I watched Last Action Hero (1993) last night, and it's a very mediocre film, but Charles Dance's villain is incredible. I feel like if the movie had been better on the whole, he could have gone down in history among great film baddies.
It got me thinking, what are some other movies that are bad to middling but have excellent bad guys?
Yeah, he did a damn good job.
Law abiding citizen. Really murky film in which most viewers including myself see the main antagonist as the main protagonist.
My memory may be foggy, but I thought that movie was underrated.
The Great Toppler of world governments and the main brain in the XXX agencies gets outsmarted by a measly detective. Yeah, this happens every day.
Street Fighter: The Movie with Raul Julia.
The Dark Knight Rises. The bar set by The Dark Knight essentially guaranteed that the movie wouldn't be well-received, but I thought Bane was very good.
Avengers: Age of Ultron. One of the weaker MCU films, but Ultron was fantastic (they did him dirty though, he was very weak by MCU villain standards), and James Spader did a... Marvelous job (I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself).
I'm going to pair these next two together, because I think the context is needed. Both Johnny Depp and Mads Mickelsen did an incredible job in The Crimes of Grindelwald and the Secrets of Dumbledore, even if the movies themselves weren't... Fantastic (seriously, I might have a problem).
Finally... Count Dooku was the best aspect of Attack of the Clones.
I disagree on your final point.
The best part of Attack of the Clones was "Across the Stars" and its variations.
Let's be real though... Has John Williams ever done anything poorly?
I didn't much care for the score of The Force Awakens, to be honest.
Robin Hood Prince of Thieves and Gangs of New York immediately come to mind for me.
Alan Rickman plays the baddie so good. Just do the listen to his answering machine
As much as I love Masters of the Universe, Frank Langella far and away stole every scene he was in and was the best part of the movie.
That movie could have been so much better. I still love it because I grew up during that era and 5 year old me almost lost my mind at how awesome it seemed. But they coulda done so much better.
Black Mask (Ewan McGregor) in Birds of Prey
The Dark Knight. Not bad, but definitely "middling" in my opinion. Heath Ledger's performance is what makes it worthwhile. Bale's Batman isn't worthy of that quality of nemesis.
At first I didn't like him in the movie, but as it moved along I did a 360.
It's a one-eighty you spaghetti-slurping moron.
Honorable mention here to F. Murray Abraham in this film as well...
"I killed a lot of guys."
Highlander is a trash film without Clancy brown.
Art the Clown
Both movies are good fun with some amazing moments, but there's a AAA+ horror in there somewhere that hasn't been reached yet
Hopefully they experiment a little within the franchise. Two splatter movies could have a straight 90 min horror as a palette cleanser
Alex Cross. I couldn't be bothered to finish the movie, but Matthew Perry's character was the sole bright spot (and it was a faint one, to be sure).
Star Wars. Han was cool. Vader was brutal, crushing throats all the time
[deleted]
Bunker. No one has seen it because it just debuted at a local theater but it does have a YouTube trailer. The bad guy made the movie watchable and outshined the lead
[deleted]
[deleted]
both Kevin Spacey and the Irish guy in Horrible Bosses.
Wait, by Irish guy, do you mean Colin Farrell
Ewan McGregor in Angels and Demons
[deleted]
ryschwith t1_iujoioq wrote
Sam Rockwell in Iron Man 2 (even though I like that movie more than most).