10 More Smartest Villain Plans In Movies
8. Bane & Talia Al Ghul Took Over Gotham City - The Dark Knight Rises
In Batman Begins, Ra's al Ghul (Liam Neeson) unsuccessfully fought to bring Gotham City his own warped version of liberation and justice. He was stopped in his tracks by Batman, who tore down the League of Shadows, but in The Dark Knight Rises, Tom Hardy's Bane looked to fulfill his former master's destiny.
The plan was simple, yet effective. He got rid of the Batman, he trapped every GCPD cop underneath the city, he created a huge nuclear bomb and murdered the only man capable of disarming it, and forced the army to keep everyone inside the city by threatening to blow it up if even one person escaped. Bane even destroyed both Harvey Dent's character and the ideals that came with it with the truth about his villainous turn.
The prisoners of Blackgate Prison were freed and Gotham fell under martial law, and under the control of the likes of Bane, the Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy), and the rest of the criminal underworld. Things would have stayed this way if it wasn't for the miraculous, and frankly unbelievable recovery of Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale), and the ease with which he managed to return to his home under complete lockdown.
Of course, Bane was working under Ra's al Ghul's daughter Talia (Marion Cotillard), who in her role as Miranda Tate managed to convince Bruce to build the fusion reactor that would eventually become the bomb way in advance. This was the perfect plan to bring all of Gotham completely to its knees, had they not underestimated the power and resilience of the Dark Knight himself.