10 Most Criminally Anti-Climactic Deaths In Film History

1. Red Skull €“ Captain America: The First Avenger

Skull A good film is made great by the quality of its villain, and so it proved in Captain America. Make no mistake, Captain America was a really good film, with lots of action, inventive set-pieces and efforts toward real character development, yet for me there was always something a little lacking. I know some won€™t agree, but while I like Captain America, I think he€™s pretty dull €“ he€™s just too damn good and nice to be very interesting. So when you have a bland hero you need a good villain, and when that villain€™s being played by Hugo Weaving, you know you€™re in for a wild ride. Weaving can camp it up like no other before him, and yet still remain terrifying €“ it€™s an awesome gift to have, and it suited him well as he turned Red Skull into something akin to a pantomime villain. I thoroughly enjoyed him all the way through and he was only missing a cat to complete his transformation into lip-smacking uproarious villainy. Importantly, while he was a good dramatic presence he wasn€™t a liability in fight scenes, and we were treated to a cool set-piece of him and Captain America knocking seven bells out of each other in an exploding facility and on a falling bomber. You knew that when this man eventually met his demise, he would go out in suitably OTT fashion €“ after all, this is Hugo Weaving, so you€™d expect nothing less. Yet what actually happened to him was just a bit... weird. Instead of being beaten or exploded to death, he simply grabbed hold of the Tesseract and simply disappeared, seemingly undone by his own thirst for power. Metaphorically, I guess it was kind of a good way for him to go out but it seemed like such an anti-climax compared to the scenery-chewing that had gone on before. My only explanation is that he isn€™t dead and they might use him again in future Marvel films. If they don€™t, they robbed an awesome pantomime character of a suitably ridiculous death, and that€™s just plain sad.
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Contributor

Durham University graduate and qualified sports journalist. Very good at sitting down and watching things. Can multi-task this with playing computer games. Football Manager addict who has taken Shrewsbury Town to the summit of the Premier League. You can follow me at @Ed_OwenUK, if you like ramblings about Newcastle United and A Place in the Sun. If you don't, I don't know what I can do for you.