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- Jamma27, on 08/20/2008, -2/+90I agree with this, but people should remember, that as good as Heath Ledger's portrayal was, the joker is such a good villain in TDK mostly because of the screenplay of the film itself, not simply the acting
- aresef, on 08/21/2008, -0/+69This cinema deserves a better class of criminal.
- yossarian24, on 08/21/2008, -0/+52I agree that a lot of it was the screenplay, but Ledger was masterful in his portrayal. Think about all the little things he added to the character, the way he spoke and walked and laughed. I was sold by those little things that aren't necessarily in the script.
- freebird09, on 08/21/2008, -0/+25And I'm going to give it to them.
- bcrich999, on 08/21/2008, -0/+20I liked Mr. Glass from Unbreakable as far as Comic book.
- Kohaxx, on 08/21/2008, -0/+17Kill you? I don’t want to kill you! What would I do without you? ... No, no, you… you complete me.
- SwingCorey, on 08/21/2008, -1/+16"2. He has no origin story, because my story starts in the middle of one of his moist crazy crimes."
moist crazy crimes? is he Aquaman's arch-villain? does he pack a Super Soaker? - mchisari, on 08/21/2008, -1/+15
Dude had his face cut up from ear to ear, cut him some slack. - yellowsnowman, on 08/21/2008, -2/+15Best Evil Characters of film. And why elected. The best evils are the ones that get away. They live to see another day. They are not defeated nor destroyed at the end, rather delayed by something. Please add to the carnage.
Micheal Corleone - The Godfather 1 & 2: Kills the mob heads while nephew is baptized, kills his own brother because it is business.
Anton Chigurh - No Country for Old Men: Cold hearted hit man that disappears.
The Joker - TDK: Insane or just having fun? Controlled chaos.
Alex De Large - A Clockwork Orange: Rapes and steals for fun. In the end he is cured to return to his own evil ways.
Keyser Soze - Usual Suspects: "I believe in god but the only thing that scares me is Keyser Soze."
Mickey & Mallory - Natural Born Killers: Crazy bastards (been a decade since I've seen it can't remember if they died at the end - if so they are off the list).
That is all I can come up with off the top of my head. Any others? - blapierre, on 08/21/2008, -0/+11"Maybe because he's the first villain we've seen in ages who didn't kind of suck."
Either "ages" is less than a year or the author has never seen "No Country For Old Men". - Merendino, on 08/21/2008, -2/+12He said there were spoilers... RTFA.
- xtothepowerofx, on 08/21/2008, -0/+10ultimate villain = alan rickman
- mattyx, on 08/21/2008, -6/+16If you want better villains, you're just going to have to do what they do in the Midwest:
Vote for them. - 3sicasity, on 08/21/2008, -1/+11you'll see
- alexforcefive, on 08/21/2008, -1/+8it sucks anyway
- SimmaDownNow, on 08/21/2008, -0/+7"No Country for Old Men" comes to mind. Javier Bardem; from the first frame he entered the film to the very last, kept my attention. When he wasn't onscreen, I would still be wondering what he was doing. He played that part about as good as it could have been played and then some.
The very first actor to totally creep me out was Kevin Spacey in "Se7en." The very first time I saw that movie in the theater, I thought he was a psycho who was also and actor that was allowed to act with lots of security on hand.
Everyone tends to point to the Hannibal Lecter's role deftly played by Anthony Hopkins, but he didn't do it for me.
Two minor roles that I thoroughly enjoyed were Dwight Yoakam as Raoul in "Panic Room" and Chiwetel Ejiofor as Luke in "Children of Men." - rrbaker, on 01/15/2009, -2/+9I couldn't agree more with yossarian24. Ledger definitely deserves a posthumous Oscar nomination.
- TheEclipse, on 08/21/2008, -1/+8I disagree, supervillains are a cheap way out of new storytelling. By introducing a superhero, you gotta have him fight a supervillain, no matter how predictable it is. Comics are considered "deep" if they explore anything through this setup, though they rarely break the actual mold. Even though Hancock wasn't a great movie, you have to admit they at least tried to explore more storytelling routes than the summer blockbuster formula. There was no supervillain, redeeming himself didn't win approval from the city, he didn't get the girl, etc
- VigRoco, on 08/21/2008, -0/+6There is a spoiler alert at the top of the article
- trer, on 08/21/2008, -0/+6No one deserves better villians. You have to earn them.
- petebot, on 08/21/2008, -0/+6It's cause of the kids! They called me Mr. Glass!
- Stormwern, on 08/21/2008, -0/+6BSG should get a pass since one of the points is that there aren't any villains. Bad things can happen completely without evil, all it takes is mistrust, distain or just opposing ambitions.
- kenjura, on 08/21/2008, -0/+5I un-nominate Sylar after season 1 and give his vote to Voldemort for a double.
He only cares about himself. He's so fascinated by himself that he's fascinated more by a boy wizard who mysteriously frustrates his power than by an older wizard who can actually take him in a real fight.
He'll sink to any depth. It's not about how his mommy never loved him, or how he burned his face with acid, or someone made him kill his own girlfriend. He has a power greater than people's acceptance and understanding, one that makes all 6 billion sheeple on the planet completely worthless to him. - inactive, on 08/21/2008, -5/+10I agree 100%. Everybody is praising Heath, but when I watched the movie, what made the Joker cool was his actions, not some super amazing portrayal and performance by Ledger.
- Kohaxx, on 08/21/2008, -0/+5He sold me with tongue flicking, or any of his other quirks that made him such a unique portrayal. They (Nolan and Heath) added a lot that wasn't even in the comic books to the character to make him a modern masterpiece.
As much as I liked Iron Man I think Ledger deserves the Oscar because he was not only the first entertaining villain of the year, but the movie was the most entertaining two and a half hours I've spent in a movie theatre this year. - kenjura, on 08/21/2008, -0/+5Darth Vader. Screw TFA, the man choked a rebel captain who had valuable information just because he was angry. He altered Lando's deal without a second thought, just because he could. He liked to force pinch important military officials just because they questioned his power.
Darth Vader rules.
oh yeah, and he killed a bunch of kids. (wtf ever, lucas) - SpitRage, on 08/21/2008, -0/+4Kakihara - Ichi the Killer
"Kakihara is not your typical Yakuza gangster. He is sadistic, masochistic, depraved, has a hair trigger for violence" ~et_exorsismorum from IMDB
Guy cuts out his own tongue for speaking out of turn to his boss. If you haven't seen this movie(and like villains) get off your ass and go rent it now. - oldhick, on 08/21/2008, -0/+4Devil's Advocate really sucked. IMHO.
- carbonetc, on 08/21/2008, -0/+4His tendency to unconsciously tongue the scar tissue was one of my favorite nuances of the performance.
- mlvassallo, on 08/21/2008, -0/+4Hans Gruber.
- inactive, on 08/21/2008, -1/+5Obviously the screenplay is important, but the acting is every bit as important as the screenplay. I mean, the entire thing is pointless if the actor can't make the character seem believable. I mean, in the Dark Knight, the Joker is just a sick, sadistic *****. He's a total psychopath. It's a real challenge to walk that line, to portray him as so completely demented, while at the same time not going too over the top and just coming across sounding silly. To me, the Joker is just an incredibly difficult character to take to the screen, and it's not just that Heath Ledger was a good actor, but that to do this particular role was much more challenging to do well than most.
- kwebb12, on 08/21/2008, -0/+4The Fifth Element: Zorg
- worminater, on 08/21/2008, -0/+4hannibal?
- 1longtime, on 08/21/2008, -1/+4Agreed, but I think it was also due to the nature of the character itself. Joker is the perfect villian archetype... and he does not have to explain why. He just IS.
- sgtbutterscotch, on 08/21/2008, -1/+4You can't just say that based on his performance. You have to look at all the other great performances of the year.
- krismanx, on 08/21/2008, -1/+4I'm really tired of these kind of comments in these kind of articles.
This article is about villains in movies.
There's plenty of articles you can do your Bush bashing in. - elitebmo, on 08/21/2008, -0/+3snooze fest zzzzzzz....
- xbaz, on 08/21/2008, -1/+4i guess i should see the dark knight before i get slapped with a big spoiler
- neilo, on 08/22/2008, -0/+3It's not about the money ... it's about sending a message.
Everything burns. - sayoshinn, on 08/21/2008, -1/+4Buried for... "Maybe because he's the first villain we've seen in ages who didn't kind of lick"
WTF is kind of lick?? - NoDivision, on 08/21/2008, -0/+3Everyone seems to forget about Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men. I would put him at the top of my favorite villain's list.
- Kohaxx, on 08/21/2008, -0/+3Is that the Joker strangling Sylar?
My philosophy on villains has always been that they need to complement and contrast with the main character in a way that tests some aspect of that character. The reason they usually die is because once the hero has been tested in that regard there isn't much purpose left for the villain. Ledger's Joker was brilliant because he was the chaotic evil contrasting with Batman, and generally Batman fights people whose motivation he can see, they want money, power, to make an example of someone, etc. The Joker was amazing because his only motivation was to prove that everyone will eat each other like dogs if put in the right situation.
In contrast Dent was the sympathetic or tragic villain who was no doubt taking the wrong path but you sympathized with and noticed how human he was and that he had just been pushed too far.
I think there is room in movies for the sympathetic villain but at the same time we need a truly evil villain to contrast with. If the hero only fights sympathetic villains it feels pointless and weakens the need for him, and if the hero only fought sadistic or criminally insane villains the series would get too dark for most audiences. I really hope Nolan plans on counter-balancing the Riddler with a darker villain, hopefully the Black Mask (read up on him if you haven't yet, his resume includes slicing up Catwoman's brother-in-law in front of her sister and force feeding the bits to her) because on his own the Riddler has never been that evil of a character. He's just your average super intelligent obsessive compulsive vengeful genious with an ego problem.
Also, Sylar going soft...come on, the guy rips open brains, I don't mind him having some depth but if he goes through some redemption I'm done with Heroes and Tim Kring for good. - Tallon29, on 08/21/2008, -0/+3THE BOAT SINKS
- TheSarf, on 08/21/2008, -0/+3Lick balls.
- Calinthalus, on 08/21/2008, -0/+3Dug for "Hillary Klingon"
- inactive, on 08/21/2008, -1/+4What? Why does everyone always assume that the "mac" means I'm an Apple fan? Is that the only possible thing in the world that "mac" can represent? Oh, but then you assume that because I include "weirdo" that it's a reference to a Radiohead song. That pretty much explains everything. You're an idiot who can't see beyond pop culture references. Though I will admit, the "42" is, in fact, a reference to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
- logicalnoise, on 08/21/2008, -0/+3top of the page....and depsite the spoiler I'll still see wanted. The "story" was never part of my resoning for seeing it.
"Spoilers for recent movies, and upcoming TV, below." - Kohaxx, on 08/21/2008, -0/+3Who cares, if you haven't seen the movie by the time it's left theatres you lose your right to not be spoiled.
- inactive, on 08/21/2008, -1/+3Devil's Advocate kind of sucked. IMHO.
- joseconrad, on 08/21/2008, -0/+2Anton Chigurh in No Country for old Men- My personal favorite. Chilling character.
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