OT: Top 5 Worst Bond Villains
Encore is running old Bond movies every night at 8:00 throughout March. Last night as I sat through some of "Live and Let Die", I asked myself if Yaphet Kotto's Dr. Kanaga was the worst Bond villain ever. After thinking it over, I came to the conclusion that while bad, there have been far worse villains portrayed in the Bond series:
5 - Karl Stromberg (Curd Jurgens, The Spy Who Loved Me) - You know he's bad because he never smiles, won't shake your hand, and speaks in a clipped, monotone manner. Not a very original protrayal.
4 - Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Charles Gray, Diamonds Are Forever) - While Blofeld is arguably the greatest Bond villain, Gray's portrayal of him is just flat, lacking the creepiness of Donald Pleasance or the badassedness of Telly Savalas.
3 - Renard (Robert Carlyle, The World is Not Enough) - Preposterous character backstory coupled with zero charisma, Carlyle's Renard is just a boring thug.
2 - Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens, Die Another Day) - As if the Renard backstory wasn't preposterous enough, we have a guy who was born Korean only to be genetically altered to be a preening, sneering Englishman.
1 - Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce, Tomorrow Never Dies) - The least threatening of all the Bond villains, Pryce's Elliot Carver is essentially a ridiculous internet tough guy on steroids.
Bond fans - discuss....
March 12th, 2015 at 10:57 AM ^
March 12th, 2015 at 10:57 AM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
March 12th, 2015 at 11:00 AM ^
Slow sports day.
March 12th, 2015 at 11:01 AM ^
Random Task - "Who throws their shoe?! Seriously!"
March 12th, 2015 at 11:08 AM ^
I wouldn't have Stromberg on the "worst of" list, personally. I wouldn't put him on the "best of" list either, but I liked his delivery when killing off the assistant who betrayed him and then watched the other two scientists get on the same elevator she did...
If you want to talk about not smiling, Le Chiffre from Casino Royale fills that bill nicely. Not to mention, the torture method he used toward the end of the movie....very un-Bond like.
March 12th, 2015 at 11:36 AM ^
He certainly wasn't the best Bond villain, but doesn't belong on this list in my opinion. Seriously I doubt anyone would be smiling much if caught in his position.
The only issues I see with him as a Bond villain is that he has more of an air of desperation about him. Also his intimidation factor stems from nothing about him but the organization for which he works. He's not the scary boss of a multinational criminal organization, he's a broker for one.
March 12th, 2015 at 12:15 PM ^
That scene is straight from the book though with some cinematic liberties of course.
March 12th, 2015 at 12:35 PM ^
would have had a specially trained scrotum-eating shark that Bond would have been excruciatingly-slowly lowered towards.
March 12th, 2015 at 11:08 AM ^
Bagheera, Section One.... Ohhhhh/ Bond Villians... In that case I'll take Oddjob.
March 12th, 2015 at 12:14 PM ^
You forgot McFarlin....
March 12th, 2015 at 12:23 PM ^
I'm sure I forgot several, but expansion would make for a most regrettable/memorable thread.
March 12th, 2015 at 11:10 AM ^
Renard
Renard
Renard
Renard
March 12th, 2015 at 11:11 AM ^
Gustav Graves for sure. Followed closely by Elliot Carver. I think Carver is definitely a worse villain than Graves, but Die Another Day was such a terrible film that I can't associate Gustav Graves with anything else...
March 12th, 2015 at 11:15 AM ^
about Goldfinger/Oddjob always made them my favorites.
March 12th, 2015 at 11:18 AM ^
March 12th, 2015 at 11:30 AM ^
My parents enforced the no Oddjob rule when my brother and I would play. So I was always Trevelyan and he was Natalya or Xenia.
Proximity mine matches were the shit
March 12th, 2015 at 11:45 AM ^
Pros knew that Moonraker Elite #2 was a short chick that was the same height as Oddjob. I always laughed at the kids who took him.
March 12th, 2015 at 11:53 AM ^
March 12th, 2015 at 11:43 AM ^
March 12th, 2015 at 11:59 AM ^
March 12th, 2015 at 12:09 PM ^
I think Quantum was really just Eon Productions attempt to recreate SPECTRE without calling it SPECTRE, which they couldn't because of the ongoing litigation with the estate of Kevin McClory.
March 12th, 2015 at 12:00 PM ^
The problem with the Brosnan movies wasn't Brosnan, who I think played a pretty good James Bond, but the franchise had fallen into this pattern or trying to top itself with every subsequent movie. Cooler gadgets, bigger action, etc... that by the time Brosnan came along the stories had blown up to such ridiculous preportions, they were almost becoming parodies of themselves.
Dominic Greene isn't on my list simply becauxe I don't agree. I think Mathieu Almaric's performance in "Quantum of Solace" is pretty good. He played that whole role with his eyes, where you look at him and realize he's not just some greedy, corporate raider, but he's a little insane. Then you get to the end of the movie, where Bond has folied his plot and he just grabs and ax and tries to hack you to pieces like the psychopath that you've suspected he is all along.
March 12th, 2015 at 12:27 PM ^
March 12th, 2015 at 12:55 PM ^
I couldn't even recall who the villain was in Quantum of Solace which was just a horrible, horrible movie. The only good thing about QoS was that it introduced us to Olga Kurylenko.
March 12th, 2015 at 11:52 AM ^
March 12th, 2015 at 11:54 AM ^
Bond list.
I feel bad because I do think Brosnan was a great choice for Bond, but he couldn't do anything to shine up those turds.
Jonathan Pryce should stick to selling Infinitis.
March 12th, 2015 at 12:02 PM ^
I can go for days about this. (Just like I can go for days to convince people that Roger Moore was the best Bond). The way I see it, its who play's the character that makes it. Blofeld was played by 4 people. Personally, I think Telly Savalas was best.
On the flip side, I thought Michael Lonsdale was phenominal as Drax. The movie was average and I didn't like Drax as a villian per se, but it was a good performance by the Michael Lonsdale.
March 12th, 2015 at 12:04 PM ^
Played it. I'm also a big fan of his Bond movies. His comedic play on it was what made it charming.
March 12th, 2015 at 12:13 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
his problem is his face and countenence . He seems genteel where Connery was suave, and completely lacked the intensity of Dalton or Craig. Brosnan was similar (almost Moore 2.0), but was more believable as a ladies man. In fact, I'd place him second to last on my list simply because the one thing he brought better than the other Bonds (whimsy) is easily the least interesting to me.
That's what makes these conversations so interesting, James Bond has featured in so many movies and has been portrayed by so many different actors, you can debate forever over who prefers what. Myself, my least favorite portrayal of Bond is Roger Moore. I've always been a Connery guy. Of course if you were to point to the actor who comes closest to how the James Bond character is portrayed in the book, it's probably Timothy Dalton or Daniel Craig.
He was just a big-time drug dealer. Some kudos for the novel smuggling approach, but there was nothing else interesting about him.
Of course the movie sucked in general, so at worst he was equally lame.
but I thought that Raoul Silva was pretty terrible. Bardem played the charachter pretty well, I just thought that they tried to make him the Nolan/Ledger Joker-- the man who somehow could forsee every possible outcome and still somehow get beaten. I thought it kept Skyfall from being a great Bond movie. They tried to come up with a foil to Bond that was on his level, and I thought it failed.
Particularly older protrayals (Conerey slapped a few women around).
But showing fake tarot cards to some 30 yr old woman to get her to sleep with you isn't even on the sexual misconduct spectrum, let alone rape.
Wait a minute. I haven't seen the movie, and if I did I don't remember the scene, so please answer one question for me: whether the tarot cards were fake or not, did the female character consent or have the capacity to consent to sex?