Top 5 Smartest Movie Villains

Everybody loves a criminal mastermind.  It is so much more entertaining to watch the movie hero struggle against somebody who seems to have everything perfectly planned out.  While the cinema universe is loaded with brilliant villains, I have narrowed it down to the top 5 smartest ones out there.

#5:  John Kramer/Jigsaw Killer (Saw franchise)

Okay, so I have admittedly never seen any of the Saw movies (horror movies aren’t exactly my favorite movies).  I have, however, read up on the intricacies of Kramer’s traps in the series.  As disgusting as it is, he knows what he is doing.  The Jigsaw Killer seems to take every possible scenario into account when scheming.  While I will not be watching Saw any time soon, I do have to credit the creators with sculpting a brilliant movie villain.

#4:  Keyser Soze (The Usual Suspects)

Keyser Soze is the infamous villain from The Usual Suspects who has thought of every possible cover.  There are rumors that float from police precinct to precinct.  We hear Kevin Spacey’s character add to the mythos and describe him.  By the end of the movie, we are given a huge plot twist that shows just how conniving Soze can be.

#3:  The Joker (The Dark Knight)

Heath Ledger’s performance as The Joker was legendary.  It will be a LONG time before anybody can come close to that level of acting (http://bit.ly/1OQR4Xf).  It seemed like he was always one step ahead of the Gotham Police and Batman.  He allows himself to be captured just to simply see his plan come together.  The Joker in The Dark Knight is definitely a psychopathic genius who just wants to laugh as he watches the world burn.

#2:  HAL 9000 (2001: A Space Odyssey)

You can’t outsmart a super computer.  HAL 9000 is humanity’s worst nightmare.  As an all-knowing computer program that can detect human emotions, HAL is virtually unstoppable.  Tack on his monotone voice and the beautiful score of the movie and you get one of the most dangerous, intelligent movie villains.  I would hate to be stuck competing against HAL 9000.

Honorable Mention:

The Emperor (Star Wars)

Auric Goldfinger (James Bond franchise)

Khan (Star Trek franchise)

Hans Gruber (Die Hard)

#1:  Hannibal Lecter (Silence of the Lambs)

This guy gives everybody the chills.  Anthony Hopkins gives the greatest villain performance out there.  Almost every other actor of villains on this list studied Hopkins’ performance in preparation. Lecter is a brilliant psychiatrist that also happens to murder and eat people (just look how menacing he can be: http://bit.ly/1uvOxHl).  When a new serial killer is on the loose, the police turn to Hannibal in desperation.  He uses their desperation against them and is the ultimate sociopath and criminal mastermind.

I couldn’t imagine being matched up with any of these guys.  Who do you think is the smartest movie villain?

5 Movies that would make great TV shows

I don’t know about you, but there have been times that I walk out of a movie theater thinking that the movie I just saw would be an amazing TV show.  We have seen this with movies like Fargo, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, M*A*S*H* and Friday Night Lights all become successful television shows.  Here is a list of five movies that I think would make great TV shows:

#5:  Watchmen

While I may not be the biggest fan of Zack Snyder’s comic book adaptation, I think it would be cool to see the world of Watchmen fleshed out a little bit with a TV series.  We would watch humanity try to recover while superheroes are no longer accepted by society.

#4:  The Usual Suspects

You could essentially take this movie and turn it into a House of Cards type TV series where we follow a criminal instead of a politician (unless of course they are the same thing :p).  We could all use a little more Kevin Spacey narrating his schemes to the audience while showing a facade to those around him.

#3:  Inception

This would be a great crime show.  We could bring back the original cast from the movie and watch them travel multiple criminal’s minds as they try to prevent or solve crimes.  You could even bring in guest stars to be business heads, criminals, or politicians that Leonardo DiCaprio and Joseph Gordon-Levitt interrogate.  It just sounds like an awesome show idea.

#2:  Spider-Man

Yep, you heard me.  It has been a long time since the web-slinger has had a really successful movie.  I know every superhero has a plethora of villains to go with, but I feel like Spider-Man has the most potential as a TV show.  There are a ton of great villains to pull from and can even have the Sinister Six meet up on occasion and try to defeat Spider-Man

#1:  The Matrix

There is so much potential here.  Although the story line kind of ended with the third movie, I feel like it would have been even better to turn it into a TV series.  Imagine going on Netflix and streaming the latest season of The Matrix.  If you could get the original cast back, there is so much you could with the Matrix universe and I would have loved to see a TV series about it.

What movie would you want to see continued as a TV series?  Comment and let me know

Top 5 Movie Plot Twists of All-Time

We all love a plot twist at the end of the movie.  Nobody sees them coming and it completely changes how we see the movie. Here is a list of the top five best movie plot twists out there.  Before I even start anything however, SPOILER ALERT!!!!

#5:  The Village (2004)

While director M. Night Shyamalan has been known to try and force unneeded plot twists, this is one of the few that actually worked out.  The Village focuses on a secluded group of 19th century villagers that are surrounded by a mysterious forest.  Inside the forest, there are strange monsters that lurk and attack those who try to venture outside it.

As it turns out, The Village is actually set in modern times.  Some of the oldest members of the community secluded themselves from the world in an attempt to cleanse humanity and didn’t want any of the younger members leaving the group.

#4:  The Sixth Sense (1999)

Okay, so I guess lightning can strike twice for Shyamalan as The Sixth Sense also had one of the best twist endings out there.  We follow a young boy who can see ghosts and his psychiatrist, played by Bruce Willis, who helps him deal with it. As the movie goes on, the boy slowly comes to terms with his dilemma, but we learn that his psychiatrist has actually been dead the whole time. (http://bit.ly/19hzDic sorry for the poor quality)  Shyamalan has tried and failed countless times to recreate the success of The Sixth Sense over and over again and we are getting a little tired of it.

#3:  Psycho (1960)

While it may be commonplace in today’s movie culture, Psycho was the first time that a villain in a horror movie was suffering from a multiple personality disorder.  Everybody assumed that it was Mrs. Bates who was the killer when it really was Norman dressed as his mother; he even had a taxidermy made of her dead body (http://bit.ly/1b8tmpT). This Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece had the first real plot twist that stood out in movie history.  It will be a long time before anybody forgets about it too!

#2:  Planet of the Apes (1968)

While Hollywood is drooling over the recent remakes leading up to Planet of the Apes, almost nobody will be as surprised by the twist ending as they were for the original.  In an attempt to escape a planet where apes rule and the few humans left are merely hunted for sport, George Taylor (Charlton Heston) has finally gotten away from the apes and is looking for a way home.  Here is what happens instead:  http://bit.ly/Xg3iCF

Along with Psycho, Planet of the Apes was the second huge plot twist that remains a huge part of pop-culture.

Honorable Mention:

The Usual Suspects (1995):  Kevin Spacey is Keyser Soze

Now You See Me (2013):  Mark Ruffalo’s character set the whole thing up

SE7EN (1999):  Brad Pitt’s wife is the final victim

The Prestige (2006):  twist #1: Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) is the lord who will take Alfred Borden’s (Christian Bale)                                                     daughter

twist #2:  Borden had a twin who helped him and posed as Fallon.  He even cut off his ring finger to                                                make it more legitimate.  The “good Borden” will live and keep his daughter

twist #3:  Angier found a way to clone himself and killed the clone after each trick

#1: Star Wars (V):  The Empire Strikes Back

Plot twists don’t get any bigger than this.  We would never see a huge cultural phenomenon today deal out such a huge twist, but George Lucas did it in 1980 and it worked perfectly.  At the height of Star Wars‘ cultural prowess, Lucas revealed the twist that Darth Vader was really Luke’s father.  Not a single soul on planet Earth predicted it.  I wish I could travel back in time just to see the look on everybody’s face when Vader uttered the infamous, “No, I am your father!”  I could watch it again and again and again: http://bit.ly/1FZVFjF  We were all caught off guard by Luke getting his hand cut off a few minutes before, so nobody was expecting this.

Thought of a better plot twist? Let me know what you think.