I was thoroughly disappointed when I saw Ridley Scott's *Hannibal* because it kinda took away from Lecter's intellect. In *Silence of the Lambs* he was a calm and ominous. In *Hannibal* he was a man who said catchphrases before slicing someone's throat.
As far as i'm concerned, it's miss, miss or hit. I'll never complain about the production design, camera or sound of his movies, but his scripts (and they are his, he meddles in all of them, no matter who the scriptwriter is) fall flat too often
Ehh, this one possibly not so much. I remember, and I could be talking out my ass here, a lot of rumor back before the the novel of Hannibal was published that the author, Thomas Harris, was VERY unhappy that he had to write a sequel to Silence. The novel (which has a significantly worse ending than the movie in terms of quality) always felt to me like a fuck you to the modern grind of storytelling than a legitimate passion project.
Because while he knows how to make a movie pretty, his choice of scripts are 50/50.
I still haven't forgiven him for what he did with Prometheus and Alien Covenant, extremely braindead characters mixed with fantastic sci-fi visuals.
In Hannibal, I think that Mason Verger’s plan is one of the sickiest and the most intelligent one in a movie ! If you have the occasion to see it again, you realize that all of the things that happen to Clarice is Verger’s plan !!!
Yes! I think as amazing as the movie is, the TV Hannibal is even better. Mads manages to come across as sophisticated, highly intelligent, ruthless and completely alien, and manages to make you root for him despite it all. Probably my favorite fictional villain portrayal ever.
Season 3 was underwhelming, but I'm still really sad we never got season 4 (so far?).
I actually lost interest early on in season 3 and could never finish it, but the first two seasons are extremely great. I didnt watch the movies until after the show actually, but I find in them Hannibal, though is portrayed as intelligent more comes over as an animal, not particularly sophisticated but rather brute.
That's not necessarily bad, as it ads to the tension and needs to convey danger to the audience. While the show has the luxury of the audience already knowing that Hannibal is a dangerous man, and him being free don't need to rely as much on his brute nature to convey danger, and can spend much more time on showcasing him as intelligent and sophisticated.
The villain is pretty smart too, then. You only get to find out what he did through exposition, but the fact that he did it and kept it secret for years speaks to his abilities.
A few years ago a couple friends and I were talking about Cruise. Talking about if he will ever win an acting oscar. We agreed that if he did more roles like Collateral where his the villian he could have a chance.
He was pretty awesome in Vanilla Sky as well! Ya dude has a lot of range now that I think about it. Should do some more weird stuff again. I"m sure they could find a cool weird script for him where he still gets to actually ride a motorcycle on the moon or something.
I won't discount that he is awesome in that role, but is his character really "ultraintelligent"?
Seems to me like he's making one unintelligent choice after another as the movie goes on...
The fact that keeps on forcing Max to do his bidding, while clearly knowing just how unsuited Max is for the job, makes him seem kinda stupid.
Obviously makes for a great movie of course, but yeah, doesn't seem like he's ultraintelligent to me.
Especially when it's implied that Vincent never fails a job.
I take some issue with calling Max unsuited for the job, but part of what makes Vincent fascinating is his seemingly genuine interest in Max. He’s not stupid, he’s… complex.
"Im not a comic book villain. Do you seriously think I'd explain my master stroke to you if there was even the slightest possibility you could affect the outcome?
I triggered it thirty five minutes ago."
When Rorschach and Night Owl II are walking from the Archie crash to Ozymandias’s lair you see a flash in the windows… pretty sure that’s when he teleports the nuclear device.
There's real debate there if Ozymandias was the villian per se. He was the only one willing to do anything to stop the apocalypse, while everyone else lamented about the past and being unable to do anything to affect the future.
Villains are not villains because they rationally understand a problem exist. It's their solutions for that problem that make them evil.
Ozymandias was supposed to be the smartest man in the world, but his solution to potential nuclear war is mass terrorism? That doesnt work long term. Now he has to keep commiting massacres every few years whenever a super power gets warmongery again.
He fucked around too long with his games though. I remember his right hand man saying something like 'just kill him already!' after Bruce and Sam had passed another test. Yup...should've. But, action movie and all. Still a solid movie of course
I watched it it’s fantastic. Andrew Scott makes him into an absolute shell of a human being just waiting to envelop someone and the cinematography is god tier
I just finished it a couple days ago. It is excellent and Andrew Scott gives an incredible performance. The black & white cinematography is some of the best I've ever seen on TV. It's like you can feel the age and decay of the Italian setting.
It's also really interesting as the show and movie tell the same story and hit the same beats along the way while being very different in tone and characterization. Scott's interpretation of Ripley is wildly separate from Damon's.
One of the best dialogue driven crime movies ever. I'm honestly surprised you've made it this long spoiler free, so you should watch it asap. It's currently on FreeVee and Prime. Easily on my top 10 favorite films of all time.
Good call. The film doesn't get a lot of love, but that final pan-out shot (as all the implications set in), has really stuck with me throughout the years.
Bro I remember this scene when I was a kid, when He giggles to himself that he has a better idea and Guy is like "are you stoned?" My clueless adolescent brain thought like the rock monster already got to him and he was acting weird because "stoned" or something. That's one of those movies that every rewatch when I was growing up unveiled a new thing I never picked up on.
Jurassic Park was like that too. There was a point where every conversation with the lawyer became way more interesting.
Sarris was so cool, legitimately threatening growing up despite being the villain in a comedy movie.
And on top of being cutthroat as hell and generally smart until his demise, the visual aspect stands up exceptionally even today I think.
It's been in development hell for a decade. The last update came a year ago (literally a year ago today) was it was a top priority after being halted by Covid.
Agreed, had to make that distinction. The first was more of a pseudo-supernatural villain and the other is freaking Moriarity, the epitome of archenemy/nemesis.
A real master of playing the long game! He had all the power in Phantom Menace but realized it could be undone still by the Jedi, so he waited for over a decade while the clone army grew to adulthood and he could seize even more complete power.
Ethan found a way to fight through the pain (by using his elbows or whatever). The M:I franchise has become Ethan facing an impossible situation, saying "I'll make it work" or "I'll figure out something" while having that thousand-yard stare, and then just operating at a superhuman level for 30 minutes. It's "Desperation: The Movie." Cruise nails desperation, so it works.
The OG smart villain, in literature at least, is Moriarty in Sherlock Holmes. Jared Harris does a great turn in Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows. I also really like Andrew Scott's version in the Sherlock TV series.
Honeslty, OG Moriarty isn’t really that big of a deal. He doesn’t appear much in actual Doyle stories and I don’t believe we really ever see his brilliant machinations in any detail. Holmes just says that he does them. It was only in later adaptations that Moriarty got fleshed out and used as a real foil for Holmes.
Most of the James Bond villains, actually. Most of them have evil schemes which were only foiled due to either an underling's screw-up or sheer dumb luck.
A good example of both is the plot of Thunderball, which is both. SPECTRE agent Count Lippe gets spooked when he meets Bond at the health club where their main infiltrator is recovering from plastic surgery to steal a NATO bomber loaded with nukes. He tries and fails to kill Bond, who starts investigating, finds the corpse of the man Angelo was impersonating and followed him to the villains.
For an example of an underling screwing up, look at From Russia, With Love. The SPECTRE scheme to kill Bond, steal a lektor and embarrass MI-6 as revenge for killing Dr No wad very nearly a resounding success and would've gone off without a hitch... but Red Grant blowing his cover identity with his choice of wine and then gloating about the entire plan, plus trying to rob Bond blind completely totalled the mission.
For an example of sheer, dumb luck, look at Moonraker. As Hugo Drax gripes to Bond towards the end, the theft of an in-service Moonraker rocket was because a mechanical fault meant one of the rockets Drax built in secret was unusable so they stole one from the British government instead.
Not do disagree but I always saw No Country as battle between absolute ruthlessness (Chigurh) and exhausted justice (Ed Tom Bell) and why regular folks don't want to get in between them (Llewelyn). The way the chase of the story just fizzles out is perfectly in keeping with the tone of the film. I'd sum it up as zero empathy vs. maximum entropy.
I agree, Chigurh is definitely an intelligent character but the reason of his success is ruthlessness and an indifference towards casualties. People who doesn't care about the others' lives can be extremely efficient at times and the point of the story is that you just can't fight it with empathy. And that is extremely depressing to think about...
That's astute. Chigurh is intelligent, mostly in knowing human behaviour and how brute force is very effective. The suddenness and unexpected nature of how he manifests that brutality keeps him from being out-guessed or predictable.
Ed Tom Bell is a good lawman. He sorts out what Lewlelyn is all about pretty quickly but what he finds in the wake of Chigurh is nearly incomprehensible to him. As you say: motivation, yes but humanity, no.
Yup. Chigurh may pretend to have a code, but the only one he cares about is making sure he's never caught or witnessed. He was ready to cap the office manager of the trailer park before he heard someone in the bathroom.
One of those things where it seems ridiculous the first time you see it, but eventually you realize that the point is to read Westley’s poker face.
He only really made one key mistake. When death is on the line, it comes down to who can out-cheat the other. He agreed to play more or less entirely on his opponent’s terms.
From what I remember, in the book Wesley looks genuinely worried and intimidated in this scene - and afterwards, you realize he was playing Vizzini with that, so he was outsmarting him on two levels. Thought that was interesting. It made sense to change it, as Vizzini goes on his rant much longer in the book.
Finding out the strudel scene and creme scene was more than just an awkward moment, but forcing the girl he suspected of being an escaped jew to consume pig lard was a level unto itself.
A priest and a rabbi are talking, and the priest says, "You're really missing out, not eating pork products. Haven't you even tried it at least once?"
The rabbi replies, "Hmm. Yes, I did once try a piece of ham. It was pretty good, but not enough for me to eat it on a regular basis. But come, how about your vow of celibacy? Haven't you ever been tempted?"
The priest blushes and says, "When I was younger I was sorely tempted, and I admit, I did ... try ... a little."
The rabbi smiles at him kindly and says, "It's better than ham, isn't it?"
Technically Thanos did as well. They had to discover a time travel option to be able to beat him and still the chance of beating him was still about 1 in 14 million
I feel like they came up with that 1 in 14 million line because it sounds cool, and didn't expect the fans to get so obsessed with it. Because obviously given the situation, it seems extremely unlikely that it would take 14 million iterations for one to work out. Especially given how we see Ultron just murder Thanos in "what if", Strange could have just cut off his head with a portal or something while he was incapacitated.
Yeah, there was a few times when it required massive fuck ups by the avengers to lose to thanos in endgame. Multiple throws. There's definitely more than literally one outcome that has them winning.
But it has to be 1 so stark knows he has so die instead of just flying away with the stones while everyone else just finished that fight which thanos and co were fucked for.
Zemo made the Falcon as good a show as it was.
I mean, Mackie killed the title role, but you know the saying, a hero is only as good as their villain. And the Flag Smashers being the typical "woops we made our villain the good guy so here's your atrocity" would have sunk the show without the Zemo/Sam relationship.
That wasn't his mistake.
His mistake was letting himself be so easily manipulated into that nebula by Kirk. His arrogance blinded him. Even his lieutenant knew better.
More like everything from 3-7 takes place close to each other. The other films are months, if not several years apart. And those four movies also take place within a month or two.
I thought Zemo from Captain America Civil War was pretty intelligent.
He's a man who knows he can't fight a superhero, he'll lose easily. But he carefully crafts a way to make them turn on each other and bring about damage and tensions that is far more long lasting than any other singular attack someone like him could do.
I rate Die Hard for this. I don't know if Hanz was "hyper" intelligent, but he made a complex yet reasonable plan and when issues arose, he troubleshooted them in a serious, sensible manner. Obviously he didn't succeed but every action he took clearly improved his chances of success.
I really like Moriarty in second Sherlock movie. That actor really sold it, gritty, smart, textured acting. Though I don't think movie was particularly well received.
Superman: the movie. Gene Hackman’s Lex Luther is cartoonish but diabolically ahead of the curve. His plan would have worked if it wasn’t for Miss Tessmocker’s mother living in Hackensack NJ.
Forgive me for mentioning a TV series but it's the best example I can think of.
Season 1 of Jessica Jones, the Marvel show from Netflix, has one of the scariest, and smartest villains of American media that I can think of. Genuinely creepy and is acted and written very well I think.
Silence of the lambs, or any of the Hannibal movies in that series.
I was thoroughly disappointed when I saw Ridley Scott's *Hannibal* because it kinda took away from Lecter's intellect. In *Silence of the Lambs* he was a calm and ominous. In *Hannibal* he was a man who said catchphrases before slicing someone's throat.
I feel like I keep seeing “Ridley Scott” and “disappointed” in the same sentence
He is the epitome of hit or miss.
As far as i'm concerned, it's miss, miss or hit. I'll never complain about the production design, camera or sound of his movies, but his scripts (and they are his, he meddles in all of them, no matter who the scriptwriter is) fall flat too often
Ehh, this one possibly not so much. I remember, and I could be talking out my ass here, a lot of rumor back before the the novel of Hannibal was published that the author, Thomas Harris, was VERY unhappy that he had to write a sequel to Silence. The novel (which has a significantly worse ending than the movie in terms of quality) always felt to me like a fuck you to the modern grind of storytelling than a legitimate passion project.
Because while he knows how to make a movie pretty, his choice of scripts are 50/50. I still haven't forgiven him for what he did with Prometheus and Alien Covenant, extremely braindead characters mixed with fantastic sci-fi visuals.
Didn't he just say "good evening" when he slashed the guy's throat? Hardly a catchphrase
i think he said "***knife*** to meet you!"
"You sir, have the boorish manners of a Yalie."
In Hannibal, I think that Mason Verger’s plan is one of the sickiest and the most intelligent one in a movie ! If you have the occasion to see it again, you realize that all of the things that happen to Clarice is Verger’s plan !!!
“Time to Hannibal ya!” 🔪🔪🔪
“It was SLICE to meet you!”
The Hannibal Show as well.
Yes! I think as amazing as the movie is, the TV Hannibal is even better. Mads manages to come across as sophisticated, highly intelligent, ruthless and completely alien, and manages to make you root for him despite it all. Probably my favorite fictional villain portrayal ever. Season 3 was underwhelming, but I'm still really sad we never got season 4 (so far?).
I actually lost interest early on in season 3 and could never finish it, but the first two seasons are extremely great. I didnt watch the movies until after the show actually, but I find in them Hannibal, though is portrayed as intelligent more comes over as an animal, not particularly sophisticated but rather brute. That's not necessarily bad, as it ads to the tension and needs to convey danger to the audience. While the show has the luxury of the audience already knowing that Hannibal is a dangerous man, and him being free don't need to rely as much on his brute nature to convey danger, and can spend much more time on showcasing him as intelligent and sophisticated.
Inside Man
My first thought as well. Clive Owen owned that movie.
I’d argue he’s not the villain, though.
The villain is pretty smart too, then. You only get to find out what he did through exposition, but the fact that he did it and kept it secret for years speaks to his abilities.
Denzel turned his boot sideways and stuck it up straight up Christopher Plummer's ass.
Who is the Villain?
The are still bank robbers and hold dozens of people hostage
The character Tom Cruise plays in 'Collateral'. Such a good role.
Tom cruise is actually quite scary in that one
Him at his most honest lol
His direction was "just be yourself"
*“I do this for a living!”* Easily made one of most mundane phrases into a threat
A few years ago a couple friends and I were talking about Cruise. Talking about if he will ever win an acting oscar. We agreed that if he did more roles like Collateral where his the villian he could have a chance.
More like Magnolia :)
He was pretty awesome in Vanilla Sky as well! Ya dude has a lot of range now that I think about it. Should do some more weird stuff again. I"m sure they could find a cool weird script for him where he still gets to actually ride a motorcycle on the moon or something.
I won't discount that he is awesome in that role, but is his character really "ultraintelligent"? Seems to me like he's making one unintelligent choice after another as the movie goes on... The fact that keeps on forcing Max to do his bidding, while clearly knowing just how unsuited Max is for the job, makes him seem kinda stupid. Obviously makes for a great movie of course, but yeah, doesn't seem like he's ultraintelligent to me. Especially when it's implied that Vincent never fails a job.
I take some issue with calling Max unsuited for the job, but part of what makes Vincent fascinating is his seemingly genuine interest in Max. He’s not stupid, he’s… complex.
Watchmen, Unbreakable.
"Im not a comic book villain. Do you seriously think I'd explain my master stroke to you if there was even the slightest possibility you could affect the outcome? I triggered it thirty five minutes ago."
Hit like like a ton of bricks
The dialogue, *chef's kiss*
I love how you see him hit the button earlier too. Just seems a lot more mundane without context
When Rorschach and Night Owl II are walking from the Archie crash to Ozymandias’s lair you see a flash in the windows… pretty sure that’s when he teleports the nuclear device.
Dan, grow up.
I was like “ohhhhhhhhhhhh” after he said that
Watchmen was my first thought.
Yeah, >!Ozymandias wins, and pretty decisively, including beating a man who can see all past/present/future at once.!<
There's real debate there if Ozymandias was the villian per se. He was the only one willing to do anything to stop the apocalypse, while everyone else lamented about the past and being unable to do anything to affect the future.
You can be right and still be the villain
Everyone's the hero from their point of view.
He did kinda kill half of new york though
And Moscow and a couple other places I thought
Villains are not villains because they rationally understand a problem exist. It's their solutions for that problem that make them evil. Ozymandias was supposed to be the smartest man in the world, but his solution to potential nuclear war is mass terrorism? That doesnt work long term. Now he has to keep commiting massacres every few years whenever a super power gets warmongery again.
Mr glass wasn't even smart for finding a guy with powers, he rigged terrorist attacks to look like accidents while in crutches
He was sifting for gold, and human lives were the dirt.
Ooh that’s a brilliant way to put it. Cold. But brilliant.
Die Hard
Die Hard with a Vengeance
He fucked around too long with his games though. I remember his right hand man saying something like 'just kill him already!' after Bruce and Sam had passed another test. Yup...should've. But, action movie and all. Still a solid movie of course
Intelligence and hubris pair pretty well together.
? The villain is just an ordinary thief
He is an EXCEPTIONAL thief! And since he’s moving up to kidnapping, YOU should be more polite!
Tight.
No, that's Tuco.
I mean, had McLane not interfered he probably would have gotten away cleanly. It was a pretty good plan to start.
I was referencing the movie
The Talented Mr. Ripley
One of my all time favourite films. Netflix have made a new TV series based on the book! I am so keen to watch it.
I watched it it’s fantastic. Andrew Scott makes him into an absolute shell of a human being just waiting to envelop someone and the cinematography is god tier
I just finished it a couple days ago. It is excellent and Andrew Scott gives an incredible performance. The black & white cinematography is some of the best I've ever seen on TV. It's like you can feel the age and decay of the Italian setting. It's also really interesting as the show and movie tell the same story and hit the same beats along the way while being very different in tone and characterization. Scott's interpretation of Ripley is wildly separate from Damon's.
Usual Suspects
"How do you shoot the devil in the back, Agent Kujan? What if you miss?"
I used to sing in this barbershop quartet...
In Skokie, Illinois.....
I mean orca fat
Name was Redfoot.
Kobayashi.. Kobayashi..
Back when I was picking beans in Guatemala…
Can’t believe I still haven’t seen this movie
One of the best dialogue driven crime movies ever. I'm honestly surprised you've made it this long spoiler free, so you should watch it asap. It's currently on FreeVee and Prime. Easily on my top 10 favorite films of all time.
Go in as blind as possible, it's a fun ride if you don't know what's coming. Even the actors got fooled by it.
Kaiser Soze is a great villian. Mr. Kubiashi is chilling as his lieutenant.
"A most gruesome violation"
Arlington road
Good call. The film doesn't get a lot of love, but that final pan-out shot (as all the implications set in), has really stuck with me throughout the years.
"we're all authorised to be here. Everyone except... you"
“Boom.”
That movie should be way more famous. So brutal in its bleakness.
“Se7en” “Primal Fear”
SeSevenEn
Sarris in Galaxy Quest is only defeated because the hero’s had a time travel device.
>It seems I'm not as stupid as I am ugly. Commander.
Maybe you could be the plucky comic relief?
Bro I remember this scene when I was a kid, when He giggles to himself that he has a better idea and Guy is like "are you stoned?" My clueless adolescent brain thought like the rock monster already got to him and he was acting weird because "stoned" or something. That's one of those movies that every rewatch when I was growing up unveiled a new thing I never picked up on. Jurassic Park was like that too. There was a point where every conversation with the lawyer became way more interesting.
Well, that and an unexpectedly mobile mine field.
That’s how real sea mines work
By Grabthar’s Hammer, you are right!
What a saving.
Sarris was so cool, legitimately threatening growing up despite being the villain in a comedy movie. And on top of being cutthroat as hell and generally smart until his demise, the visual aspect stands up exceptionally even today I think.
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
The RDJ Sherlock Holmes movies were so much fun. I really hate that we never got a third one.
A third one has apparently been in development for a long ass time
It's been in development hell for a decade. The last update came a year ago (literally a year ago today) was it was a top priority after being halted by Covid.
Come now. Did you really think you were the only one who could play this game?
Easily the coolest thing, that ‘reveal’.
I remember someone in the audience audibly gasping.
Discombobulate
Outlook unfavourable.
Glad someone said this. I also like the first movie's villain, though obviously the second one is more of a "genius"
Agreed, had to make that distinction. The first was more of a pseudo-supernatural villain and the other is freaking Moriarity, the epitome of archenemy/nemesis.
Does prequel-era palpatine count? Mans played all sides and put himself in power all while coming out looking like a hero of the masses
Yes, for sure!
A real master of playing the long game! He had all the power in Phantom Menace but realized it could be undone still by the Jedi, so he waited for over a decade while the clone army grew to adulthood and he could seize even more complete power.
Mission Impossible 3
Hoffman was *terrifying* in that role, it was awesome
It was refreshing to see a villian win. Even just a little.
His low, guttural voice and dead-eyed stare made him so menacing.
This is top notch. He only lost because he got cocky.
Ethan found a way to fight through the pain (by using his elbows or whatever). The M:I franchise has become Ethan facing an impossible situation, saying "I'll make it work" or "I'll figure out something" while having that thousand-yard stare, and then just operating at a superhuman level for 30 minutes. It's "Desperation: The Movie." Cruise nails desperation, so it works.
He was the most believable bad guy I've seen. Completely ruthless.
Owen Davian is such a great bad guy name.
And acted superbly by Hoffman. I didn’t know he could be such a despicable character.
That had not occurred to us dude
Solomon Lane rocks too
August Walker is pretty baller as well
The OG smart villain, in literature at least, is Moriarty in Sherlock Holmes. Jared Harris does a great turn in Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows. I also really like Andrew Scott's version in the Sherlock TV series.
Honeslty, OG Moriarty isn’t really that big of a deal. He doesn’t appear much in actual Doyle stories and I don’t believe we really ever see his brilliant machinations in any detail. Holmes just says that he does them. It was only in later adaptations that Moriarty got fleshed out and used as a real foil for Holmes.
Most of the James Bond villains, actually. Most of them have evil schemes which were only foiled due to either an underling's screw-up or sheer dumb luck. A good example of both is the plot of Thunderball, which is both. SPECTRE agent Count Lippe gets spooked when he meets Bond at the health club where their main infiltrator is recovering from plastic surgery to steal a NATO bomber loaded with nukes. He tries and fails to kill Bond, who starts investigating, finds the corpse of the man Angelo was impersonating and followed him to the villains. For an example of an underling screwing up, look at From Russia, With Love. The SPECTRE scheme to kill Bond, steal a lektor and embarrass MI-6 as revenge for killing Dr No wad very nearly a resounding success and would've gone off without a hitch... but Red Grant blowing his cover identity with his choice of wine and then gloating about the entire plan, plus trying to rob Bond blind completely totalled the mission. For an example of sheer, dumb luck, look at Moonraker. As Hugo Drax gripes to Bond towards the end, the theft of an in-service Moonraker rocket was because a mechanical fault meant one of the rockets Drax built in secret was unusable so they stole one from the British government instead.
Desperate Measures
No Country for Old Men
Not do disagree but I always saw No Country as battle between absolute ruthlessness (Chigurh) and exhausted justice (Ed Tom Bell) and why regular folks don't want to get in between them (Llewelyn). The way the chase of the story just fizzles out is perfectly in keeping with the tone of the film. I'd sum it up as zero empathy vs. maximum entropy.
I agree, Chigurh is definitely an intelligent character but the reason of his success is ruthlessness and an indifference towards casualties. People who doesn't care about the others' lives can be extremely efficient at times and the point of the story is that you just can't fight it with empathy. And that is extremely depressing to think about...
That's astute. Chigurh is intelligent, mostly in knowing human behaviour and how brute force is very effective. The suddenness and unexpected nature of how he manifests that brutality keeps him from being out-guessed or predictable. Ed Tom Bell is a good lawman. He sorts out what Lewlelyn is all about pretty quickly but what he finds in the wake of Chigurh is nearly incomprehensible to him. As you say: motivation, yes but humanity, no.
Well said. Such a great movie. Everytime i see it mentioned i can't get it out of my head.
Yup. Chigurh may pretend to have a code, but the only one he cares about is making sure he's never caught or witnessed. He was ready to cap the office manager of the trailer park before he heard someone in the bathroom.
Vizzini in The Princess Bride
Never go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line!
One of those things where it seems ridiculous the first time you see it, but eventually you realize that the point is to read Westley’s poker face. He only really made one key mistake. When death is on the line, it comes down to who can out-cheat the other. He agreed to play more or less entirely on his opponent’s terms.
From what I remember, in the book Wesley looks genuinely worried and intimidated in this scene - and afterwards, you realize he was playing Vizzini with that, so he was outsmarting him on two levels. Thought that was interesting. It made sense to change it, as Vizzini goes on his rant much longer in the book.
Inglorious Basterds One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
Christoph Waltz played an uber-Nazi in one film and an anti-Nazi in another, and won an Oscar for both
Finding out the strudel scene and creme scene was more than just an awkward moment, but forcing the girl he suspected of being an escaped jew to consume pig lard was a level unto itself.
A priest and a rabbi are talking, and the priest says, "You're really missing out, not eating pork products. Haven't you even tried it at least once?" The rabbi replies, "Hmm. Yes, I did once try a piece of ham. It was pretty good, but not enough for me to eat it on a regular basis. But come, how about your vow of celibacy? Haven't you ever been tempted?" The priest blushes and says, "When I was younger I was sorely tempted, and I admit, I did ... try ... a little." The rabbi smiles at him kindly and says, "It's better than ham, isn't it?"
Damn, I missed that one. Landa was such a sadist.
Zemo. Top mcu villain
Yea, the way he orchestrated the Civil War was brilliant. Good move on the writer for deviating from the source material to what showed on screen.
I really think they needed to kill a hero off to really have nailed that script.
Not necessarily. It split them, but left a pathway back. If you kill one off you kill the pathway.
The BEST. He literally succeeded in all og his plans
Technically Thanos did as well. They had to discover a time travel option to be able to beat him and still the chance of beating him was still about 1 in 14 million
I feel like they came up with that 1 in 14 million line because it sounds cool, and didn't expect the fans to get so obsessed with it. Because obviously given the situation, it seems extremely unlikely that it would take 14 million iterations for one to work out. Especially given how we see Ultron just murder Thanos in "what if", Strange could have just cut off his head with a portal or something while he was incapacitated.
Yeah, there was a few times when it required massive fuck ups by the avengers to lose to thanos in endgame. Multiple throws. There's definitely more than literally one outcome that has them winning. But it has to be 1 so stark knows he has so die instead of just flying away with the stones while everyone else just finished that fight which thanos and co were fucked for.
Yes, i'd agree. Though, Zemo succeded literally, Thanos "only" technically
Zemo made the Falcon as good a show as it was. I mean, Mackie killed the title role, but you know the saying, a hero is only as good as their villain. And the Flag Smashers being the typical "woops we made our villain the good guy so here's your atrocity" would have sunk the show without the Zemo/Sam relationship.
Yeah that series is all over the place. The parts with Zemo, Falcon and Bucky are great. The flag smasher stuff just falls flat.
Oldboy (2003)
Star Trek. Khan
He was beaten because he didn't know you could move around in 3 dimensions in space.... that's not exactly genius caliber right there
TBF, most of the time the writers of Star Trek forget you can move around in three dimensions in space
That wasn't his mistake. His mistake was letting himself be so easily manipulated into that nebula by Kirk. His arrogance blinded him. Even his lieutenant knew better.
I mean, Spock stated while he is brilliant, he was untrained, which gave an actual Starfleet crew an advantage.
Also he let his hubris get the better of him.
From hells heart, I stab at thee.
He tasks me!
He was intelligent, but not experienced...
So my cat is khan?
He has been stranded in an isolated planet all his life so excuse him for only being able to move in two dimensions.
You’re saying it wrong. It’s, “KHAAAAAAAANNNN!!!!!”
Megamind
Oh you're a Villian alright, but not a SUPER Villain. What's the difference? PRESENTATION!!
Seems like the kind of movie you'd watch with a fine Chianti. And maybe some fava beans...
Check out the fun bags on that hose hound!
Is nobody gunna say Deep Blue Sea? Come on... its got ultra intelligent villainous sharks!
"DEEPEST! BLUEST! ***[MY HAT IS LIKE A SHARK'S FIN!!](https://youtu.be/i7HnCPz658s?si=367JFnaO0jUJeHto)***" 🧢🦈
The Secret of NIMH - Jenner is pretty clever & cunning.
Silence of the Lambs.
Jigsaw from, well... Saw. One hell of an strategic mind and planner. It gets ridiculous in later films.
The ability to predict and plan around how different situations will unfold is pure genius. Or lazy and unrealistic writing.
The best part of Saw series is it taking place over the course of like 12 days lmao
No the best part is the de aging baseball cap.
Like the whole series?
Yeah, he right more or less. Not the whole series and every movies… but several of the movies overlap on literally the same day.
Long days for that little puppet
More like everything from 3-7 takes place close to each other. The other films are months, if not several years apart. And those four movies also take place within a month or two.
I thought Zemo from Captain America Civil War was pretty intelligent. He's a man who knows he can't fight a superhero, he'll lose easily. But he carefully crafts a way to make them turn on each other and bring about damage and tensions that is far more long lasting than any other singular attack someone like him could do.
Watchmen. Superman.
I rate Die Hard for this. I don't know if Hanz was "hyper" intelligent, but he made a complex yet reasonable plan and when issues arose, he troubleshooted them in a serious, sensible manner. Obviously he didn't succeed but every action he took clearly improved his chances of success.
Mission Impossible 3 RIP Hoffman
Law Abiding Citizen, also makes you kinda root for the villain
I wish they kept the original ending.
yep, the ending we got is dogshit
I really like Moriarty in second Sherlock movie. That actor really sold it, gritty, smart, textured acting. Though I don't think movie was particularly well received.
Limitless _should_ have had super intelligent protagonist and villain, but somehow they're not.
Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows. Moriarty cooks with jet fuel in that film.
Shoot em up
Fracture, with Ryan Gosling. Hopkins plays a guy almost murders his wife and exploits the legal system to get away with it. Really good movie
Point Break's Bodhi was smarter than many realize.
Superman: the movie. Gene Hackman’s Lex Luther is cartoonish but diabolically ahead of the curve. His plan would have worked if it wasn’t for Miss Tessmocker’s mother living in Hackensack NJ.
Forgive me for mentioning a TV series but it's the best example I can think of. Season 1 of Jessica Jones, the Marvel show from Netflix, has one of the scariest, and smartest villains of American media that I can think of. Genuinely creepy and is acted and written very well I think.
All of the best American villains are British guys
I Care A Lot
Serenity with "The Operative"
HAL from 2001 a space odyssey
Syndrome from The Incredibles