Bond is still watchable.  I didn't like how they tried to contrive a connection between Spectre and Silva, who seemed to be working on his own.  I liked Silva because he was a villain who achieves his goal in the end.  This movie might have demoted him to an unreliable henchman.

14. No Time to Die

2021

Daniel Craig

D: Cary Joji Fukunaga

**********

Another mess, but Rami Malek is born to play a creepy, megalomaniacal Bond villain.

13. Casino Royale (Climax!)

1954

Barry Nelson

D: William H. Brown, Jr.

**********

Decent enough for what it was, but it’s a little dated and the ending is very watered-down.  Barry Nelson is pretty good, and anything with Peter Lorre in it isn’t all bad.

12. You Only Live Twice

1967

Sean Connery

D: Lewis Gilbert

**********

The majority of the movie is like a dull commercial for tourism in Japan, the Toyota GT, and unsuccessful small arms designs.  It gets more fun in the end with Donald Pleasance’s iconic portrayal as Blofeld and an epic final showdown.  While the movie does make the aesthetic contribution to cinema by putting a villain’s base in a volcano, I’d rather watch Austin Powers, which is pretty much like a more consistently fun version of this film.

11. Diamonds Are Forever

1971

Sean Connery

D: Guy Hamilton

**********

A pretty solid movie, but it did have some annoyingly silly moments (I could have done without the moon buggy chase).  I liked Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd.

10. Goldfinger

1964

Sean Connery

D: Guy Hamilton

**********

It has many of the flaws of earlier Bonds, but it’s consistently gimmicky and memorable enough to be a classic.  Also introduced the iconic DB5.

9. From Russia with Love

1963

Sean Connery

D: Terence Young

**********

It’s a classic movie that introduced many classic Bond tropes.  However, I found it poorly paced, and the action was underwhelming.  Then again, after sitting through most of the Roger Moore movies, it doesn’t seem so bad any more. 

8. A View to a Kill

1985

Roger Moore

D: John Glen

**********

A relatively effective action movie with a memorably vile villain played by Christopher Walken.

7. Skyfall

2012

Daniel Craig

D: Sam Mendes

**********

An excellent entry in the Daniel Craig era.  Thanks to Roger Deakins, this movie has the best cinematography in the franchise, with the possible exception of Casino Royale (1967).  Javier Bardem plays an extremely charismatic and fun villain.  Still, Silva’s similarity to Trevelyan and some moments of annoying semi-meta put this one below… 

6. Tomorrow Never Dies

1997

Pierce Brosnan

D: Roger Spottiswoode

**********

An overall solid and fun movie, but it’s brought down by a villain who’s not much more than an obvious straw version of Ted Turner Bill Gates Rupert Murdoch Robert Maxwell.  The BMW 750iL is the best Bond car after the DB5.  I might have spoken too soon when I criticized the Bill Gates reference.  

5. The Spy Who Loved Me

1977

Roger Moore

D: Lewis Gilbert

**********

Unlike most of the Roger Moore films, it cultivates a sense of creativity and fun throughout the whole film, as opposed to saving it all for the last twenty minutes.  Memorable villains (especially Jaws).  The unfortunately named XXX is built up in a promising way, but she’s reduced to a damsel in the last scene.  Bond’s brutal, satisfying execution of Stromberg actually makes Moore look briefly like Bond, but the final showdown in Atlantis is a relative letdown.  The Lotus is definitely one of the better Bond cars.

4. Quantum of Solace

2008

Daniel Craig

D: Marc Forster

**********

Daniel Craig seems to be the only Bond who doesn’t have any movies that suck.  I seem to be in the minority of people who like this movie.  Everyone else seems to hate this film, but I found it to be a pretty good continuation of Casino Royale’s story, and the chase scene at the beginning was great.

3. Dr. No

1962

Sean Connery

D: Terence Young

**********

A good introduction to the series.  It establishes the atmosphere and setting well.  The villain is memorable, and you have to credit it with introducing Sean Connery as the Bond we all know and love.

2. Casino Royale

2006

Daniel Craig

D: Martin Campbell

**********

A wildly successful attempt to bring seriousness and grit to the series.  Daniel Craig is a surprisingly good Bond.  This movie improves upon the novella drastically and brings Bond back to his roots as a brutal, cold killer.  Despite this, the movie successfully humanizes him, which most of the preceding material failed to do.

1. GoldenEye

1995

Pierce Brosnan

D: Martin Campbell

**********

Honestly, this movie holds up very well.  It has great action and it balances depth with Bond gimmickry well.  Trevelyan (Sean Bean) is my favorite Bond villain because of his past with Bond.  He’s a match for him as a spy and he’s an example of Bond’s actions catching up with him.  The movie correctly casts Bond as cold-blooded killer, but it acknowledges his imperfections.  Natalya my favorite Bond, she’s a believable co-protagonist and is refreshingly unsexualized.  Pierce Brosnan was a great choice for the role, but his movies went downhill from there. 

Some general observations about the series:

-Bond really isn’t that compelling a character, at least at first.  In the first movies it was Sean Connery’s charisma helped keep things afloat, but there was little evidence of his humanity outside the occasional interaction with Moneypenny.  There were some early attempts to give him depth, but none of these succeeded until late in the game.

-While watching the earlier Bonds, I really liked Q, M and Moneypenny as characters.  I wish they had more screentime.

-A substantial portion of the earlier Bonds have a problem with dragging plots concluded with 10-20 minutes of creativity.  The Roger Moore ones are particularly bad about this.  This isn’t justified by cerebral character development or anything.  Also, the villains tend to get too little screen time.  Then again, I am a Millennial, and the Pierce Brosnan movies corrupted me into thinking that Bond movies were supposed to be well-paced and fun.

-This is especially bad when you consider that these movies rarely run under 2 full hours.

-Sean Connery is the best Bond because he made us love the character despite some of the movies' shortcomings.  His movies are generally good except for Thunderball.

-Roger Moore seems to be good actor, but he’s hopelessly miscast as Bond.  It doesn’t help that the Moore movies are plagued by forced silliness in the form of bad double entendres, obviously intertextual soundtracks, and cartoon sound effects.  Spy Who Loved Me and A View to a Kill are the only Moore Bonds I recommend.

-Timothy Dalton is pretty good, but he got shortchanged in the series with two lackluster films.

-Pierce Brosnan is a close second to Connery.  All his movies are fun, but the quality was downhill from GoldenEye.

-Craig isn't the best Bond, but his era is the best.  I like all his movies.

-Watching these movies in tandem for this list was a bit of a chore.  That may be a contributing reason to my not enjoying many of them.

-GoldenEye 64 is better than all the movies.

Sexiest (Human) Cartoon Women

I’ve already done my dirty furry list, now here’s the more “well-adjusted” version. 

24. STARFIRE

Hynden Walch, Teen Titans

Her alien mannerisms and relative naïvete about Earth customs are amusing, but she’s a strong fighter who is very supportive of her friends.

 22. SELINA KYLE/CATWOMAN

Adrienne Barbeau, Batman: The Animated Series

A classic.  A sultry cat burglar who can make Batman fall head over heels in love.

 21. RAVEN

Tara Strong, Teen Titans

Raven’s goth-like demeanor makes her the funny-serious member of the team, but her outward cynicism doesn’t stop her from fighting the good fight.

 20. ESMERALDA

Demi Moore, The Hunchback of Notre Dame

An exotic beauty with some really piercing green eyes (probably gets the award for sexiest eyes).  Though conventionally beautiful, it’s Esmerelda’s bravery and willingness to stand up to everyone for Quasimodo that makes her truly appealing.

 19. TIANA

Anika Noni Rose, The Princess and the Frog

Intelligent, mature and business-minded protagonist of a particularly beautifully-animated film. 

 18. PRINCESS FIONA

Cameron Diaz, Shrek

Fiona tries to play the role of the damsel in distress, but she can’t help but subvert the role in cool and funny ways.  Also has BBW appeal as an ogre.  Might be a little bit on the Uncanny Valley side, though.

 17. WONDER WOMAN

Susan Eisenberg/Keri Russell, Justice League/Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman (real name Diana) is a strong, tough fighter with a memorably dry demeanor.  She’s an Amazon, so her reactions to our patriarchal culture are interesting and sometimes amusing.

 16. FA MULAN

Ming-Na Wen, Mulan

In order to save her crippled father, Mulan joins the military at great risk to herself.  Through strength, perseverance, and some cleverness, she manages to single-handedly save China from a brutal warlord.

 15. NAOMI MISORA

Asaka Seto/Nicole Oliver, Death Note

This one actually kinda pisses me off.  Here we have a female character who (1) has a good backstory which gives her motivation to fight Kira (2) is described as a great detective (3) is a much-needed female protagonist in a show dominated by male characters and (4) has a great character design.  Instead, she is killed off as soon as the chance comes up.  This wouldn’t be so bad if Death Note had a solid female cast, but instead the fairer sex is primarily represented by Misa.  The only woman who fights the good fight and survives isn’t even really a character.  I don’t even think she has a line.

 

14. PEARL

Deedee Magno Hall, Steven Universe

Pearl is the intellectual of the group.  She makes up for her lack of brute strength in grace, skill and precision.  I’m not that far into the series, but she apparently displays some angst later on.

 13. MALEFICENT

Eleanor Audley, Sleeping Beauty

Possibly the best villainess in movie history.  She’s sinister, imposing, and witty, and she also turns into a dragon.

 12. GRANNY

Fune Foray/Stephanie Courtney, The Looney Tunes Show

Do you know why Looney Tunes Show is cool?  Well, one reason is that Granny was reimagined as a World War II spy.  And there are some people who don’t like this show.  However, I’d say the voice of young granny wasn’t well cast.

 11. POISON IVY

Diane Pershing, Batman: The Animated Series

In addition to a sexy villain, Dr. Pamela Isley is disturbingly crazy.  She literally values the lives of plants over those of people.  Just watch the terror she displays when Batman sets fire to some.  Even more unsettling was her idea of reforming and starting a family. 

 10. THE BARONESS

Morgan Lofting, G.I. Joe

Anastasia DeCobray is about a bad as a femme fatale as you’d want.  An accomplished spy and fighter, she also looks great in a black catsuit and glasses.  She also has a great relationship with Destro. 

 9. LADY EBOSHI

Yūko Tanaka/Minnie Driver, Princess Mononoke

A uniquely complex villainess.  Eboshi is an enemy of the forest spirits, but her compassion for vulnerable humans is undeniable.  She’s a strong character who doesn’t hesitate to fight for what she believes is right.

 8. ASAMI SATO

Seychelle Gabriel, The Legend of Korra

In addition to looking beautiful and dressing nicely, Asami fills the badass normal role in a show filled with Chi benders.  She also gets some admiration for fighting the good fight even after finding out her father was an Equalist.

 7. CYBERSIX

Cathy Weseluck, Cybersix

A superhuman experiment who fights against the machinations of her evil creator.  In an interesting twist, she poses as a male literature teacher named Adrian Seidelman. 

 6. SCARLET OVERKILL

Sandra Bulloch, Minions

While I haven’t seen this movie due to my lack of affection for the series and the title characters, I am intrigued by this villainess.  She’s a feminist icon in the world of villainy, and in one scene, we see her as a wolf.

 5. RALLY VINCENT

Michiko Neya/Amanda Winn Lee, Gunsmith Cats

A great design, and I like a girl who’s good with guns.

 4. CALENDAR GIRL

Sela Ward, The New Batman Adventures

Supermodel Paige Monroe was cast aside by the industry and took revenge on her former employers with the help of some Chippendalesque henchmen.  She wears a great costume (with different color schemes) with a mask, and she refuses to let people see her face.  It’s implied that she was disfigured by desperate plastic surgery abuse, but when we finally see her she’s beautiful.  She recoils in horror, prompting Batman to tell Robin, “She can no longer see that.  She only sees the flaws.”

 3. SHEGO

Nicole Sullivan, Kim Possible

Curvacious with a  great costume, but I mostly love her for her nonstop snark toward her buffoonish boss.

 2. GARNET

Estelle, Steven Universe

In addition to having some great curves, Garnet may be one of my favorite funny-serious characters.

 1. ELASTIGIRL

Holly Hunter, The Incredibles

A great superheroine who’s also a dedicated mother.  Helen Parr, née Thuax, is also clever and can pilot a plane, too boot.  Oh, yeah,  she also has a great booty, too.

Most Overrated Movie Characters

Hopefully, this won’t microagress too many people.

 HONORABLE MENTION: BOBA FETT

Jeremy Bulloch/v. Jason Wingreen, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983)

Ok, so this is a relatively common choice.  Boba Fett is pretty cool in many ways, though.  He has a great costume and he was effectively built up in Empire Strikes Back.  This makes his appeal pretty understandable when you think of it.  It wasn’t until three years later when Return of the Jedi disposed of him in an undignified way.  He was arguably a good character who wasn't allowed to live up to his potential.

13. DARTH MAUL 
Ray Park, v. Peter Serafinowicz, Star Wars: Epiode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)

It's not that I don't like Maul, he's a cool enough character.  It's that everybody seems to blow his potential out of proportion.  Everybody seems to think Darth Maul is the Boba Fett of the prequels.  In reality, I think he served his purpose well.  He showed up, looked and fought cool, killed a protagonist and motivated the other protagonist to finish him.  Unlike Fett he had a pretty good death, too.  Also, his death (along with Qui-Gon's) gave the movie an interesting anything-can-happen quality (not that that makes up for its flaws).  When people say that he should have lived and played a role in the following movies, it seems like they're saying, "I would have like it more if it was more predictable and formulaic."  Besides, I don't think he had much personality anyway.  There have been numerous absurd attempts to resurrect him, but thanks to The Clone Wars, that's now canon. 

 12. GROOT

Vin Diesel, Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

While I was occasionally charmed and amused by Groot, I thought he was way too overpraised by everyone who watched this movie.  He was like the movie’s equivalent to Chewbacca, and I liked Chewie better.  Rocket Raccoon was still awesome, though.

 11. SUPERMAN

Christopher Reeve, Superman (1978) and Superman II (1980)

Christopher Reeve’s performance as Superman/Clark Kent/Kal-El is excellent.  He does a great job capturing the character's multiple identities.  However, this character seemed vaguely smug and unlikable in the first movie.  It gets worse in Superman II, in which he actively toys with Lois’ suspicions and erases her memories upon her finding out his identity.  It’s also hard to relate to a hero who can turn back time any time something doesn’t go his way.  Depending on how you interpret the first movie’s time paradox, he may have selfishly erased his rescue of thousands of people to save Lois.  Despite Man of Steel’s crippling flaws, I actually found its depiction of Superman to be far more human and sympathetic.  And all those people who complained about how that Cavill-Superman “murdered” Zod seemed to forget Reeve-Superman’s cold-blooded and unnecessary execution of a powerless Zod in Superman II.   

 10. JABBA THE HUTT

Star Wars Trilogy (1977, 1980, 1983)

While iconic, Jabba the Hutt may very well be the dumbest movie villain ever conceived.  While his bottomless stupidity is obvious in Return of the Jedi, we already see indications of it in the previous movies.  In A New Hope we learn that he has put a hit out on one of his best smugglers for jettisoning contraband before an Imperial ship would catch him.  For some reason, this is enough for Jabba to hold a petty and irrational grudge against the man.  Now, a smart person would accept that such risks come with illicit trade and be happy that his minion acted quickly to avoid legal troubles that get him busted.  Instead he puts a bounty on his head, thus depriving himself of a good employee and the money he’ll need to pay whichever bounty hunter catches him.

     In Empire Strikes Back Jabba continues to waste his resources sending people after Solo, even after the latter has joined an insurgency group that has enough military-level technology to destroy his fat ass multiple times over.  Maybe he doesn’t want people to get the idea that joining the Alliance gets them off the hook, but I’d rather have Jabba on my tail than Darth Vader so that theory doesn’t work.  After all, he only got a hold of Han because Darth and Boba did all the work.  The whole thing makes you wonder if Jabba has the slightest clue how to run a criminal empire.  He’s so predictably petty and irrational that Luke takes advantage of this in his coincidence-dependent plan to free Han.  Despite his failure as a character in the movies, Jabba has some pretty awesome moments in Expanded Universe material and he was a great special effect.

 9. EDGAR

Vincent D’Onofrio, Men in Black (1997)

While the idea of an alien wearing a human’s skin isn’t bad, it wasn’t executed with enough subtlety to be genuinely creepy.  Instead it came off as goofy and more like an (unsuccessful) attempt at humor.  Eventually Edgar sheds the skin, revealing himself to be a giant, CGI cartoon bug.  Appearance aside, Edgar isn’t terribly interesting.  No charisma and no motivation outside simply being destructive and having an “inferiority complex.”

8. SNAKE PLISSKEN
Kurt Russell, Escape from New York (1981), Escape from LA (1996)

Escape from New York is a rare movie I like despite my not liking the protagonist.  Snake is cynical and nihilistic, but these characters are only fun when they're witty, which Snake is not.  He only cares for himself and whomever he forms a primitive bond with at the moment.  He clearly doesn't care for humanity in general, and he demonstrates that at the end of both movies (especially the second one, in which he condemns countless innocents to death by activating an EMP that destroys all technology on the planet).  I find Hauk (Lee Van Cleef), a well-meaning man who has to force Snake to fight the good fight, a more compelling character. 

 7. CAPTAIN HENRY RHODES

Joseph Pilato, Day of the Dead (1985)

Often cited by horror fans to be one of the most effectively vile villains in the genre, Rhodes comes off as too unbelievable to be taken seriously.  George A. Romero hinted noncommittally at a potentially sympathetic motivation (impatience with the researchers and concern for the well-being of his men), but mostly wrote Rhodes and his men as racist straw-military caricatures.  It’s why I didn’t find his famous death scene as satisfying as many people did.  While Romero was a pioneer in his subgenre, he wasn’t nearly as good at commentary as he and his fans apparently believe. 

 6. THE MINIONS

Pierre Coffin/Chris Renaud/Jermaine Clement, Despicable Me Series (2010, 2013, 2015)

While not outright annoying per se, they’ve become so through endless hype.  Their popularity has helped fuel sequels and a spinoff to a movie I didn’t think was that great in the first place.  They’re not nearly funny or cute enough to carry a movie.  I only remember laughing at them once. 

 5. THE SPARTANS

Gerard Butler et. al., 300 (2006)

I have to say that 300 is one of the most morally inverted movies I have ever seen.  The movie wastes no time showing the Spartans murdering their babies for “weakness” and abusing their children in order to turn them into remorseless killing machines.  In the first five minutes, the movie gives us all the reason we need to root for the Persians.  They were oddly homophobic while being homoerotic as hell, to boot.  The entire appeal is that of a misguided worship of strength for its own sake, rather than strength for the sake of defending what’s right.  The movie and its “heroes” proved popular due to some oddly insecure sense of masculinity (as well as a real life war at the time).  I find our romanticization of the Spartans to be odd considering brutal and tyrannical they were.  I wonder if 2,000 years from now people will be naming sports teams after the Nazis.   

4. JACK WILSON

Jack Palance, Shane (1953)

Jack Wilson is Boba Fett for old people.  Except Wilson’s disappointment can’t be blamed on another movie’s dropping the ball.  I’ve heard numerous times about how great a villain he is, only to be disappointed when I watched the movie.  Like Fett, he’s built up effectively and has an air of mystery.  Palance plays the role well, and Wilson also has a rather memorable Kick-the-Dog scene.  The movie hypes the eventual face-off between him and Shane, and in the end all that happens is that our hero walks into the building full of bad guys and kills them all effortlessly.  Wilson just happens to be one of the bad guys' getting shot

 3. BRICK TAMLAND

Steve Carell, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)

I have to admit that sometimes I have laughed at mentally impaired characters, although I do expect the jokes about them to be funny, but this doesn’t apply to Brick Tamland.  His scenes are offensive without even the benefit of a guilty laugh.  Saying “Party in my pants” is funnier than saying “pants party” in the same way that saying “people of color” is less racist than saying “colored people.”   

2. RON BURGUNDY

Will Ferrell, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)

In case the previous entry didn’t make it clear enough, I think Anchorman is an overrated movie.  Rob Burgundy himself is also unappealing to me since the forced jokes often come from him.  What really baffles me is when people think he’s somehow likable on top of being funny.  Honestly, Burgundy doesn’t even come off like a character, let alone a sympathetic one.  If he is a human being, he’s a shallow, stupid and misogynistic one.    

 

 1. THE JESUS

John Turturro, The Big Lebowski (1998)

The Big Lebowski is probably one of my favorite comedies, but I never understood the fascination with this character.  His defining trait is that he molests children, and that’s funny because…?  The only funny part about Jesus Quintana is how funny characters like Walter and The Dude react to him.  If anyone should be the ensemble darkhorse of this movie it should be Brandt (Philip Seymour Hoffman).  There are other better candidates such as The Dude’s landlord and even The Jesus’ bowling partner, Liam.  Hell, I even think the ponified version of The Jesus from MLP:FIM is funnier just for having a hairnet on his tail.  The role always seemed like an excuse for the Coens to insert Turturro into the movie, but apparently the character does seem to fit with the popular theory that The Big Lebowski is about insecure masculinity.