Movie Villains who Kind of Have a Point.

You have to admit, sometimes the bad guy makes a good point. These are a few movie villians who had good intentions but sometimes their methods were all wrong.

Ed Rooney - Ferris Bueller's Day Off

When I first watched this film I was young and naive I thought Ferris Bueller was a genius, I mean who didn't want to spend the day goofing off with their friends. Now I'm older I can appreciate that Ferris Bueller is the real villian of the film. He has no respect for authority, he's clearly smart enough to do well with his education and just chooses not to and despite his friend Cameron showing clear signs of depression he forces him to steal his fathers car so they can joyride around the city. Furthermore the principle of Ferris' school Mr Rooney is only doing his job, which is to ensure all children are attending school and not running amock. The man doesn't want to be bested by a child that doesn't respect his position and he has a point. Even if you don't agree with the education system that doesn't give you the right to disrespect a man who's doing his best and bunk off school like you're better than everybody else. Ferris Bueller did Ed Rooney dirty.

Syndrome - The Incredibles

A running theme in this list will be that often the Villian have a point, they're just going about making their point using the wrong method. That's exactly what Syndrome does. We meet Syndrome in the opening sequence of The Incredibles when he's just a kid called Buddy who wants to be a superhero and Mr Incredibes sidekick Incrediboy. He's clearly an intelligent kid as he designs technology that helps him fly and whilst he's a bit pushy there is no reason for Mr Incredible to treat him the way he does. Buddy has the best intentions, he just wants to help and Mr Incredible effectively makes him feel useless because he doesn't have natural powers. All of this leads Buddy to take on the name Syndrome and design a robot that he will ultimately defeat so he can be recognised as a hero. Syndrome is right in the sense that superheroes shouldn't have an inflated ego or feel superior just because they have powers and he wants to deliver the message that ordinary people can be special too, but destroying a city to make his point wasn't the best idea.

Dalton Russell - Inside Man

Inside Man is an insanely clever and insanely underrated film. I remember watching it for the first time and being mesmerised by the pacing of the plot, the cinematography and the well-written scrip, I also remember thinking 'this villian has a point'. Dalton Russell leads a bank robbery where it is revealed that the money used to start this particular bank was recieved from the Nazi's making the company director a Nazi sympathiser. Ultimately the bank heist wasn't about money but ensuring the the company director was arrested for war crimes and held accountable for his affiliation with Nazi's. The only reason that Dalton Russell is villianised is because he holds innocent people hostage and one of the hostages is killed by a member of his team. If it weren't for these factors Russell would be seen as the hero in the story.

The Wicked Witch of the West - The Wizard of Oz

Forgetting all the different origin stories we now have about her, the wicked witch of the west has every right to be angry. If someone dropped a house on my sister and then tried to claim her possessions you best believe that bitch is getting owned. The shoes were rightfully hers, Glinda had no right to give them to Dorothy, but I can't justify all the violence she used to get them back. Admitedly though she does have a point.

Richmond Valentine - Kingsman: The Secret Service

Okay so he kills a lot of people but that's also kind of the point. Valentine believes that we've reached a point of no return with global warming and elects to cull the human population as less people leads to less pollution. I agree with his take on global warming, it's a problem we've yet to fix, but we can't just kill almost the entire population to fix global warming. As a multi-millionaire surely he had other options to explore first? Furthermore Valentine plays god in choosing who lives and who dies, and most of the people in his bunker seemed to be rich people, who tend to cause more pollution than the average person so would his plan actually work? Guess we'll never know.

Thanos - Marvel Franchise

Staying on an enviromentally friendly theme Thanos had a similar plan to Valentine in which he recognised over-population was a huge burden on the enviromnent and so he decided to get rid of half of earth's population. Whilst the intention of helping the environment is nobel Thanos has a cruel streak and uses murder, torture and bargining to get what he wants. In the end, Earth doesn't seem any better off as people are trying to deal with the losses they've felt rather than keep the planet clean. Furthermore Thanos decides to start a war instead of back down when met with resistance. I can't help but feel that millionaire Tony Stark, King T'Challa and other rich people probably could help clean our oceans and reduce pollution, they just don't care enough.

Magneto - X-Men Franchise

Here's the thing about Magneto, he wants the same thing as Professor X, he's just willing to murder for it. Both Magneto and Professor X want the mutants to be able to live without fearing the ordinary people around them and the government, Professor X just has a more diplomatic way of going about that. I respect Magneto's motivation, people of colour and the LGBT+ community are still fighting for that right, but I don't agree with his methods. People don't respond to war and violence, it's never a solution. These issues need to be talked out, they need to be debated, they need to be fought with passion not violence. Magneto means well, but his in your face method isn't going to get him anywhere.

Erik Killmonger - Black Panther

Of all the villians on this list, Erik Killmonger is the one I sympathise with the most. His father was killed by his brother, the King of Wakanda, and Killmonger was left behind to grow up in a fundamentally racist society with little help. It's crazy to think that if his Uncle had just shown some compassion and taken Killmonger with him that he would have had no reason for his violence. Furthermore Nakia is actually on the exact same page as Killmonger, she believes Wakanda should be sharing their information and helping to fight racism and poverty in other countries but T'Challa disagrees. Killmonger makes an excellent point when discussing museum artefacts with a member of staff, the pieces are technically already stolen from a a different culture, why should they have the right to keep them? The thing about Killmonger is once people refuse to help him he becomes unhinged and violent and as we've discussed those methods don't create results. In the end Killmonger is killed, however in a sense his plan does go ahead. T'Challa elects to share Wakanda's prospects with the rest of the world, a decision he arguably wouldn't have come to without Killmonger.