Christopher Walken as the Archangel Gabriel in The Prophecy. Ya can’t ask for more.
“I’m an angel. I kill newborns while their mamas watch. I turn cities into salt. And occasionally, when I feel like it, I tear little girls apart. And from now till kingdom come… the only thing you can count on… in your existence… is never understanding why.”
Bill the Butcher in Gangs of New York was far more interesting than Amsterdam (played by Leonardo DiCaprio). I was actually rooting for the Butcher.
Barry the Baptist from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels was the most scary and awesome bastard ever. Don’t believe me? Check the original version of the “better un-sell 'em” scene. Nasty stuff. I mean, Hatchet Harry killed someone with a dildo but Barry… He’s just evil.
John Travolta in Swordfish certainly counts as “cool,” possibly moreso than the “hero.”
Hell, after 2001, Travolta’s character practically is a hero.
That’s kinda along the lines of what I was thinking, but I was going to suggest Hank Scorpio. Best character that The Simpsons ever came up with. Oops, I mean… Best. Character. Ever.
Frankenstein’s monster is far more interesting than Frankenstein.
The villain of any novel by Charles Dickens is more interesting than its hero.
(I must disagree with the poster who made the same claim of Shakespeare’s work: while this is true in many, perhaps most cases, there are exceptions. Example: Lear is fascinating. Edmund is not.)
As long as we’re commenting on the villains of the BBC’s version of I, CLAUDIUS, how about Messalina? Ewwww!
I’m surprised nobody’s yet mentioned Lex Luthor, on The Lex Luthor Show… um, I mean, Smallville.
Clark Kent is just so boring compared to Lex.
[SUB]And Chloe’s much hotter than Lana.[/SUB]
Sian Phillips rocked! The scene where she lectures the gladiators to put on a good fight and not hold back is oft-quoted, but she was wonderful throughout.
Tommy Lee Jones had a great role playing a smart interesting bad guy in Under Seige.
Snug- then again, can we really consider the monster the villian & Victor the hero?
sickboy- to me, the GENIUS of Coppola’s DRACULA was in making Van Helsing every bit as interesting as Drac- you know that Hopkins as ol’ VH has some history on the Dark Side but he turned against it. Then again, I think Peter Cushing’s VH was much more interesting than Chris Lee’s Drac- Cushing had some acting to do; Lee wasn’t so much an actor as Dracula than…a Presence- a damn fine Presence, but still not the thespian Cushing was in those films (granted, other films that gave Chris more to do showed him quite the match for Cushing).
Brief hijack- as fantastic as THE WICKER MAN & LOTR are, imagine how great they’d be with Lee having to face Cushing as Howie or Gandalf! (I do think there’s a great deal of resemblance btw between McKellan & Cushing.)
Mangetout and Snug, “Oliver!” was the first movie that sprang to mind on seeing the thread title. I mean, Oliver’s a nice kid and all, but Fagin and the Artful Dodger rule!
“Treasure Island” is the same. Long John Silver is just so much cooler than whats-his-name (again, the kid).
Alan Rickman as Snape was also the most interesting of the Hogwarts faculty by far (though I do have a soft spot for Maggie Smith as McGonagall.)
Maybe you have a point… and maybe is just that I like vampires so much. I´ve never seen a better Van Helsing than Peter Cushing anyway (and I don´t want to quit merit to Hopkins), and yeah, VH is almost as evil as the same Dracula (after all, he´s an obssesed man, VH I mean).
A slightly hijack on this thread (hijacking my own thread!) would be movies in which the good guy is almost as evil as the bad guy.
Oh, and for the post about Heat, two of my favourite actors facing each other in an acting duel. Awesome!I´d make it a draw.
Oh, and new ones:
An aged Henry Fonda facing Charles Bronson (I´ve heard he died recently, is that true?) in Leone´s Once Upon a Time, the West
Billy the Kid in Pat Garrett and Billy The kid, you know,the one in which Bob Dylan plays a secondary character. I don´t know if I´ve put the correct title, however.
Yeah, I like westerns, I love them.