10 Movies That Really Needed A Better Villain

As much as any great movie needs a likeable hero the audience can get behind, what is any film without an entertaining villain for the protagonist to stand up and prevail against?

Sadly many movies, even good ones, have the tendency to lend insufficient attention to their antagonist, hoping instead that the personality of the hero will be enough to satisfy audiences.

Delivering a truly iconic movie villain is no easy feat, but in the case of these 10 films, they couldn't even settle for "decent" or "pretty good." In short, they were either dull as dishwater or just a total failure of intent and execution.

The fact that these (mostly) promising antagonists fell short of the mark speaks to the wider disappointment of each movie, that without a compelling force for the hero to fight against, a major piece of the storytelling puzzle was sadly missing.

Though in a few cases the villain could've been improved with a simple recast, for the most part these movie baddies needed a rewrite from the ground up, if not being replaced entirely...

What is any Bond film without a memorable villain for 007 to face off against?

Admittedly, the franchise's rogues' gallery has proven incredibly inconsistent over the decades, but there's perhaps never been a major Bond baddie more disappointingly forgettable than Quantum of Solace's Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric).

While Quantum of Solace suffered immeasurably through its strained production amid the 2007-2008 WGA strike, its villain is an absolute charisma vacuum, despite a solid attempt by Amalric to breathe some life into him.

It all comes down to the writing, of course: what Greene lacked in imposing stature he surely could've compensated with his fierce intelligence, but following up Casino Royale's Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) and preceding Skyfall's Silva (Javier Bardem) as he did, his dullard billionaire megalomaniac couldn't help but pale in comparison.

As refreshing as it was for the series to ditch the stereotypical physical deformities, Greene's scheme to control Bolivia's water supply was pretty weak sauce, and beyond his amusing death - where Bond (Daniel Craig) leaves him in the dessert with only a can of oil to drink - there's precious little to actually remember here.