Top 11 Most Disappointing Villains

It’s the return of my top whatever villains list! I have put together a top 11 adapted villains and a top 11 comic villains list, but I haven’t been motivated to do those yet. Maybe this list will get me in the mood again? Hmm, we’ll see. This list consists of the most disappointing villains. I will repeat that, the most disappointing, not necessarily the worst. These are the villains who had a lot of promise, but fell short of the final hurdle. Actually, let’s face it, the first hurdle.

So here it is, my top eleven most disappointing villains list.

11. Freddy Krueger – Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

And we start off with the same character who started off the ‘Top 11 Best Movie Villains’ list. And wow. Just wow. First of all, this Jackie Earle Haley Freddy has nothing on the Robert Englund Freddy. Haley was a great choice to succeed Englund though, but, dear God.

Firstly, Freddy’s face. It looked awful, just awful. And these effects were done by the same people who did Two-Face’s in ‘The Dark Knight’, which actually looked good! And unlike the build up we get in the original, we see it outright. I guess it’s because we’ve already seen it in the previous eight films. Secondly, this Freddy is just a shell of his former self. Yes, while the Englund Freddy got more comical as the series went on, he was still scary, he still had a reason to be terrifying. The Haley Freddy is just bland and did a ‘Dalek’ where Freddy whined and cried. Heck, remake Freddy steals original Freddy’s lines! Including “I’m your boyfriend now” (A Nightmare on Elm Street) and “How’s this for a wet dream?” (Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Master).

Most of all, the remake focused more on the supposed innocence of Freddy. In the remake we’re told that he was a child molester who got off because of no evidence. Therefore Freddy is killing the kids because they told lies which killed them. This, of course, turns out to be complete bull and he really did molest them. This isn’t really what bugged me as that’s what Wes Craven originally wanted to (He changed it because of recent high profiled child molestation cases in California), it’s just, you’re really trying to pull that off? You showed us his face because we’ve already seen it in the other eight films, so what makes you think we’ll have forgotten that Freddy is actually evil? And that’s just for the hardcore Elm Street fans, what about new viewers? Freddy is innocent so he’s killing to prove his innocence? That makes no sense!

 

The Haley Freddy is just, overall, a lamer version of the Englund Freddy. Yes Haley was going uphill to start off with since Englund truly brought the character to life. But the remake Freddy is just so bland in comparison.

10. Galactus – Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

We all know who Galactus is, he’s a giant God-like being who eats planets and has tremendous powers. He created the Silver Surfer (Doug Jones, voiced by Laurence Fishburne), forcing him to select planets for his insatiable hunger. This guy made the Skrull hide their planet and the Watcher attempt to hide Earth out of fear. Galactus’ shadow alone deteriorates Saturn. And then Galactus finally arrives at Earth, where he will no doubt consume the planet...

Is Galactus a cloud?

I mean, a cloud? Earth is going to be consumed by a cloud? What happened to the Galactus who could effectively juggle the Earth with several other planets? Look at the normal Galactus; he’s intimidating, he’s majestic, he’s awe-inspiring. Then we look at him in his film debut, where he’s a Goddamn cloud! And apparently a bat made of fire. He’s either telling us rain is on its way, or he looks so damn cute!

Okay, maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, we know he consumes planets, so there’s no way the Fantastic Four can beat him; their only hope is the Silver Surfer. So we should in for a pretty huge climatic battle...

Did you just kill Galactus off in five seconds?

God damn it movie! Galactus is a God! You can’t just cast him aside like that! You did him perfectly until then; you told us what he’s capable of, you kept him unseen until the end (And for good reason), and even when we saw him as a cloud, those who know of Galactus know how powerful he is, then he goes down without a fight?!

You can see why he’s on this list right?

9. The Kraken and Hades – Clash of the Titans (2010)

If you’ve seen my review for ‘Wrath of the Titans’, you...kind of know my feelings towards the remake. If you haven’t read or don’t care to remember, I did not like it. Bland acting, pointless 3D and some awful effects truly let that film down.

One thing I have to point out, is that in the original film, our heroes weren’t trying to save Argos, unlike the remake. Why? Because the Argos in the original was DESTROYED. By the Kraken. This was really effective as it showed us how dangerous the Kraken is, it showed how destructive and powerful the Kraken was.

The remake does not do this, so we really have no idea what the Kraken is capable of. And then when the Kraken is finally summoned, he takes about ten minutes before finally surfacing. And is then defeated five seconds later.

.......Whaaaaaaaaaat?

All that build up, all that that tension, and the Kraken does more damage while still being underwater? It’s the same as Galactus, we got hyped for nothing. And then we get to Hades.

In Ralph Fiennes defence, he did do a great job with his acting and he did actually almost succeed in his plan. I especially liked how his voice is quiet and low pitched when he was weak, which eventually got bolder and louder as he gained strength. But since we were robbed of a climactic battle with the Kraken, I’m guessing we’ll get one with Hades. I mean, Perseus (Sam Worthington) has been saying all film how he wants revenge against Hades for the death of his family. I’m sure we’ll get the big climactic battle between them.

And he’s defeated five seconds later. The whole point of this film was to have a climactic boss battle at the end! God damn this movie!

8. Cobra Commander – G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra

In his defence he did create the technology for Cobra, he planted a United States President double, and he manipulate James McCullen in order to take command of Cobra. So there he is, getting away and is planning new schemes to take over the world. Insert “Of course!” clip here.

And then he’s arrested five seconds later.

Wow. Shortest reign ever. He was more dangerous as a lackey! I’ll admit I’m not familiar with the old television series, but even I knew that the film was deviating from the original material! I mean, really? The Baroness was engaged to Duke? That’s straight out of cliché 101.

But yes, we’re complaining about the Commander. You’re just guessing that now with him in charge and getting away, he was going to create some fool-proofed plan where the Joes will be destroyed. But then he’s arrested? Really? That was very anticlimactic. It’s like becoming world champion at something, then being deposed five minutes later, it’s extremely disappointing.

7. Nightmare – Soul Calibur 5

And ONLY Soul Calibur 5! Another guy who was on a good top 11 list, which makes me wonder if the guys behind the game forgot who Nightmare was. Okay, I admit, I haven’t played the first three games, I came into the series on ‘Soul Calibur 3’ (‘Soul Edge’ was the first game in the series), and Nightmare quickly became my favourite character.

The whole concept behind Nightmare, is that it’s Soul Edge personified. The sword has taken control of its wielder and taken its own form. Nightmare terrorised the land, killed thousands, if not millions, until his host, Siegfried, regained control and got rid of Soul Edge. Nightmare, with help from Zasalamel, acquired his own body and went on a massacre again, which culminated with Siegfried defeating Nightmare at the Tower of Remembrance at the end of ‘Soul Calibur 4’.

Seventeen years later and Nightmare’s followers, now called Malfested, have gathered enough Soul Edge fragments to restore Nightmare’s body. And he decides to disguise himself as Graf Dumas, a whiney git.

Nightmare is considered to be the main antagonist of the series. He is not the main antagonist of ‘Soul Calibur 5’, that title belongs to Pyrrha Alexandra. In ‘Soul Calibur 5’, Nightmare appears TWICE. Sure, he destroyed a city, but we only get to fight him twice! And both times, Nightmare is defeated in the most stupidest way; the first he is defeated by Pyrrha’s evil mode, and the second by new character Z.W.E.I.

THAT’S STUPID! I can understand why, evil Pyrrha defeats Nightmare to show how powerful she is, and Z.W.E.I has trained for years to face him, it’s just how easily they managed to defeat Nightmare, and how the game lacks the Symbol of Destruction. Pyrrha I can kind of forgive, but Z.W.E.I? Z.W.E.I?! He doesn’t even have a proper name! I actually expected Nightmare to defeated Z.W.E.I with ease, and Z.W.E.I would then sacrifice himself to stop Nightmare, but no. Z.W.E.I beats him with ease.

I’m willing to think that it’s because this Nightmare isn’t complete and is just weak from not having enough Soul Edge shards, but we had no reason to fear Nightmare in this game, he’s defeated by a girl half his size for God’s sake!. The Azure Knight has become a footnote in this franchise’s history.

6. Two-Face – Batman Forever

Do you remember how complicated Two-Face was? How he was once a champion for good before whatever accident scarred him? How one of his two personalities is in constant battle with the other? Do you remember how he was played by Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) in the 1996 film? Well, now he’s essentially Tommy Lee Jones.

Yeah, basically anything that resembled Two-Face before is now gone. He was good as his own villain, but as Two-Face? Scott Beatty, author of several comics and books, said that he found this Two-Face more of a “Joker knock-off than a multi-layered rogue”, and I for one have to agree.

This wasn’t Two-Face, it was the class clown pretending to be Two-Face. He’s easily manipulated (Though to be fair, it is the Riddler and the World’s Greatest Detective), and when he had Batman, Robin and...Nicole Kidman at his mercy, what does he do? He flips a coin. Okay it’s his trait I know, but he effectively whines during this bit. He’s just not Two-Face.

5. Dr. No – Dr. No (1962)

So in our first Bond film, we’re told of a mysterious island ruled by the equally mysterious Dr. No. He doesn’t appear until the last, what, half hour? But we are still threatened by the guy, his first scene, technically, is just him using a PA system or something (We don’t see him) to threaten a henchman. I have to say, this scene is really effective, his booming voice makes him sound intimidating and menacing.

And then he finally appears. Okay, he’s sophisticated I’ll give him that, but, really, he doesn’t do anything. In fact, I can’t remember why Bond was sent to stop him. (Goes and watches Dr. No) He plans to mess around with a space launch?...Why? Because the science community didn’t appreciate him?.......? What kind of motive is that?

One of Dr. No’s strengths are his metal hands, which gives him, well, great strength. He demonstrates this buy crushing a metal figurine. So you’d expect him to beat up James Bond easily right? WRONG! Look, a few pushes aren’t going to beat 007 No! In fact, these metal hands are his downfall, as they prevent him from climbing a ladder. No is killed because he couldn’t climb a Goddamn ladder!

4. Bane (Batman and Robin)

I think we all know my feelings on this version of Bane. Like I said in my ‘Top 15 Batman Villains’ post, they changed Bane from this highly intelligent mercenary, to this easily controlled caveman. Who can barely talk. This was the guy who broke the Batman’s back for Christ’s sake!

In what is his normal appearance, Bane still has this muscular body, which means he’s still a threat even without his Venom drug. In ‘Batman and Robin’, he’s a skinny little punk, so this means he has to be constantly fed the Venom drug, which actually means that he must have had an unlimited supply of the drug. Which is odd because we never see him or Poison Ivy with any other quantities, in fact the picture we see of them arriving he’s only carrying two suitcases. And I really doubt Ivy knows how to create more Venom.

And of course his degraded intelligence is a sham. In the comics Bane released the villains of Arkham to weaken Batman, before easily defeating him. In this, he has no strategy, he has no plan, it’s just throw and pick up. Rinse and repeat.

I said it before and I’ll say it again, they destroyed the character of Bane here.

3. General Grievous – Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith

So the idea is that General Grievous is armed with four lightsabers, killing Jedi is basically his day job, he has the balls to lead an invasion on Coruscant (The galactic capital), and fought two of Count Dooku’s top henchmen.

Wow! He sounds badass! He must be some kind of killing machine! I can’t wait to see him kick ass in ‘Revenge of the Sith’!...Oh. He spends about ninety percent of the film running away. And he has a nasty cough. Scary. Even Obi-Wan calls him a coward at one point!

And when he finally fights Obi-Wan, you know, with his four arms and four lightsabers against Obi-Wan’s two arms and one lightsaber, you’d think Grievous could easily defeat him. WRONG! Of course Obi-Wan has to survive, otherwise Episodes 4, 5, and 6 are screwed. But it’s just, really? Obi-Wan disarms Grievous without any difficulty? It would’ve been better if Obi-Wan was defeated, but the clone army intervened before Grievous could deliver the killing blow. THEN Obi-Wan kills Grievous.

Heck, it would’ve been better if Grievous didn’t run the whole time!

2. The Fallen – Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Do you remember one of Megatron’s first lines of dialogue in ‘Revenge of the Fallen’? Here it is:

Megatron: (To Starscream) There is no command but mine!

Yeah, I remember that line. Because about five minutes later we meet the Fallen, the leader of the Decepticons.

Some backstory, the Fallen wanted to harvest the Earth’s sun for energon (energy cubes), however this would wipe out all life on Earth. Therefore the old Primes stopped him and hid the Matrix of Leadership, the thing the Fallen needs to activate the sun harvester. The Fallen orders Megatron to kill Optimus Prime since only a Prime can kill him (the Fallen). Why? Never explained. Thankfully this is ignored in the video game where (In the Decepticon campaign) Megatron kills the Fallen in the final boss battle.

For about an hour of the film, the Fallen just sits there. He does NOTHING. He looks like he’ll do something when Prime is killed, but no. Nothing. Well okay I lie, he did do a speech to the planet. The nest time we see him is when Prime is resurrected.

You see, the Fallen has the ability to  teleport. When Optimus is resurrected with the Matrix, the Fallen teleports to the scene, disabling everyone there at the time, takes the Matrix, and DOESN’T kill Optimus. WHY?! He had the perfect opportunity! But no, Optimus has to be all high and mighty and kill the Fallen in a battle against the Fallen and Megatron, that lasts about thirty seconds. Okay, fine, the Fallen lands one hit on Optimus, but he hardly does anything and when he does, it’s hardly threatening or menacing. And speaking of Transformers.

1. Megatron – Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen/Dark of the Moon

Okay, let’s throw this out there. I like the Michael Bay ‘Tranformers’ films. Megatron is simply the most dangerous and most evil Transformer ever devised, and this is shown well in the first film; Megatron easily defeats Optimus Prime in combat, destroys half a city, and rips Jazz IN HALF! Then he’s defeated by Shia La Beouf when he puts the AllSpark cube in Megatron’s chest.

So after being told all about the AllSpark, how powerful it is and what it can do, you’d expect that when Megatron is resurrected in ‘Revenge of the Fallen’, he’d be more powerful and more of a threat. No. No he isn’t. In fact, he’s apparently weaker. As I said, in the first film Megatron easily defeats Optimus in combat, heck Starscream himself blows off Bumblebee’s legs and easily disables Ironside and Ratchet at the same time. So when Optimus faces off against Megatron, Starscream and Grindor (The Blackout copy, and I only know his name because he’s in the ‘Revenge of the Fallen’ game), you’d expect Optimus to be killed off. And, okay he is but only after Optimus fends them off for about twenty minutes and kills Grindor. Optimus was knocked out by one blast from Megatron’s cannon, and here he’s overpowering three Decepticons? What the Hell?

And then later when Megatron and the Fallen, the two most powerful Decepticons alive face off against Optimus, okay you expect Optimus to win, but you’d also expected a much bigger fight. We don’t get that. Instead within five minutes the Fallen is killed and Megatron has half his face blown off.

And then for the third film ‘Dark of the Moon’, Megatron effectively does nothing. I’m not entirely sure how many years it has been since ‘Revenge of the Fallen’, I’m guessing three to five years maybe? I’m only guessing this since Sam has finished college/university and has apparently been unemployed for quite a while. And Megatron STILL hasn’t fixed his face. Then again it would help if Megatron stopped destroying the little droids which were trying to fix him!

But yeah, it’s more the main antagonist is more Sentinel Prime than Megatron. Megatron has about, oooo, fifteen minutes screen time overall? At the most? And where in the last two films, Megatron has had some role in the climactic battle, I was wondering where he was during the climactic battle in the third film. He was sitting somewhere. REALLY?!

And while sitting down, he lets the Underwear Model (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, credit to the Razzies for her new name there) berate him! She says that he’ll be Sentinel’s bitch, which makes Megatron think “Hmm, maybe she’s right”, and he goes and attacks Sentinel just as he’s about to kill Optimus. I would’ve killed the Underwear Model before attacking Sentinel, but I digress.

I’m repeating myself here, but first film, Megatron easily dominates Optimus, second film, Megatron might have killed Optimus but he still had difficulty in doing so. Third film, Megatron is easily killed by a one-armed Optimus in five seconds. I’ll repeat that; Megatron was killed by Optimus Prime, who only had ONE ARM! WHAT IN THE BLUE HELL?!

You also remember how Megatron kept his Cybertronian form? How he feels he shouldn’t degrade himself by disguising himself as a human vehicle. Yeah? He’s now disguised himself as a human vehicle. It’s said he’s now a truck so that he’s now a dark and twisted version of Optimus Prime’s vehicle mode, but his Cybertronian jet mode from the first film was pretty much the most powerful of any of the other Transformers vehicle modes. In fact, the vehicle mode Megatron has gets weaker as the films go on; from fast and powerful jet, to slow and doesn’t fire a weapon tank, to a truck which sticks out like a sore thumb in a public city.

How is it that Megatron went from the most dangerous Transformer, to someone who Shia Le Beouf can beat up?

And there was my list for the top eleven most disappointing villains. Coming up next, my view on ‘The Walking Dead’ game for the Xbox 360.