Comments on: Why Are So Many Modern Movie Villains So Bad And Boring?

By: La Serpenta Canta

La Serpenta Canta — Sat, 17 Jun 2017 08:18:00 +0000

Simple, there is no talent anymore.

By: Inspector71

Inspector71 — Wed, 19 Apr 2017 16:25:00 +0000

It’s pretty simple. Alan Rickman died, that’s why.

By: AlbinoRhino

AlbinoRhino — Fri, 12 Aug 2016 20:08:00 +0000

The problem with Movie villains is they have to be really really bad and right now, society is so terrible there is no way to portray that…R ratings wouldn’t be enough.

By: Chris Tiaan

Chris Tiaan — Fri, 12 Aug 2016 10:23:00 +0000

The most iconic villain of the last couple of years was Dr. Heiter from the Human Centipete

By: Rasmus Jürs

Rasmus Jürs — Fri, 12 Aug 2016 04:53:00 +0000

This is the most interresting list of keywords i havent read in a long time..

By: Criddic

Criddic — Fri, 05 Aug 2016 21:35:00 +0000

In reply to Jeremy Carrier.

I think you mean “All About Eve.”

The best example of what you were saying about the villain’s presence being felt even when off-screen is Hannibal Lecter in “The Silence of the Lambs.” Anthony Hopkins had a fraction of the screen time that Jodie Foster had, yet still won a Best Actor Oscar, because he dominated the film whether we saw him or not.

Other villains are memorable for being sly or deceptively charming, like Chris Sarandon in “Fright Night” or subtly manipulative like Angela Lansbury in “The Manchurian Candidate.”

By: Jeremy Carrier

Jeremy Carrier — Wed, 03 Aug 2016 00:12:00 +0000

One idea I always had about movie villians is that the good, memorable ones really dominate the movie. Even when they’re not on screen, their presence can be felt. All the great horror/sci-fi movie guys like Predator, Alien, Terminator, Freddie, Jason. TDK’s Joker or Scar from the Lion King or Eve Harrington from The Lady Eve manipulate everything and every one to their advantage. Sometimes they just need a couple really stand out scenes by a great actor, like Laurence Oliver in Marathon Man or Orson Welles in The Third Man or Christopher Walken in True Romance. They also need to score a big win in the movie. Scar gotta kill Mufasa, Drago gotta kill Apollo, that prison Warden from Shawshank Redemption gotta kill Tommy.

I can go down the list ya know, Vader in ESB, Frank Booth in Blue Velvet, Commodus from Gladiator, Biff Tannen in BTTF, Gruber in Die Hard, Noah Cross in Chinatown, John Doe in Se7en, Agent Smith in the Matrix, Amon Goeth in Schildiner’s List, Nurse Ratchet in Cuckoo’s Nest, etc etc. These characters have a dominating presence over the movie’s world and our protagonists. They make their presence known. They are the ones controlling this world. They cant just be this anonymous vague threat waiting at the end of the movie.

Krall was a real shame, cuz Elba has the physicality and he gets that huge win over our heroes early on, but they wait so long for his motivations to become clear that he basically has no real presence in the movie’s big middle section until its time for the third act scrambling and punching scenes.

By: John DiLillo

John DiLillo — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 23:33:00 +0000

Going after Sam Rockwell for Iron Man 2 is borderline criminal. The man is a goddamn joy in the midst of that nothing of a movie.

By: Jeremy Carrier

Jeremy Carrier — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 23:16:00 +0000

*whew* you almost had me putting Kylo Ren in the header. He was the most interesting character in the movie.

By: Sleuth1989

Sleuth1989 — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 20:21:00 +0000

The answer is simple really. Because the same people are writing the same stories. “The Nice Guys” I’m sure was a great buddy cop film, but let’s not pretend we all didn’t think Shane Black was copying his “Lethal Weapon” days a bit. Suicide Squad looks to have Leto playing basically an extreme version of Ledger’s Joker (The voices even sound the same). I actually thought Adam Driver’s performance in “The Force Awakens” was mildly interesting. He gave it his all, playing a character who clearly looks twisted in knots on the inside. His facial expressions when he faces Han Solo were pretty impressive, he looks genuinely conflicted and on edge. But the basic issue is everyone is trying to emulate everyone else. That’s my point. You watch “The Hunger Games”, Donald Sutherland plays off Snow like O’Brien from “1984”, even if you haven’t seen 1984, the genetics are there. The dystopian dictator (Or symbol of it) who works to destroy the main character as a reminder even though the main character is utterly powerless and no real threat. Heck, in “Mockingjay”, Snow does to Peeta what O’Brien did to Winston in “1984”, mentally turning him against his love interest by torturing him with animals. Part of great writing is writers take their real experiences, their real life, and that uniqueness, created in real life through chaos theory where nothing is the same, and put that to paper. But Hollywood has such a framing device of what it is, what it’s films are like that nothing new can ever come of it. I’ve seen stories that fellow writers have made that are unlike anything else I’ve seen. And they won’t get published because Hollywood won’t take the risks. Not really their fault. Hollywood is a business that needs to keep the lights on. It’s ultimately the audiences fault for not taking risks. I could throw in some parallel here to life in general but I don’t want to distract from my point. Hollywood needs new talent, new blood. The best filmmakers and writers out there are doing indie films for $2 million a budget who work outside the machine to make their own works. Jeff Nichols is a major example, check out all his films and try to tell me otherwise. Five films, all five critically praised and well liked. Just saying, time to switch it up. Let new voices in.

By: daniel

daniel — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 19:44:00 +0000

“the twist behind Idris Elba in “Star Trek Beyond” was a good one”

I stopped reading after this. I haven’t seen this movie. Try to keep these things spoiler free if there is no need to spoil a film (seems to me there is nothing else to say about this Beyond twist but “it was a good one”).