Movie villains are not averse to clichés, and this also applies to the classic extended monologue. If a bad guy is smart, they carry out their plan, take their money or gold and happily move on. But there aren’t many smart bad guys, at least not in the movie world, because they keep telling the protagonists (and the audience) every little detail of their plan until there’s a concrete blueprint to foil it.
Over-talkative villains can appear in just about any genre, from a horror movie (eg Urban legend) or a sci-fi movie (like Darth Vader talking long enough for Luke Skywalker to drop himself down the shaft). But more often than not, the unfocused evil will find itself in an action movie. People like John McClane have to somehow get the upper hand every time.
10 Walter Simmons in Godzilla vs. Kong
Like many villains in the decades-long history of the Godzilla franchising, Godzilla against Kong‘s Walter Simmons is not who he initially imagines himself to be. The CEO of Apex Cybernetics, Simmons recruits Nathan Lind and his chosen team with vague promises of glory and discovery. But his true motives for the Hollow Earth energy he hopes to possess are far from altruistic.
Simmons built Mechagodzilla with the help of Dr. Serizawa’s son and one of the deceased Ghidorah’s chiefs. But the latter essentially gives the mechanized beast a will of its own, and it kills both the neurally connected Serizawa and Simmons.
9 Khan in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Before Spock sacrifices himself in a van Star TrekIn the saddest moments of the iconic Khan Noonien Singh, he falls victim to his own ego. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is widely regarded as the best of the original film series, and the poignancy of this moment is crucial to it, but so is Ricardo Montalbán’s confident performance as the antagonist.
Khan seeks revenge for Kirk and the Enterprise crew stranding him on a distant planet. But the Enterprise’s Chekov gets the upper hand and takes out Khan’s ship with a missile. Had Khan kept his eye on the ball, he would have kept the upper hand to himself, and both he and his crew would still be alive.
8 Alec Trevelyan in GoldenEye
Hands down Pierce Brosnan’s best adventure as 007, Golden Eye marked an impressive and franchise-changing debut for both the star and Casino royale director Martin Campbell. Even with four villains and one action scene after another, the film never overwhelms. This is mainly due to the fact that every villainous part is well cast and the action sequences (e.g. tank vs. train) are so memorable.
At the former front, the stars are the arrogant Boris Grishenko (Alan Cumming), the sadistic Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen) and the man in charge: Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean). Trevelyan has his own arrogance issues, which he shows when he taunts Bond on the titular satellite. This reveals his position, allowing Bond to tumble them both off a dangling ladder. This ends badly for Trevelyan, who falls hundreds of feet down only to see the GoldenEye do the same.
7 Mayor Bellwether at Zootopia
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As one of the best animated movies in some time, it’s surprising it’s taken so long to get a sequel Zootopia Off the ground. But it was announced during Disney’s Q1 investor call, and the future villain might do well to look to the past. Jenny Slate plays the first film’s assistant mayor, Dawn Bellwether, a bureaucrat who seems both proud and confident in Officer Judy Hopps’ ability to solve the case.
But in fact, Bellwether is counting on the green Hopps to fail, as she is the true mastermind behind the recent series of disappearances in Zootopia. When Bellwether finally reveals herself, she makes two mistakes. First, she doesn’t check her gun’s ammo (which has had its bullets replaced with blueberries). Second, she sings her whole plan to someone who happens to be holding a recorder pen.
6 Victoria in The Man from UNCLE
Guy Ritchie’s later career has proved much more diverse than his earlier series of gangster films, but the criminal element is still very much present in Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, wrath of manand 2015 TV series adaptation OOM’s man Like it Operation Fortune and Ritchie’s later gangster movie The gentlementhe key to understanding the film’s heart is its soft tone and focus on fun.
It’s well cast too, with Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer playing well together as Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin respectively, with Alicia Vikander, Jared Harris and Hugh Grant supporting them along the way. There is also Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2‘s Elizabeth Debicki in the villainous role of Nazi-sympathizing arms dealer Victoria Vinciguerra. She hopes to sell a nuke to some fascists, and nearly escapes Solo and Kuryakin with it in hand. But her brash, arrogant, talkative nature distracts her when the spy duo sends a homing missile straight at her, detonating the nuclear bomb in the middle of the ocean.
5 Syndrome in The Incredibles
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The incredibles proved to be another major critical and commercial success for Pixar, and the key is its macro-scale appeal. Like it Toy Story And Finding Nemoneither The incredibles nor the arguably superior sequels are strictly “children’s movies.” They may function as such, but there are definitely mature themes and even a violent moment or two.
Take the main villain of the first film: the Syndrome. An obsessed fan of Mr. Incredible, Syndrome should have taken charge of his idol and never wore a cape. But the cape is just one of many bad decisions that ultimately lead to his death. First he kidnaps Jack-Jack, the youngest member of the great Parr family. Then he tries to tackle Mr. Incredible head-on, disorienting him before his cape finally drags him back into the engine of his own plane. A particularly painful outcome was inevitable the moment the syndrome took away a child.
4 Darth Sidious in Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi
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Not everyone loves the Ewoks Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the JediBut The Mandalorian star Pedro Pascal does. Everyone seems to agree on one thing Return of the Jedi featured the first and best appearance of Ian McDiarmid’s Dark Lord of the Sith, Emperor Palpatine.
The ultimate Dark Lord of the Force is nothing but sure of himself, especially when it comes to his manipulative abilities. And no one has been more manipulated than his prized apprentice, Anakin Skywalker. But Sidious overstates his relationship with Vader compared to a father’s intrinsic bond with his son.
3 Top dollars in The Crow
The crow is a definitive comic book adaptation worth being mentioned in the same breath as Schief, Batman. It also features a dynamite villain in the form of Michael Wincott’s Top Dollar.
A perfect counterpart to the good-hearted Eric Draven, Top Dollar is an evil beast of a man who enjoys killing the innocent, including Draven’s lover. But all the pain Top Dollar has inflicted over the years is returned through a touch from Draven, aka The Crow. And with Top Dollar’s plunge off a rooftop onto a spiked gargoyle, Draven and many others retaliate. It’s a villain death scene that shows that it’s come full circle, and with a man as bad as Top Dollar, that’s perfectly fitting.
2 Ronan the Accuser in Guardians of the Galaxy
When Guardians of the UniverseRonan the Accuser finally gets what he wants – an Infinity Stone – it’s not long before he loses it. His ship, the Dark aster, is destroyed and crashes to earth. Groot shows the other Guardians what it means to be a family, and for a moment it seems that they are the only ones who survived the crash.
But then Ronan emerges from the wreckage, the Infinity Stone-powered war hammer intact. At this point it would be easy for him to get rid of the Guardians with one swing, but instead he gets distracted by Peter Quill’s dance routine long enough for Rocket and Drax to blow it up. After Quill grabs the freed stone – and the freed hands of the Guardians grab each other – Ronan is a dead Kree walking.
1 Cloves in The Hunger Games
The original The hunger Games pinned Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss Everdeen against some ethically abhorrent individuals. Chief among the worst is the group of wealthy individuals from districts 1 and 2: the ‘Carriers’. Arguably the worst of these “Careers” is Clove (Isabelle Fuhrman)
After Clove’s teammate Marvel kills Rue, one of The hunger Games saga’s best characters, Clove decides to be cruel and gloat over it to Katniss. Unfortunately for Clove, Rue’s older brother overhears this and exacts revenge.