April 7, 2009

Your Favorite Villians

I love movies. I like a good story well told, always have. I love a good villain. In every movie that pits good vs. evil in a straight up contest, you gotta have a villain that is up to the task. There are few things more certain to ruin your enjoyment of a good movie than a villain that is not really intimidating or inspiring of visceral antipathy. Perfect case in point, Blade Trinity, a film that put a stake through the heart of the Blade franchise. The villain was Dracula, and oh my God was he lame.

A few of the movie villains I have enjoyed a lot in my movie watching across the years:

Khan - Star Trek II ~ The Wrath of Khan

"from Hell's heart, I stab at thee! For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee! "

The late Ricardo Montalban was magnificent as the malignant Khan, a genetic superman bent on exacting revenge on Kirk for the death of his wife. Khan was a steely villian with old world charm and a vocabulary to match, plotting galactic domination with the sophistication of an English Duke.

Rico - Judge Dredd

"You want chaos? *I'm* the chaos"

You have to like this one because Armand Assante gave life, intensity and purpose to a character that was otherwise poorly defined in the script. Assante manages to take his few lines in the movie and convey the anguish and rage of Rico, betrayed by his clone brother, Judge Dredd. He reveled in chaos and you felt him, big time.

Clubber Lang - Rocky III

"I will destroy any man who tries to take what I got! "

Mr. T puts on an awesomely impressive display of malevolence. He very effectively conveys brute, unstoppable fury. Whenever he was on screen, you knew pain was not far behind.


Deacon Frost - Blade

"You may wake up one day and find yourself extinct."

One way you know Steven Dorf did a good job in this film was that you genuinely did not like Frost. He wasn't just an evil vampire, he was a real a**hole about it too.




So those are a few of my pics, which I think are pretty good. Have you got a better four villains? Top these.