Michael Nyqvist as Kurt Hendricks in ‘Mission: Impossible 4′ is out to set off a nuclear war.
Movie villains!!! Can’t live with them(they tend to be homicidal, self-serving, double-crossing, and just plain mean) and can’t live without them (what a boring trip to the cinema it would be without someone to add heavy doses of unpredictability and pure venality!). But just as we all have a favorite Hollywood hero, most of us can pick an equally favorite villain, some unrepentant, merciless bad guy, or girl, whose monstrous behavior made us physically yearn for his or her demise. And when it came? Oh, the satisfaction! And let’s face it, so often the celluloid hero’s on-screen heroics are only as memorable as the dastardly deeds of his foul, ill-tempered opposite. In other words, the meaner the bad guys, the better the good guys.
The vast and sweeping canvas of Hollywood villainy is teeming with unforgettable antagonists, and we’re going to dig into that dangerous history over time, but for today we’re going to start off this festival of villainy with a look at bad boys from the Mission: Impossible series. In some cases, Ethan Hunt was battling a network of evil as opposed to one maniacal nut job, but the singular wackos are here, too. In our humble opinion, one of these guys below rates as one of Hollywood’s all-time evil doers…let’s see if you agree with us…on with the villainy! P.S. Be sure to tell us in the comments below who YOU think the villain(s) should be in Mission Impossible 5!
Ethan Hunt Vs. Jim Phelps
While this clip brings the two masterminds of the story’s intrigue into one pyrotechnic scene, Ethan Hunt didn’t know exactly who the baddest of the bad guys was until the end of the movie. John Voight, as the rogue IMF agent Jim Phelps, takes the mantel of top evil doer, though he gets help from a number of double-crossing agents. Here, the French actor, Jean Reno (Franz Krieger), does his best to help Voight bring a messy end to Hunt. Not as dastardly as some villains, Phelps betrayal of the IMF adds to his evil. However, Voight’s 40-year acting career includes some deeply evil characters. In Uprising (2001)he played Jurgen Stroop,a German officer responsible for the destruction of the Jewish resistance in the Warsaw ghetto during World War II. In Runaway Train (1985) he played hardened criminal Manny Manheim, who escapes from prison only to find himself trapped on a runaway train in a frozen Alaska.
Ethan Hunt Vs. Sean Ambrose
Dougray Scott as the antagonistic Sean Ambrose has all the requisite venality necessary to the villain creed: a ruthless, conscienceless, homicidal desire to accomplish his aims. In this case, to unlease a deadly virus on the masses, the antidote to which he alone holds. If 17 million people perish as a result, oh, well. This fight scene takes place after one of the more memorable motorcycle chase scenes on film. Click Here To Watch It! Hunt and Ambrose battle to the death on the side of cliff with rocks and knives. A relative newcomer to American audiences when M:I 2 came out, Scott used his evil turn as Ambrose to highlight his thesbian range.
Ethan Hunt Vs. Owen Davian
The most intense of the four clips included here, this scene verges on the unbearable. Philip Seymour Hoffman as Owen Davian gives evil an extra twist, and wrings out a truly black portrait of wicked nastiness. His is the demise you eagerly hope for. Hoffman wasn’t known for his evil genius before this film but he was and is considered an extremely flexible and accomplished performer who finds the heart, black and otherwise, of all his characters. Owen Davian may live beyond this series as one of cinema’s masters of mean. He holds a special place on our list of guys you’d never want to meet in a dark alley.
Ethan Hunt Vs. Kurt Hendricks
Kurt Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist), a Russian-born nuclear strategist, is hell bent on nuclear war. As someone supposedly well-acquainted with the potential fallout of such an act, he must contain a bottomless well of evil if setting off World War III doesn’t give him pause. This clip shows the infamous fight scene in the state-of-the-art car park and proves that Hendrick’s got some bite behind his nuclear bark. On a lesser note, the great Indian actor Anil Kapoor, puts in a effective cameo that is probably more creepy than evil, but is worth a mention. For his part, Nyqvist was not unfamiliar with villainy. Although he wasn’t the agent of evil, he played Mikael Blomqvist, a journalist looking for a missing person, in the original Swedish versions of The Millennium Series by author Steig Larson,a trilogy of films full of dark menace.
Tell us in the comments below who you think would make an unforgettable villain in Mission: Impossible “5″…WHA HA HA!!!!
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