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[CGiRanger]

Maybe it's not true for others, but for me his main point resonates. There just are not as many memorable, threatening villains in movies as there used to be. And his takedown of Kylo Ren as a pathetic excuse for anything close to giving off "dangerous" vibes or someone to take seriously is quite accurate.

I will admit that my movie-watching has dropped drastically over the course of the last decade, and the last half-decade it's been practically maybe one new film a year. Movies just overall are bad lately. Sometimes I wonder if this is due to the overseas market and China accepting any kind of trash that's sent over to them.

 

[Kreen101]

The only good one in recent years was Immortan Joe.

 

[GreyHorace]

I actually liked Kylo Ren and thought Adam Driver was pretty good at portraying him...

That said, compared to his grandpa Darth Vader, Ren is a pussy boy. What made Vader such a great antagonist was there was air of mystery to him coupled with his obvious menacing presence. No one knew anything about this guy behind the mask until the revelation in The Empire Strikes Back that he's Luke's father.

By contrast, we know right away that Ren is Ben Solo and that he's Han and Leia's kid. And while Vader kept his emotions in check, Kylo lets them out via his frequent emotiional outbursts and wild temper tantrums. His emotional vulnerability weakens him as a character and detracts from his menace as a villain.

I don't know if I agree with Drinker that villains are being neutered today because of social media pressure (truth be told, I don't watch much tv or movies nowadays). But I think in general it's hard to write a compelling antagonist, let alone a good hero.

The last villain in movies that I thought was well written and menacing was Thanos.

On tv I'd have to rank Moff Gideon from The Mandalorian as a pretty good antagonist.

 

[Corgi1985]

TV gets most of the great villains now. Joffrey, homelander, Gus fring, Moff Gideon. Maybe the answer is Giancarlo Esposito should be in more movies.

 

[Sidney Prescott]

TV gets most of the great villains now. Joffrey, homelander, Gus fring, Moff Gideon. Maybe the answer is Giancarlo Esposito should be in more movies.

Giancarlo Esposito is an awesome actor. It has been great to see him get roles. He honestly has made me interested in Far Cry again which says a lot.

I would agree TV Shows tend to have better villains these days. David Tennant was great as Kilgrave in Jessica Jones. I thought the show was pretty boring aside from his scenes. Definitely kept me watching. Vincent D'Onofrio was awesome as Wilson Fisk too.

 

[joedan]

Didn't think Moff Gideon was menacing at all. As a matter of fact I think he was the weak link in Mandalorian.

 

[Ra\/en]

I thought Thanos was great. I can't think of any other memorable villains recently.

 

[Dacon]

If you want to get inspiration for good villains look at some of our mayors and governors in America.

 

[Mossybrew]

Didn't think Moff Gideon was menacing at all. As a matter of fact I think he was the weak link in Mandalorian.

As much as I have enjoyed his other roles, I have to agree I think he was miscast here.

 

[GreyHorace]

You know, thinking about it some more I do think Drinker has a case for how weak villains have become in today's pop culture landscape. And I can think of no better example than the Romulans of Star Trek.

Back in ye olden days of The Original Series and The Next Generation, the Romulans were compelling antagonists whom fans could count on to give the Federation a fight. They were modeled after the Roman Empire and pretty good at warfare that they forced Starfleet to sign a non aggression pact and map out a Neutral Zone on their border of space with the Federation.

What do we get in the recent Star Trek Picard? Romulans as a piss poor allegory for the current migrant crisis.

Plus the double tandem of Commodore Oh and the incest twins. Quite possibly the worst villains I've seen in Star Trek.

Just goes to show how shit the writing talent is today behind these shows.

 

[GymWolf]

Kylo ren was hilariously bad, i can't fathom people who actually liked that bitch...

 

[kunonabi]

I thought Thanos was great. I can't think of any other memorable villains recently.

He was...until they killed him off in the first act of endgame and replaced him with an alternative timeline version with no connection to any of the events of Infinity war thus sapping any true emotional payoff to taking him out and basically eliminating all his character development and personality in the process.

 

[PuppetMaster]

Thanos in the MCU one of my favorite writing for a Super Villain of all time. Perfectly clear motivation and rationalization for his actions. Has high intelligence. And even though you do not agree with his choices or actions, you can follow along with his thinking. And there is sense of strength to his will.

Another great super villain is Ozymandias in the Watchman film.

The opposite of this is the Joker. Especially in the new Joaquim Phoenix movie. But also in the Nolan films. He could be regular villain or criminal no problem. But not super Villain.

Its always "Oh he crazy" or "He just wants to see the world burn" etc. To me, I just see lazy writing. It is not convincing to me at all that this person is up to the task of being a super villan. All I see is a very damaged stupid man.

The TV cartoon version of the Joker I remember from when I was a kid was a lot better. The "crazy" part of the Joker was more of a mask that was hiding some real super intelligence. Or half the side of a split personality. Where one side was the joker persona and the other was an intelect that could go toe to toe with the batman.

But what they have been doing in the movies recently is basically going all in on the crazy. And I just don't find a character written around being very mentality disabled convincing as any real threat. Out side or maybe a slasher film or something at that scale.

That Joker is the guy who goes shoots up a school. He is not the mastermind of multiple elaborate plots that challenge a whole city police force and the batman combined.

 

[Cockles & Whelks]

Great villains 101. Paul Verhoven for the win.

 

[highrider]

I think it comes down to more female protagonists and they seem to think women can’t be written to lose at anything. No growth takes place because she’s already stronger than the villain in the beginning.

 

[ManofOne]

I don’t know how to describe the male villains of today other than a “soyboyification” of villains. The the male villain have become whiny, pathetic, emotional, nonsensical and un calculated. While the female villains have stuck to the same timeless formula, they’re often crazy, dark, jealously driven and at time have a calculated persona. Most female villain motivations are redundant and we’ve seen that same transformation over and over again.

 

[QSD]

Kylo Ren sure was a weird villain. At first I got the feeling that what they were going for was something akin to the columbine shooters; brooding, malicious, angsty, unpredictable. Which I thought was an interesting idea. But they sometimes played his temper tantrums for laughs which completely killed any sense of credible threat. No disrespect to Adam Driver though, I think he really tried.

In general I feel (action) movies might be stuck in a rut because there is already such a huge back catalogue of successful entries in the genre. Every new entry has to compete with all these older movies, and among them are a fair number of absolute classics that are hard to improve upon.

 

[Spaceman292]

OLd tHInG GoOd nEw tHiNg bad....!!!111

 

[INC]

I agree about kylo ren, such a wasted character

His design was awesome, but he's just a whiney bitch, and daisy character (can't even remember her character name), is horrifically written, and acted even worse

 

[Stiflers Mom]

I agree about kylo ren, such a wasted character

His design was awesome, but he's just a whiney bitch

I think he was okay'ish until he lost that fight in the first movie against the untrained girl.

 

[Lanrutcon]

Most memorable recent villain?

...Handsome Jack. Screw Hollywood.

 

[SuperGooey]

I think it's far more common now to make villains sympathetic. That can be a great way to add depth to a character, but sometimes it's just nice to have a irredeemable bastard as an antagonist. That's kind of villain was super relevant in 80s action movies.

 

[Lupingosei]

If the hero is a straight white male, there can be an interesting villain. Because straight white males are the only ones in Hollywood who are able /allowed to lose.

Everybody else is already perfect and perfect protagonists can not lose against anyone.

But I hope Hollywood continues like that. They will not learn until every bone in their body hurts for money.

 

[INC]

Most memorable recent villain?

...Handsome Jack. Screw Hollywood.

I think mission impossible anti imf villain was pretty decent, memorable.....maybe not, but at least their values and actions were the exact opposite to the heroes

 

[GeorgPrime]

It was posted here some time ago but always a good watch

 

[oagboghi2]

OLd tHInG GoOd nEw tHiNg bad....!!!111

Yeah, pretty much.

Hollywood should try harder

 

[AJUMP23]

Thanos and Loki were probably the best Villains in the MCU. The villain in Guardians of the galaxy 1 was good too. Menacing and powerful.

I rewatched Specter and thought the new Blofeld was pretty good, even though I can't remember his motivation.

Paul Bettany in Solo actually makes a great villain. You can tell he is evil and sinister from the first moment to the last.

 

[manfestival]

With Star wars I felt like Snoke was supposed to be the actual villain and that Ben solo was supposed to be a mere shadow of what Snoke was. Rather than trying to recreate an exact clone of Vader since Vader was supposed to be unique in a sense. Unfortunately that all got ruined in episode 2. I never liked Kylo Ren. Though his saber and outfit were kinda neat.

I also immediately thought of Thanos as a well written villain. There are not many examples that I can think of outside of that. Granted I do not watch every major movie that comes out.

 

[BadBurger]

After The Sopranos many writers for television and film seemed to feel the need to make their antagonists into antiheroes. That lasted for well over a decade.

Aside from that, beyond the comic book and general sci-fi genres I feel like we've largely moved away from films with out-and-out elaborate villains for the most part. Gone are the days of Hannibal Lecter and Darth Vader (though we'll see the former again soon in at least cameo form). Now many movies simply don't have one - it's man versus nature, or man versus the machine of industry/politics/culture/etc, or some other trope.

 

[Halo is Back]

Thanos only comes to mind. Kylo Ren had great potential but kept flip flopping in the garbage trilogy. They made him too weak. I think him turning to the good side was the logical choice and I like that but it was not executed well. Second movie is so garbage, he hates the first order and preaches "kill the past" but then says fuck that and goes back to status quo. Should have killed Han in the second movie and have a existential crisis in the third movie.

 

[Ballthyrm]

We got a few decent movie villains

 

[Space Runaway]

I rewatched Under Siege recently and while an ok movie, Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Busey were awesome villains and carried the movie. You almost wanted them to win. =P

 

[T8SC]

The last 10 years has been copy & paste MCU bullshit, thankfully I think it's had its time, just like Westerns in the 60's, things don't last forever and people grow bored of the repetitiveness.

Hopefully the next 10 years will have a bit more variety and with that, better heroes & villains with less woke crap.

 

[T8SC]

I rewatched Under Siege recently and while an ok movie, Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Busey were awesome villains and carried the movie. You almost wanted them to win. =P

I feel like eating some cake now.

 

[EverydayBeast]

As a villain fan yes hypothetically MCU, DCU etc. are still looking for their next villain. If you got Iron Man and Superman two great super heroes then you need two great villains.

 

[DoubleJTripleDistilled]

The unwritten rule that he talks about, where women aren't allowed to lose to powerful men or even female villains needing to be defeated by anything other than a man is more than noticable in modern media.

And it's not just villains and hero's but with other stories such as the game stardew valley where, while I was playing, I noticed the only 2 black characters are devoid of flaws and conflict, one.being a smart scientist and his super smart daughter.

Meanwhile the white men deal.with homelessness, loneliness, alcoholism, adultery and social anxiety.

Just one example.of the dilution in character you get with modern media's inability to have flawed women and minorities.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Don't look to Marvel or Star Wars for good villains. Thanos was hot garbage.

 

[Blade2.0]

All depends on the movie. Most people love thanos and black panthers killmonger was amazing also.

 

[pel1300]

They wrote themselves into a corner with Kylo by making him Ben Solo.

He should have had no connection to the Skywalkers other then maybe being one of Luke's former students.

And his mask shouldn't have come off in the first movie.

Also Luke should have rescued Rey and Finn from him on Starkiller Base. That way RJ doesn't get to subvert our expectations.

I just wish Mark Hamill pushed back more instead of just moping around. He should have threatened to quit. What are they gonna do, recast Luke Skywalker or sue Mark Hamill?

 

[bitbydeath]

I was just pimping this movie in another thread-

Horror movies typically have the best villians.

 

[mortal]

I like drinker's videos, but why is he limiting so many of his topics to Disney owned IPs?

Watch something other than Star Wars or Marvel related, and you'll find plenty of well written, nuanced, sympathetic villains.

 

[sobaka770]

Critical drinker is quite conservative and one note but he's on point with the whole "woman cannot be beaten by a man" thing. It's unfortunately becoming more and more obvious as it cheapens the female lead character journey by quite a bit.
I feel no real tension or notice character development watching Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel or Rey throughout the last Star Wars trilogy. They start strong, they end strong and they barely learn anything over time.

Kylo Ren is an excellent character but he shouldn't have lost to Rey at every step, and Disney should've committed to making him a powerful evil in the last movie not getting Palp out. Overall it just makes female leads less interesting and less memorable. What is the point of the journey if there's no challenge, no growth?

 

[rofif]

The only good one in recent years was Immortan Joe.

The best movie cinema experience I've had in my life. holy fuck what an amazing movie.
I would go to the cinema in a heartbeat if they reran it here

 

[MAtgS]

Kylo ren was hilariously bad, i can't fathom people who actually liked that bitch...

To think we could've had Jacen Solo instead...

 

[eot]

I rewatched Under Siege recently and while an ok movie, Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Busey were awesome villains and carried the movie. You almost wanted them to win. =P

I watched that movie so many times on VHS, maybe I should check it out again. That's my childhood

Tuco from Breaking Bad is in it btw, speaking of villains.

 

[JayK47]

He is spot on. I don't think I have seen a bad video from the Critical Drinker. Our movies now mostly cater to delicate snowflakes. It is rare to get something that does not. It is too bad. Hollywood used to make great things. I fear video games are next.

 

[Razvedka]

 

[mansoor1980]

 

[Draef the Badger]

Most villains now and before are very one dimensional. There's nothing inherently wrong about that, but it can be boring. The actual number of villains with complex motivation will naturally be small.

 

[Barrage]

The video sucks. It's a huge generalization, the creator can't even make clear a clear seperation of when "back then" ends and "now" begins, so its 50 years of greatest hits vs 3-5 shitty movies from the last few summers (with a similar hodge-podge of clips-when he shows the villain of Whiplash, does he believe that that supports his argument, and that's somehow a bad villain? Or that 2014 is a "better time"? Who exactly is the villian being referenced in Mr. and Mrs. Smith?