Best and Worst Villains in a Comic Book Movie?

[The Borgified Corpse]

Best? I'll be a little different and say Lord High Chancellor Adam Sutler, not to mention his amoral right-hand-man Mr. Creedy, in V for Vendetta. I love John Hurt's performance. He commands the screen even though he doesn't do much besides appear on a giant viewscreen and bark orders to his underlings. Still, it's John-fucking-Hurt!
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhsvmY3Q9cY[/yt]

For worst, what about the smarmy corporate guy in Superman III? Imagine all the camp of 1970s Lex Luthor but without Gene Hackman's charm.

Dominic Purcell's version of Dracula in Blade Trinity is both one of the worst comic book movies ever and one of the worst Draculas ever (tied with Richard Roxburgh's godawful whiner in Van Helsing).

 

[Harvey]

Heath Ledger's interpretation of The Joker will be the benchmark performance for a villain in a superhero movie for some time to come, I imagine. He's magnetic to the point that it's hard to see the movie's flaws.

Jeep Swenson's version of Bane in Batman & Robin is on the bottom. I agree that Tommy Lee Jones' Two Face was basically thrown away, but compared to the next movie's treatment of Bane, Jones was the star of the show.

 

[Kirkman1987]

I like General Zod.

 

[Greg Cox]

Good: The Dak Knight's Joker
Worst: "Nuclear Man" from Superman IV.

Ouch. I forgot all about Nuclear Man. Yeah, that was bad.

 

[Captaindemotion]

Best: Heath Ledger's Joker, Ian McKellen's Magneto, honourable mention for Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin

Worst: Tommy Lee Jones' Two-Face, Julian McMahon's Doctor Doom, Nuclear Man from Superman III

 

[Trekker4747]

Good: The Dak Knight's Joker
Worst: "Nuclear Man" from Superman IV.

Ouch. I forgot all about Nuclear Man. Yeah, that was bad.

I wish... I wish I could forget. My therapist hopes that someday we'll get there but it's a very long road.

 

[Set Harth]

My therapist hopes that someday we'll get there but it's a very long toad.

Wow, I didn't know they could be therapists.

 

[JaxsBrokenHeart]

Bit of an odd choice, but I always found that Shredder from the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles worked really well, making a one-shot character from the comics, and more of a comic buffoon from the TV series into a genuinely evil and intimidating antagonist. Looking back on the film, some his stuff descends into cliche at times, but its still a strong performance.

The thing I love in the ending is that the film really builds up the Turtles as fighters, then have the big face-off with Shredder... and he just wipes the floor with them in the fight. Takes his time, waits for them to plan, and still just takes them out easily. It leads to a solid ending though with Splinter essentially goading him into self-destruction, and Casey Jones doing the finishing touches. In hindsight they would have better off leaving him dead, and going with another villain for the sequel.

 

[Captaindemotion]

My therapist hopes that someday we'll get there but it's a very long toad.

Wow, I didn't know they could be therapists.

You know what happens toads when they become therapists?

Same thing that happens everyone else!

 

[scnj]

The first half was great and the changes with how they made him Two Face worked, but he's a villain who deserves more than being an after thought in the Joker movie. And then killing him at the end in that way was lame.

I disagree. The transformation of Harvey Dent was the pivotal moment of the whole thing. The entire film was Bruce's quest to see Harvey Dent take over as the crusader for justice, and Joker's plan to corrupt Gotham's "white knight". Dent/Two Face is the most important character in the whole thing.

 

[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/08_20_11_Marvel/Top10_MarvelVillains.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]

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]

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]

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...

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]

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...

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).