Best and Worst Villains in a Comic Book Movie?

[Anwar]

I just wish we knew WHY Dent was such a "White Knight". Jim Gordon is a much better candidate for that post, he puts up with a lot worse stuff than Dent. Why was Dent so much better loved and respected and considered "better" than Gordon?

In fact, in the original story that they based the whole "Joker tries to corrupt good guy" plot off of, he WAS trying to make Gordon crazy.

[Trek4Ever]

I found this interesting top ten list online for movie villains:
http://www.starloggers.com/archives/...lVillains.html

For best villain I would have to go with Heath Ledger's Joker and Aaron Eckhardt's Two-Face for DC and Al Molina's Doctor Octopus and Tom Middleston's Loki for Marvel.
As for the worst with DC it's a tossup between Nuclear Man and Tommy Lee Jones' Two-Face and the absolute worst Marvel villains has to be Jigsaw from The PUnisher War Zone and Galactus-all they showed was a storm cloud!

[captcalhoun]

^Hiddleston, not Middleston.

[Trekker4747]

Anwar wrote:

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I just wish we knew WHY Dent was such a "White Knight". Jim Gordon is a much better candidate for that post, he puts up with a lot worse stuff than Dent. Why was Dent so much better loved and respected and considered "better" than Gordon?

In fact, in the original story that they based the whole "Joker tries to corrupt good guy" plot off of, he WAS trying to make Gordon crazy.

Gordon (and the police) arrest the bad guys and that's as far as their job has to go. Dent, as the DA, has to build the case against them to put them in jail. That makes his role in the process a bit more important.

[Captaindemotion]

I assumed also that as a DA, Dent had a higher profile than Gordon, who was a street cop for the first part of TDKR; he didn't become Chief until the previous incumbent was assassinated.

[Ian Keldon]

Greg Cox wrote:

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Well, the most wasted Comic Book Villain has to be Doctor Doom. The FF movies work as fun family films to some extent, but there's no denying that they completely dropped the ball with Doom. Turning a classic, larger-than-life super-villain into just another smarmy corporate type is like turning Goldfinger into a crooked accountant!

Greg, the rule of LA superhero films is "pull it back, make it 'more real' ". Classic Doom straight out of the comic would go over like a lead balloon. That was one of the problems Green Lantern had...too "comic book".

The superhero LA films that work have all "pulled it back", if they weren't already fairly well grounded. That's why they lost the "Shakespear-ian" Thor dialogue. Conversely, that's why Iron Man stands out as being really good...not a lot to pull back. The suit is "super tech" to be sure, but sci-fi gets more leeway and Iron Man comes off more as sci-fi than "capes and tights".

My noms for Best and Worst:

Best - Magneto in First Class

Worst - Blackheart (Ghost Rider)

[the G-man]

Ian Keldon wrote:

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Greg, the rule of LA superhero films is "pull it back, make it 'more real' ". Classic Doom straight out of the comic would go over like a lead balloon...

Really?

Two words: Darth.Vader.

[Turtletrekker]

^Exactly.

And Julian McMahon's Doom went over like a lead balloon anyway, so they couldn't have possibly have done any worse by portraying Doom accurately.

I am one of the few people that genuinely loved the Roger Corman FF movie. Yes, as poorly scripted, badly acted and as cheesy as the effects were, this movie still captured the feel of the FF much better than the big-budget monstrosities did, and the best part about it was Dr. Doom being portrayed magnificently over the top like he is supposed to be, by Joseph Culp.

[Greg Cox]

the G-man wrote:

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Really?

Two words: Darth.Vader.

Also: Lord Voldemort, Doctor Octopus, the Green Goblin, General Zod.

Green Lantern had its problems, but, IMHO being too comic-book wasn't the issue. Hell, look at the top-grossing movies out there: Avatar, Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, Transformers, Clash of the Titans, Star Wars, Spider-Man. Granted, they're all not technically "superhero" movies, but it's not like they're exactly grounded in reality. Hell, Avatar was about giant blue-skinned cat people on another planet. And the Spider-Man movies were huge successes even with flamboyant comic-book villains.

Heck, if the X-Men movies can get away with a naked blue shape-changer (among other things), I think an FF film can get away with an imperious masked monarch . . . .

"More realistic" doesn't necessarily equal better or more commercial. Audiences will accept wildly fantastic subject matter and performances if they're handled (or marketed) right.

(Oh, I confess it took me a second to realize that that "LA" was an abbreviation for "live-action." At first I kept wondering what Los Angeles had to do with it!)

[Anwar]

Odds are that they changed Doom from the Tyrant-Sorceror because at the time of the movie (2005?) he'd have come off as a Darth Vader knock-off, which is truly ironic as Doom was one of the major inspirations for Vader (Darkseid and Iron Man being the others).

[the G-man]

But as long as he's running around in a cape and metal mask you're going to get that possibility. So just embrace it.

No, more likely, it was a combination of a bad director, a small budget and Julian's vanity against playing someone where you couldn't see his 'pretty face'

[Greg Cox]

the G-man wrote:

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But as long as he's running around in a cape and metal mask you're going to get that possibility. So just embrace it.

No, more likely, it was a combination of a bad director, a small budget and Julian's vanity against playing someone where you couldn't see his 'pretty face'

There might have also been some desire to emulate the first Spider-Man movie. The Doom in the FF movie is more Norman Osborne than Victor Von Doom, right down to targeting his business rivals . . . .

[Captaindemotion]

^ Yeah, that's what I thought too.

I also doubt that McMahon, who was hardly a box-office draw, had sufficient clout to determine how much face time his character got. At one stage Tim Robbins was linked with the role of DD. Fair enough, someone as well known as him might have got to veto the mask, but it's unlikely that a primarily tv actor like McMahon could do so. He needed the role more than it needed him.

[Ian Keldon]

stj wrote:

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"It was acting!
The competition for worst is ferocious, but for sheer stupidity Sebastian Shaw in X-Men First Class has got to be considered. Killing a kid's mother is the foundation for a partnership in conquering the world?

His killing Magneto's mother has nothing to do with his founding of the Hellfire Club. They're separate events.

His superpowers disappear so that he can be killed by a slow moving coin?.

They didn't "disappear". Prof X was keeping him from using them.

[Ian Keldon]

the G-man wrote:

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Really?

Two words: Darth.Vader.

Is not a supervillain in a comic-book based movie.