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
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.
6. Noah
I know we’re pretty much a Post-Christian society now,
but it doesn’t seem like it’s been that way for so long. You’d think most nonbelieving filmmakers
would at least have a basic grasp of
Judeo-Christian theology, but they keep making these movies that demonstrate
they don’t understand Abrahamic religion any more than Ralph Wiggum. This absurd movie is a prime example of this
trend. This movie’s probably the reason
I thought twice before committing to see Mother!
I thought this movie was a bit clumsy. It was about how artists, particularly
ballerinas, can become consumed by their work, but it exaggerates it to the
point of farce. Especially since it
treats ballet the same thing Requiem for
a Dream treats drug addiction.
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