It’s only May (and even then, only just May), and we’re already into our second superhero movie of the year, with this week’s “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” following hot on the heels of last month’s “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.” This is only kicking off our regular summer programming of battles between good and evil and wisecracking aliens/mutants/mutant aliens come to save/destroy the world/Galaxy/Universe, and the dualism that every superhero film relies on means that every hero needs an adversary, or in the case of Peter Parker these weekend, about four hundred of them (none of whom, as our review relates, are very compelling). Because, hey, everybody loves a bad guy, so why not cram in a whole shedload?
Of course, we don’t always love the bad guys, do we? We often don’t even love to hate them, or to be frank, even remember them a lot of the time. It’s too early to know how Peter Dinklage‘s Bolivar Trask in “X-Men: Days Of Future Past” and Lee Pace‘s Ronan The Accuser in “Guardians Of The Galaxy” will match up, but because “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” has put bad guys on our mind, we’ve delved back through the dime-store racks and picked out the ten best, and ten worst, villains in superhero movies to date. Agree? Disagree? Mutating with rage into a scaly telepath who’s planning to blow up the sun with a death ray fired from a volcano? Let us know in the comments section
The 10 Best
10. Cillian Murphy as The Scarecrow in “Batman Begins” (2005)
One of the most terrifying villains in the Batman’s rogues gallery, the Scarecrow (aka twisted psychologist Jonathan Crane, who uses a gas to inspire fear-induced hallucinations in his foes) had never been portrayed in live-action form before 2005’s “Batman Begins,” though he’d been pegged as the bad guy in a proposed third Joel Schumacher picture in the late 1990s, “Batman Triumphant.” One can only imagine how that one would have turned out, but in the hands of Christopher Nolan, and actor Cillian Murphy (who got the gig as a consolation prize after testing for, and missing out on, Batman), he was a cooly unsettling foe for the Dark Knight. Murphy’s piercing eyes and quiet demeanor makes it clear that something’s wrong with Crane as soon as you meet him, and as he show his true colors by gassing Tom Wilkinson’s mob boss, it becomes clear exactly how unhinged he is. He’s not much of a physical threat against “The Bat” (a term he coins), but levels the playing field with his fear toxin, and the imagery Nolan conjures up is legitimately unnerving. Villains weren’t the strong point of “Batman Begins” (we always found Liam Neeson’s Ra’s Al Ghul rather hammy and cliched), but it’s a testament to Murphy’s performance that he’s the only bad guy to appear in every film in Nolan’s trilogy.
9. Jason Lee as Syndrome in “The Incredibles” (2004)
Though it’s not based on a pre-existing comic-book like almost every character here, we’d argue that Brad Bird and Pixar’s animated wonder “The Incredibles” is by some distance the best superhero movie ever made, and fortunately, it has a dastardly villain to match, one well-motivated and well-drawn enough to put most superhero antagonists to shame. We first meet Buddy Pine as a child and superfan of Mr. Incredible, who attempts to be his Robin-style sidekick, but is rejected by his idol. Years later, Buddy’s now an enormously wealthy inventor with a volcano lair and countless gadgets that have made him a foe to be reckoned with. Bitter and twisted from his rejection, he’s been killing off heroes in an attempt to eventually take their place, and turn himself into the savior of the city. The politics of Bird’s film have been commented on fairly comprehensively in the decade since its release, and to some, Syndrome’s a representation of an almost Ayn Rand-ian point of view, afraid of exceptionalism, and portrayed as a would-be egalitarian, trying to level the playing field (“If everyone’s super, then no one is”). Whether or not these are Bird’s politics, (and Buddy’s a little more complex than that), it doesn’t change that Syndrome is a genuinely psychotic villain for a Disney film, a true sociopath who doesn’t blink at shooting down a plane full of children or kidnapping a baby, ultimately undone mainly by his own hubris. Brought to life by an excellent against-type turn by Kevin Smith favorite Jason Lee, he’s funny, menacing and compelling, and a fitting foe for The Incredibles.
...[ Continue to next page ]
Share This Post
