10 Movie Villains Who Got Disappointingly Lame Deaths

Here's a twofer in Christopher Nolan's otherwise quite terrific The Dark Knight Rises.

The primary villain for most of the superhero epic is of course Bane (Tom Hardy), who rather than receive a fittingly bombastic death for his misdeeds is unceremoniously offed when Selina Kyle aka Catwoman (Anne Hathaway) shows up outta nowhere and blasts him with the Batpod's cannons.

While it's a convenient way to kill Bane without having Batman (Christian Bale) break his no-kill policy (again), the excessive suddenness of the death, the unfussed manner in which Nolan shoots it, and the fact he's instantly forgotten about thereafter all made it a colossal letdown.

And not content to disappoint us once, Nolan goes one further and serves up an unintentionally hilarious and cringe-worthy end for the puppet-master villain, Talia al Ghul (Marion Cotillard).

Talia is mortally wounded in a truck crash in the film's climax, and after letting out one final villainous monologue, suddenly expires by closing her eyes and shaking her head with all the conviction of a child acting in the school's panto.

The death scene was ridiculed enough by fans that Cotillard herself even expressed bemusement that Nolan decided to use such a dud take for her big finale.