The New Villainy

Morgoth Bauglir, Keyser Soze, Lex Luthor, Professor James Moriarty.  The four aforementioned characters are perhaps some of the most well respected and thought of names in fictional evil.  Alas, in this I-Pod, Dollar Menu, Lady Gaga galaxy, the great legends of Bad are just that, legends.  Replaced by bimbo half breed vampires, cancer stricken engineering genuises and once powerful Dark Lords in more desperate need of nose jobs than phenomenal cosmic powers.

I am of course referring to Twilight, Saw and Harry Potter.  Three mega franchises of recent memory, two based on books, the remaining an attempt to revive the gory glory of 80's slasher porn, (minus the porn though, the Saw series is clean in that respect.)  And now a compelling and purely satirical arguement against what I call the New Face of Villainy.

Victoria- The red headed vamp is meaner than my ex wife.  The Twilight film franchise's seemingly lesser villain, a la Scarecrow to Joker or Mr. Mxyzptlk to Lex Luthor.  She spends three movies back tracking through Sarah Palin's other Alaska (Forks, as opposed to Spoons, Washington).  Seeking out one Bella Swan and her beau Edward Cullen, wanting to kill them both, Eddy because, apparently, though not well explained in the movies, he was involved with the death of her lover.  Bella I assume is collateral in all this and is only at the claw end of Vicky's wrath for being romantically involved with Edward.  Appearing in visions and dreams and making no particular secret of her visit to the Pacific North West she eventaully goes toe to toe with her enemies in the third film and gets whacked rather brutally and quickly, showing off no real power or voodoo magic before biting the bullet.  Though quick as a rabbit, apparently all the Twilight fanged ones could give The Flash a run for his money.  She displays no mortal terror, no erotic longings, no defeated warrior's bitterness better associated with the vampire mythos most famous patron, Count Dracula.  (This same point sticks out at Edward Cullen more brutally but that's for another time.)  A compelling female antagonist?  A wronged woman?  An immortal PMSing cheerleader reject?  You be the judge.

Jigsaw- Revealed to have cancer from the get go in the first Saw movie, the philisophical, machine genuis begins his tour of horror duty with the anonymous, cunning stylings of the great James Moriarty.  Attempting suicide and failing, he resolves to beome a one man moral police.  Setting up "games" of situational ethics, pure survival, brutality and godless moral resolve for the players involved.  In short, its not your momma's Monopoly.  Jigsaw intrigued me initially, his intelligence and his charisimatic yet creepy personality as revealed in depth in the first two films make him one of the better villains of recent film history.  What knocks Jigsaw down is his death, occurring in the third film and subsequent reach from beyond the grave which persisted for many bloody sequels which only set out to reveal things about Jigsaw that only come out as flaws and make the once anonymous A list lunatic just another blood thirsty slasher with obscure motivation and little else.  Writers are to blame, money grubbing, sequel sensitive writers who morph a compelling modern moral maniac into another seemingly undead blood thirsty sadist.  In ressurecting the 80's slasher films they succeed by the book from cover to cover.  Jigsaw's closing case, watch Saw I and II and abandon any idea of the remaining five films and you will have a brilliant villain.

Lord Voldemort- Voldy, apparently related to his arch nemisis boy wonder Harry Potter, is my least favorite villain of recent fictional history.  Having lost his body but successfully killed the Potter boy's parents he spends three and a half movies and books trying to get back into the real world, finally crashing the party without a nose, he sets to gain back his soul, (but not his nose), which he apparently left all over the place, literally, using horocrux magic putting his soul in seven diffrent object including our protagonist's head, again literally.  Voldemort doesn't compel fear like other villains, though he is said to so feared he must not be referred to by name.  His power struggle with boy wizard Potter indicates no apparent ultra powerful power deserving a Dark Lord, a far cry from the nearly all powerful might of Morgoth Bauglir formally Melkor the Auinur, Tolkien's compelling fictional portrait of the Devil.  Nor do his lurking shadow games in the first three movies bring the memory of Keyser Soze, The Usual Suspects' all knowing, all seeing but never seen criminal mastermind.  Vain attempts to be a true Villain, Voldy efforts only land him at odds with a whiny, coke bottle glasses wearing nerd who is in fact his cousin, somehow.  An epic struggle between good and evil or a Barney and Friends version of Dungeons and Dragons with a redneck imbreeding cousin war?  Niether really just a lesser version of something the great J.R.R. Tolkien would write.

Bieber Fever, Gaga Gum Disease, Lesser Villain Virus.  Diseases that affect our children like the common cold without any chicken soup cures in sight.  But lo, this is the new Villainy, no more ego maniacal intellectual genuis of Luthor, unseen string pulling of Moriarty or the nearly divine devastation of Morgoth.  A new World of no nosed, imbred, PMS stricken and blood thirsty orchestrators of doom is upon us.  Will we ever come up with deep brooding baddies like the ones of old again?  Probably not but we can hope that the ones that have already come around have not been all thrown out into the void and replaced by these sorry excuses for Evil.

Captain America