Now there are some really cool and badass heroes.
But that's not what I'm here to talk about. I want to give you MY top ten badassity villians. :) Now here's the thing. See how I italicized and capitalized MY? You might not agree with the top ten I give but they are, in MY opinion, the most badass villains out there. If you want the most "popular" or the most widely viewed badass villains look at the bottom of the post. ;)
10. Cruella De Vil (One Hundred and One Dalmations)
"Cruella De Vil, Cruella De Vil~ If she doesn't scare you no evil thing will~"
While I don't agree that Cruella is the meanest thing on earth, but she was a damn good cynophobist. Gotta love them dog furs.
9. O-Ren Ishii (Kill Bill: Vol I)
"The price you pay for bringing up either my Chinese or American heritage as a negative is … I collect your fucking head. Just like this fucker here. Now, if any of you sons of bitches got anything else to say, now’s the fucking time!"
Played by Lucy mother-fucking Liu, O-Ren Ishii has got to be the best villain in Kill Bill Vol I. Codenamed "Cottonmouth", O-Ren Ishii is a half-Chinese half-American woman who [at the age of 9] saw her parents brutally murdered by a mob boss we later find out she kills 2 years later [as vengeance]. She and "The Bride" aka Uma Thurman were friends before O-Ren and the rest of the deadly vipers "kill" Beatrix at the wedding.
8. The Joker [Batman 1989]
"[reciting his poem to Vicki] I'm only laughing on the outside / My smile is just skin deep / If you could see inside I'm really crying / You might join me for a weep."
Now the first thing people think when you say the Joker is the guy on the right. Heath Ledger's last role in this lifetime was to play the iconic Joker in the Dark Knight. But the one I'm talking about is the guy on the Left. That'd be Jack Nicholson, the guy I nominate for best badassity villain number 8. Joker is probably the most evil, deranged, and flat out psychotic comic book villain, and the antagonist of the Batman.
If you still think that Jack Nicholson couldn't be a good joker, just watch this:
Jack Nicholson-Joker
7. Agent 5/Smith [Matrix]
"You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure."
Hugo Weaving stars in this iconic role as the antagonist of the Matrix Trilogy. As a computer program, Agent Smith was the Matrix's hit man. Originally created to be a easy and simple way of taking out "unstable" humans, Agent Smith is able to take over the mind frame of the target and get their memories and skills. However, in the first movie, Neo [Keanu Reeves] "kills" Agent Smith, turning him into a rouge virus hellbent on destroying Neo. Also, possibly, the most badass fight scenes of the trilogy happen to be Hugo and Keanu fighting.
6. Madison Lee [Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle]
"Oooh! The classic Angels Kick-Ass pose. Almost gives me a nostalgia for the old days. Except back then, we did things a little differently...[quickly pulls out two large weapons] we used *guns*!"
In the comedy-action movie Charlie's Angels, this lethal lady is played by one Demi Moore. An ex-angel herself, Madison takes on the trio with a very narcissistic attitude. Claiming "Why be an Angel when [she] can be God", and that "[she] was always the best", Madison tries to confront Charlie but never manages to. The Angels finally defeat her in a final confrontation, using a gas main to explode and kill her.
5. Hans Gruber [Die Hard]
"I wanted this to be professional, efficient, adult, cooperative. Not a lot to ask. Alas, your Mr. Takagi did not see it that way... so he won't be joining us for the rest of his life. We can go any way you want it. You can walk out of here or be carried out. But have no illusions. We are in charge. So, decide now, each of you. And please remember: we have left nothing to chance."
Arguably the best villain in the [Die Hard] series, Hans Gruber [Alan Rickman] played opposite to John McClane [Bruce Willis] in the movie. Cold and aloof, Hans is the meticulous sort and always tries to get a rise out of John in the movie. Evidence of this being when Hans says "You know my name but who are you? Just another American who saw too many movies as a child? Another orphan of a bankrupt culture who thinks he's John Wayne? Rambo? Marshal Dillon?" to John over the radio. [To which John responds "Was always kinda partial to Roy Rogers actually. I really like those sequined shirts."] The only time you saw the frazzled side of Hans was at the end in his death.
4. Annie Wilkes [Misery]
"And don't even think about anybody coming for you. Not the doctors, not your agent, not your family. 'Cause I never called them. Nobody knows you're here. And you better hope nothing happens to me. Because if I die... you die."
Anne Marie Wilkes Dugan, usually known as Annie Wilkes, was originally Stephen King's obsessed fan in the novel Misery. Rob Reiner turned the novel into a movie in the 1990s, with Kathy Bates playing Annie. When the protagonist Paul Sheldon breaks both of his legs in a car accident, Annie takes him to her home to convalesce. She fawns over Sheldon, a writer of romance novels starring her favorite literary character, Misery Chastain; she professes to be his "number one fan", and even says she loves him. This, and the fact that she does not seem in a hurry to take him to a hospital, makes Sheldon uneasy. It's only later on that we learn she is the "Dragon Lady", a serial killer who has murdered almost 70 people. Needless to say, she was one scaaary laaaday.
3. Azula [Avatar: The Last Airbender]
"Well, then, maybe you should worry less about the tides, who've already made up their mind about killing you, and worry more about me, who's still mulling it over..."
While most of the villains so far, are movie villians [Misery being both a novel and a movie]... I think a good badassity villain list couldn't be without the psychotic princess of the Fire Nation Azula. [And we don't count the Shamallama's movie as an actual movie, because it was soooo fucking bad.] Fire Princess Azula is the archenemy of the Avatar, Zuko, the Kyoshi Warriors... well pretty much EVERYONE who "got in her way".
A true megalomaniac, Azula desired power from a young age, as was portrayed in many of Zuko's flashbacks. Originally appearing in Book 1, she tracks and attempts to kill her older brother, [and Team Avatar], several times before taking Ba Sing Se toward the end of Book 2. But in Book 3, she manipulates Zuko into taking credit for the fall and coming back to the Fire Nation a "hero", because she didn't want to deal with the fall out if the Avatar was still "alive". Even at the end when Azula finally shows her unstable true self, she manages to severely wound Zuko before being chained up and sent to a mental facility. That puts her at number 3 on the badassity list.
2. Cornelius Bernard Hatcher [The Rundown]
"That's a lot of cows."
One of Christopher Walken's less publicized roles, Cornelius Bernard Hatcher is everything you want a villain to be. Hatcher has taken over an area of the Amazon jungle in the middle of Brazil to dig for gold, and more importantly, the hiding place of a priceless artifact called the "Gato del Diablo". Hatcher greatest (or worst) quality has to be his arrogance, eventually he ends up getting killed at the end of the movie because of it.
Hatcher is an amazing character, not just because of what Christopher Walken brought to the table, but because of his calm and professional attitude when it comes to killing and starving Amazonian natives to work his mines. While he never liked to get his hands dirty, he still was an amazing opposite to Beck [Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson] and Travis [Sean William Scott] in his antagoinistic glory.
1. Miguel Bain [Assassins 1995]
"I beat you to the buyers, and now I've beat you to the mark. I'm sorry, but I think I picked the wrong guy to be my hero."
Played by one Antonio Banderas, Miguel Bain was sent after Robert Rath [Sylvester Stallone] who was the "best" assassin in the world. Now one could argue that Robert was just as big a "villain" as Miguel was in the sense that they both were assassins for hire, and since the whole movie revolves around the fact that Robert had killed his partner/mentor Nicolai some years ago. However, I do believe that Miguel Bain is one of the best villains of all time.
Miguel turns up everywhere that Robert goes in the movie. At first, it is because they have the same marks, but when Robert makes the decision to save Electra [Julianne Moore] Miguel is given Robert's name as his next mark. Now in the beginning of the movie, it is told that the reason Miguel became a hit man in the first place was because he idolized Robert. Finally getting the chance to kill him to become the greatest assassin of all time makes Miguel psychotically happy. Later, it turns out that Nicolai was not dead, and was the one who hired Miguel [AND ROBERT] to take out Electra as the disk she had in her possession was filled with information that could make people aware that he was in fact still alive. At the end of the movie, Robert kills both Miguel and Nicolai [for real this time], and goes off into the sunset with Electra, as every cliche goes.
Miguel's psychopathic happiness at killing his idol, and being frankly very hard to fucking kill [Robert blew Miguel out of the window on the 3rd floor and he STILL didn't die], is why Miguel Bain is number one on my list.
[EDIT: I was going to put my optionals, the ones that got voted off the list, but I think I'll save that for the next post. It's quite late, and I've been working on this post since 9pm. It's 1:30 am the next day here.]
[Now for the top ten popular villains in no particular order:
-Gollum/Sauron[Lord of the Rings]
-The Joker [Dark Knight]
-Dr Hannibal Lecter [Silence of the Lambs]
-The Alien [Aliens]
-Dracula [1930s]
-Darth Vader [Star Wars]
-Alex Delarge [A Clockwork Orange]
-The Shark [Jaws]
-Terminator [Terminator]
-Freddie Kruger/ Jason Voorhees]
