TOP 5 Film Villains to Take Matters In Their Hands

“TAKING MATTERS INTO MY OWN TENTACLES!” — Ursula, “TLM” (1989, 2023)

Credit: Disney

5: Ursula — The Little Mermaid (1989; 2023)

When Prince Erik and Ariel are about to make out, Ursula’s eel minions, Flotsam and Jetsam, interfere per her evil agenda, and she decides to take matters into her own literal tentacles, in which case, transforming herself into her human alter ego, Vanessa, to deceive Prince Erik into falling for her, not Ariel. Fortunately, she and other friends seeing through this foil Erik’s marriage to Ursula in disguise. However, it is too late by that time as the sun has then set and Ariel becomes a mermaid again while temporarily captured by Ursula exposing herself to Erik and others.

4: Gov. Radcliffe — Pocahontas (1995)

Like Miles Quarich of the alien-racist RDA in the Avatar film series, perversing their military powers and resources including Semper Fi (always loyal and honorably moral), the greedy racist Gov, Radcliffe attempts to take matters into his hands when racial war between the Powhatan Native Americans and his army of Brit settlers is aborted, thanks to Pocahontas’ strong moral words, only by opening fire on Chief Powhatan, the titular Disney Princess’ father. Fortunately, John Smith literally takes a bullet for the chief and ends up shot instead. The others then see through Radcliffe’s true racist colors and forcefully turn on their former leader by revoking his gun and confining him in chains and a mouth gag. Compared to this, the racial war between the RDA and the NaVi aliens on the planet Pandora is ongoing in the first two Avatar films, and Miles is temporarily ended at the end of the first movie, only to return as a full NaVi alongside his anti-military accomplices in the hit 2022 sequel, Avatar: Way of Water, with a complete vengeance.

3: Jafar — Aladdin (1992; 2019)

In both the hit 1992 animated Disney film and its hit 2019 LA remake of the same name, Jafar is a sociopathic godly/mystical warlord and former advisor to the Sultan who seeks to rule Agrabah with a facist iron fist, esp. when enslaving Genie with his lamp. The irony is that he and Aladdin deceive Jafar into defeating himself via his third wish to become a genie himself, binding him to the laws of genie magic that morally mandate genies from murdering anyone, making anyone else fall for others, and rebirthing the deceased (above all). Per medium version, he gets his just deserts that way, and Jafar along with Iago is imprisoned distantly in the Cave of Wonders for eternity.

Return of Jafar is the 1994 sequel to the animated film (non-theatrical) while the future sequel to 2019’s Aladdin will reprise Jafar but in the form of Karan Brar (Jessie, Bunked, Pacific Rim: Uprising) as opposed to Marwan Kenzari (The Mummy) (2017). Thus, unlike in Return of Jafar, the titular villain will become a heroic anti-hero of the sequel’s same name blindly freed sometime after the events of the LA remake along with Iago, similar to Cruella DeVil and Maleficent in the separate titular Disney LA reboots in the DCU film series (2014, 2019, 2021).

2: Mr. Waternoose — Monsters Inc (2001)

The big bad boss of the titular energy company in the monster world, especially Monstropolis, Mr. Waternoose, secretly conspires with Randall Bogs to keep his company alive by purging the monster world of all humans, especially human adolescents, even Boo aka Bonnie. Gladly, after Rnadall’s final defeat by Mike and Sully, they alongside Bonnie unveil Waternoose via a CCTV recording of his true intentions, in which he states, “I’ll kidnap over 1000 children so I cannot let this company die!” The CDA arrests him on sight for his crimes immediately as the villain finishes his finalized defeat monologue by rebuking Sully that on the account of him, Mike, and Bonnie, the company has been destroyed and that the energy crisis will only worsen “because of him.”

Similar to this, at the end of Zootopia (2016) and Coco (2017), the main heroes unveil the villains and their true colors of pure evil; Judy Hopps and Nick Wild unveil Dawn Bellwether as the Marxist-biased xenophobe against predator animals via an audio recording carrot pen expose of her evil plot, including indirectly framing and falsely implicating Mayor Lionel Braveheart. On the other hand, in Coco, Miguel and his familia expose the fraudulent and murderous (posthumous) Ernesto Del El Cruz via a large screened visual recording of his own true colors, esp. his crimes in life, from first-degree murder to foul fraud to attempted infanticide of Miguel (alternately).

1: The Joker — The Dark Knight (2008)

The crime clown, played by the late Heath Ledger (The Patriot), engages Batman in hand-to-hand combat at the end of the hit 2008 sequel to Batman Begins (2005). Even after his following arrest by the GCPD, The Joker indirectly wins the war for Gotham City and its innocently living souls at the cost of the Dark Knight’s heroic rep as well as that of Harvey Dent’s via the former DA’s conversion to pure evil under the newfound alias, Two-Face, sending Batman into self-imposed expulsion for 8 years overall and until after the final chapter in Christopher Nolan’s iconic trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises (2012).