10 Movie Villains Who Caused Their Own Defeats
Turns out Thanos wasn't so inevitable after all...
One of the hardest things to do in a movie is to come up with a plausible, yet satisfying way for the bad guy to be defeated. Will the hero suddenly gain a useful power that helps them beat their enemy? Will the villain make an error that sends them on the path towards failure? Or will the two simply have a good old fashioned brawl, where the protagonist comes out on top?
There are a lot of risks involved when crafting such a conclusion, because, if done incorrectly, the baddies might look downright incompetent or the hero might look alarmingly overpowered. Other times, the main catalyst is actually the villain themselves, when they make a mistake that leads to their own defeat, and ultimately have to take a lot of the blame for the scenario that destroys them.
The heroes in these stories weren't useless by any means, but they were given a massive assist by their villains, who committed a huge gaffe that sealed their eventual defeat. This lot definitely got what they deserved, and in the end, it was their fault.
10. Beni (The Mummy)
The Defeat: The back-and-forth between Rick and Beni is one of the most entertaining things about 1999's The Mummy, and while the movie ends rather well for Rick, his on again/off again enemy isn't so lucky.
At the end of the film, Beni becomes trapped underground while Rick, Eve and Johnathan barely escape with their lives. With nowhere left to run and the lights slowly dimming, Beni is greeted by a lone scarab beetle, before an entire swarm descends upon him and he's slowly eaten alive.
How He Caused It: Probably one of the most cowardly, wimpy antagonists in the history of cinema, Beni has absolutely no trouble betraying his allies or playing dirty in order to get ahead, and he's also incredibly greedy to boot, a personality trait that eventually gets him killed.
He was only trapped underground in the first place because he went back inside to loot more gold and treasure. He could have easily ran away at several points during the final act, but decided to try and carry a massive bag of goodies with him instead. After resting this bag on a lever, all the exits began to seal, and by that point, he was too far underground to make an escape possible. Bye bye Beni.