4. Le Chiffre Casino Royale
Bond villains tend to be a mental bunch, often focused on apocalypses and occasionally prone to strutting their stuff under the sea (Atlantis) or in space (Moonraker). Yet in 2006 and following the nadir of Die Another Day, the Bond franchise was going through the throes of reinvention. Suddenly, we had Casino Royale, and everything was dark, broody and realistic. Don't get me wrong this wasn't a bad thing. In fact, it was a very good thing much like many people, I felt the ice hotel, stealth car and Icarus satellite from the previous film had gone a bit too far, and Bond needed bringing back down to Earth (although not in a Moonraker sense). But the only problem if you can call it that is that the villains lost their trademark OTT characteristics. Case in point, Mads Mikkelsen's Le Chiffre. Compared to the Bond villains of the past, he was just a bit lacking patently unable to hold his own in a fight, although you'd have thought his intellect could save him. Yet unlike Bond's more cerebral former foes, he couldn't rely on his brainpower after all, this was a man who gambled with other people's money in wildly risky endeavours that tend to bring angry warlords to your doorstep when things go wrong. Hell, the only time he appears in control the leg-crossing testicular torture scene he's abruptly shot dead by Mr White. Frankly, it's a bit baffling, but I guess in the context of new Bond, it totally works.