They say the villain makes the film, but some films – very successful – are saddled with villains who are just plain dull. Howard Chaykin once used the term “boring psychopath” to describe one comic book writer’s take on the Joker, and a lot of modern film villains are just that. They don’t do anything that surprises and just run around being eeeeviiiiilllllll so the hero can ultimately defeat them.
My choice is Darth Maul. Other than the face, there’s no personality, no backstory, no nothing except a double bladed laser sword. (It also didn’t help that, when he fought Obi-Wan Kenobi, there wasn’t the slightest suspense about the outcome (“Gee, which one showed up in Star Wars?”.) All he could do was some long and very tedious fight scenes. I suppose he’s not exactly a psychopath, but he’s definitely boring.
Second is Bane from The Dark Knight Rises. Maybe they were trying to tone things down after the bravura performance of the Joker in the previous film, but you could predict exactly what Bane was going to do in every scene he was in.
Keeping with Star Wars what about Count Dooku? At first he seems pretty interesting in the scene where he tells Obiwan he has discovered that a sith lord is corrupting the republic which is why he left the jedi order and created the seperatists. But then he apprentices himself to said sith lord?! It is like they had an interesting idea for a character, but then just said shit just make him evil.
Of course it’s by design. John Doe doesn’t show up until 90% of the way through and then it’s only to show how much of an animal and degenerate psycho he actually is.