10 Movie Villain ‘Twists’ We Saw Coming A Mile Off

3. Miles Axlerod - Cars 2

Widely considered to be the lowest point for Pixar, Cars 2 was, moreso than anything had come before, aimed totally at kids. Whereas the likes of Toy Story, Ratatouille and Up walked the parent-kid divide like a master tightrope walker, the Cars series appears to be at least partially willed into existence thanks to the sheer marketability of all the characters involved.

But that doesn't mean John Lasseter and co. were phoning it in on the sequel. The Car-ifying of some of the world's biggest cities is admirable and Michael Giacchino's score perfectly captures the spy-aesthetic the studio were going for. In fact, it's when the film is presenting a sly parody of secret agent movies where it really works (just look at the opening of Michael Caine's Finn McMissile sneaking onto an oil rig).

Unfortunately the film doesn't fully commit to the spy conceit. The plot is overwhelmed with an green message (because we weren't all thinking about the planet after Wall-E) and reliance on giving Mater funny things to do, all of which leads to a rather predictable set of events. Chief among them is the reveal that the big bad behind the scheme to discredit eco-fuel is its creator, Miles Axlerod. It's fitting that a film so happy to sit in cruise control has such an obvious twist; Miles is, like so many on this list, too nice, but plays too large a role for him to not have something extra to him.

If it seems unfair to pick on what is essentially a kids movie for having a predictable plot, but when it's Pixar that isn't an excuse. Axlerod just exemplifies how lazy the film is.