My Problem with Marvel's Villains

The Marvel Cinematic Universe does not have particularly interesting villains. Now, before you go nuts, yes, there is Loki - he is all kinds of interesting. What about the rest though?

Remember these guys? Me neither.

Abomination, Iron Monger, Whiplash, Red Skull, Mandarin, Malekith, Ronan the Accuser - how many of these guys really struck a chord with the audiences of their respective movies? In a good, non-they-totally-ruined-the-Mandarin, memorable kind of way. I don't think any of them made that much of an impression, which seems puzzling. Okay, Iron Monger and Whiplash are just guys in variations of Iron Man's armor and Blonsky just turns into an uglier, brown version of the Hulk, but the other guys, particularly Red Skull, Malekith and Ronan have great designs. Their look is very creative, very distinct and just all around really cool. Even if not all of the villains look that great, they are all played by critically acclaimed actors (most of them British - quite a bold move by Marvel Studios to cast British actors as villains, I wonder if it will catch on). We're talking heavyweights like Jeff Bridges and Ben Kingsley, established names like Christopher Eccleston, Hugo Weaving, Guy Pearce, up and coming new actors like Lee Pace etc. All of the villains also pose a legitimate threat to their respective heroes. Whether they plan to destroy a city, a nation, the world, the galaxy or the whole universe, all of these guys have power and can stand their own against the likes of Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy alike. So we have a bunch of menacing, dangerous villains, half of which look really cool, unique and badass, all of which are played by great actors and all of them almost completely forgettable. Not boring, but not really that interesting either. What's the problem here?
Well, they're all too one-dimensional. Think about it. Blonsky wants the power of the Hulk, Iron Monger is after the money, Whiplash wants revenge, Red Skull is a Nazi, Mandarin wants revenge and power, Malekith wants revenge and power and Ronan wants revenge and power. Not that there's anything wrong with simplistic, straightforward goals, but for most of these guys, those goals are their entire character. The rest is just hints. Blonsky has a hint of pining after the energy of his lost youth and getting off on the power of the Hulk like an addict. Whiplash and Mandarin have a hint of a deeply held personal hatred for Tony Stark that drives them to extremes. Ronan has a hint of deeply held personal hatred for Zandarians, who have caused the death of many in his own family. Red Skull has a hint of being a Nazi... no wait, he is a Nazi. Anyway, the point is, these hints are usually established early on in the movie for about a minute or two and might be casually referenced here and there during the rest of it, but for the most part, the villains are there to be the threat, the boogeyman that the hero fights during the climax. Heck, if the actors playing them weren't so good, we might not even have picked up on those hints. In The Incredible Hulk, Tim Roth has a scene that barely lasts a few seconds of him just looking at his reflection in a bathroom mirror. In those few seconds, he manages to convey a look of pure, ravenous hunger, a harrowing, all-consuming lust for power, trapped inside of a gaunt shell of a man. Why couldn't we see more of this? Why was it only a few seconds?
Again, the problem is not with the goals themselves. If you look at Loki, his goals can also be boiled down to wanting revenge and power, but with him, you really get to know why he's after those things. We know his full backstory, not just hints. We know his pains, his struggles. We are intimately familiar with the demons that haunt him and that makes him easy to relate to and all the more memorable. His frustration and desire to be someone of worth, someone powerful and respected is something we understand, because we see where it's coming from. In a a lot of ways, Loki is just as pathetic as he is menacing, just as worthy of pity as he is of scorn and that's what makes him interesting.

You just want to give him a hug and then punch him.

In the words of a wise green ogre, he has layers! All good characters need layers, villains included. Not just hints of layers. Blonsky's thirst for power could have been just as compelling and tragic as Loki's. Ronan's desire for vengeance could have been explored much deeper, delving into his personal tragedy, allowing Lee Pace to emote something besides righteous, over-dramatic anger.
The strength of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has always been its heroes, and not its villains. Just because Ronan is a bit lackluster, at least in terms of character, doesn't make Guardians of the Galaxy any less enjoyable, because the Guardians themselves are great characters. Just because the Iron Man villains are mostly dull doesn't mean the Iron Man movies are bad, because Robert Downey Jr. The thing is, the villains don't have to be dull, lackluster or simply one note. They can be so much more than just evil people doing evil things for the sake of being evil or angry. There really is no excuse for that when Marvel has such great actors and creative designs at their fingertips. If they can pull it off with Loki, why not the others? Let's hope Thanos and Ultron mix things up a bit in future Marvel installments.


P.S. I'm not counting The Winter Soldier, because he was basically brainwashed and was more of a glorified henchman, at least so far. It would be like counting Hawkeye from the first half of The Avengers as a villain.

Untapped: X-Men Origins Wolverine

X-Men: The Last Stand’s reception at release was lukewarm at best. Whether you hated it through and through, like some fans do, or found a way to enjoy it despite its many flaws, like me, I think we can all agree that it is the low point in the trilogy (that rhymed a lot more than I expected). The series needed course correction and at the time, a prequel centered on the franchise’s most popular character seemed like the best way to go. I was really looking forward to X-Men Origins: Wolverineback in the day and I still remember the bitter taste of disappointment from the summer of ’09 (Luckily from me, the Star Trek reboot was right around the corner to lift my spirits sky high). Let’s talk about the movie that could (and should) have been, as we take a closer look at X-Men Origins: Wolverine’s untapped potential.

Strike 1 (5 Minutes in)

Wolverine’s backstory was revealed in the 2001 miniseries Origin: The True Story of Wolverine and given the similarities in the titles, it makes sense that the movie opens in the 19^th century Canada, where the comic took place. What doesn’t make sense is that less than five minutes in, James has already popped his claws, killed Thomas Logan and has run off with Victor. 

It's okay, we're only a couple of minutes late, surely we haven't missed anything important.

The iconic image of James shouting in a mixture of grief, pain and rage with his arms outstretched, claws appearing for the first time, as he stands over the dead body of what he believes is his father (that much was never made absolutely clear) and then killing his father’s killer, only for him to reveal with his dying breath that he might be his actual father, has no impact whatsoever in the movie because these characters were introduced merely second ago. It’s a hollow, rushed and completely watered down version of what is essentially the most significant event in the comic. This is supposed to be to James Howlett what the death of Thomas and Martha Wayne, and Uncle Ben were to Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker, respectively. In the movie, it’s merely a footnote, as well as the only part of theOrigin comic that made it to the big screen. Now, I can understand why they were reluctant to focus that much on the comic storyline. If you followed it too closely, you would have a movie with very little action and very little Hugh Jackman, which might be hard to market to summer blockbuster audiences. Nevertheless, I feel like they could (and should) have handled this much, much better.

Strike 2 (10 Minutes in)

The Wikipedia recap of the comic concludes with Victor catching up to James and telling him that they should stick together, because they’re brothers. It’s clear that Victor also has the same mutant abilities as James, except instead of claws he has, well, actual claws (“really sharp nails” just doesn’t quite have the same ring to it). Their claws, healing factor and keen senses make them natural killing machines (see every Wolverine story ever) so what follows is a montage of the two, now played by Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber, fighting in a series of major historical wars, starting with the American Civil War, then the two World Wars and finally, the Vietnam War. 

Saving Private Ryan with Wolverine? Sign me up!

We see that apparently over time, Victor has grown increasingly violent, to the point where James has to stop him from hurting others. The montage is also the movie’s title and credit sequence and is over in about four minutes. For me, this hurt more than the opening. Adapting the comic poorly, yeah, that sucks, but at least you can still pick up the comic and read that story done well. Blatantly disregarding one of the coolest concepts for a movie ever? That’s inexcusable. I’m not even exaggerating; this should have been the main focus of the movie, the two brothers, fighting side by side in some of the greatest war of the last 150 years, Victor Creed, embracing his animal side and ultimately becoming the villainous Sabretooth and his brother James Howlett, desperately trying to save him from this darker path, while also resisting the urge to succumb to it as well. This is a fantastic premise and especially with talented actors like Jackman and Schreiber in the helm, it could have been a truly great film. Not to mention that the setup is perfect for spectacular action set-pieces across multiple wars. I cannot even begin to imagine what they were thinking, rushing this whole sequence with barely a spoken line of dialogue. It’s not like the conflict between the two brothers is not important. As a matter of fact, it’s integral to the story, so it makes even less sense that they wouldn’t spend more time establishing their relationship. We know that Victor became violent, but we don’t know why. The couple of seconds we’ve seen him grinning while firing a machine gun are not sufficient character motivation. As a result, Liev Schreiber’s talent is wasted here, which is really a shame, because he was a fantastic choice for this role.

Stryke(r) 3 (20 Minutes in)

Less than ten minutes in, the movie has already committed two grievous offences. It still has a shot at redemption, though, when we see William Stryker show up and offer the brothers to join his super secret military squad of mutants. 

One black guy, one Asian and not a woman in sight.  Just when I was starting to get worried we didn't have enough ripped white dudes in comic book movies.

Okay, a 1960-70’s mutant black ops team is a solid premise too. That way you can also expand the mutant character roster, bringing in fan-favorite characters like Deadpool, Gambit, the Blob (he’s popular, right?) and others (although the presence of Will.i.am doesn’t bode well). It’s also still not too late to explore the conflict between James and Victor as well as see how they’ll react to meeting others like them. After Stryker recruits them, the team goes to Nigeria and attacks a heavily defended outpost. We get a roll call of character’s names and abilities, which is a fun, albeit lazy way to introduce them. Then it all comes to a screeching halt in the next scene, in which the team tracks the meteor fragment they were looking for at the outpost to a small village. The villagers are reluctant to give them information, so Stryker orders to have them killed. James stops Victor and the rest, says he didn’t sign up for this and quits the team. This could have been a significant moment if he hadn’t joined the team just 10 minutes ago. That’s the third great setup for a story the movie shrugs off in less than 20 minutes. It’s even worse when you realize what the meteor fragment was. Adamantium. They were setting up the Weapon X storyline.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I was under the impression that the Weapon X storyline was wrapped up in X2: X-Men United. A big part of that movie was Wolverine digging up his past, only to finally come to grips with who he is and start to look forward, rather than backward. When William Stryker taunted him with what he still didn’t know about his past, Wolverine told him he didn’t care. He knew enough about who he was to not want to go back. It was a satisfying resolution that gave both the character and the audience enough information, while also retaining some to still keep that air of mystery. Just like Wolverine himself, we knew enough. We saw the lab at Alkali Lake. We saw enough brief glimpses of his escape and transformation through flashbacks to piece it all together. We saw Wolverine get closure and leave that part of his life behind him. There was nothing more about Weapon X that we needed to know, so why is that the focus of your movie? It’s a premise so thin that it had to rely on not only a forced romance and a cheap third-act twist, but also a number of other minor supporting characters (including a painful cameo by Patrick Stewart as Professor X) to support it – and it still fell flat on its face.

To have not one, not two, but three solid ideas for a feature-length movie butchered in less than 20 minutes, only to dedicate yourself the rest of the film to a story that no one wanted to see is unacceptable. Add to that the complete ruination of Deadpool’s character in the third act (seriously, who thought it was a good idea to remove the mouth of someone, whose nickname is the Merc with the Mouth?) and you have a bona fide train wreck of a movie.

The franchise went on a much needed course correction with First Class (which was originally titled Origins: Magneto but that idea was scrapped and re-purposed after Origins: Wolverine for reasons I just spent an entire post explaining), a solo Wolverine movie that doesn’t suck (nonsensical giant adamantium samurai in the third act notwithstanding) and an absolutely brilliant merging of two casts with Days of Future Past, but still, it’s an incredible shame to see all the untapped potential of X-Men Origins: Wolverine go to waste.